Page:Toleration and other essays.djvu/283

Rh The eagle is transfixed by shaft of man; The man, prone in the dust of battlefield, Mingling his blood with dying fellow-men, Becomes in turn the food of ravenous birds. Thus the whole world in every member groans: All born for torment and for mutual death. And o'er this ghastly chaos you would say The ills of each make up the good of all! What blessedness! And as, with quaking voice, Mortal and pitiful, ye cry, "All's well," The universe belies you, and your heart Refutes a hundred times your mind's conceit.

All dead and living things are locked in strife. Confess it freely—evil stalks the land, Its secret principle unknown to us. Can it be from the author of all good? Are we condemned to weep by tyrant law Of black Typhon or barbarous Ahriman? These odious monsters, whom a trembling world Made gods, my spirit utterly rejects.

But how conceive a God supremely good, Who heaps his favours on the sons he loves, Yet scatters evil with as large a hand? What eye can pierce the depth of his designs? From that all-perfect Being came not ill: And came it from no other, for he's lord: Yet it exists. O stern and numbing truth!