And grows and drops off fat From these poor breathless ones, Who know not this or that But work themselves to bones; And this one fever’d flags, And that one hopeless tries, Or uncomplaining drags A giant leg, and dies. * * * * * IMPATIENCE Vain drug! If I am sick Can others’ sickness heal? Or dead, death make me quick? I care not what they feel. What reck I? Let me go. Is not my bosom full? The sorrow that I know Makes others’ sorrow dull. I will shut up the soul, For only joy is just. Stones with the river roll, And we ev’n as we must. Why should I think of thee, O Wisdom, and thy lies? Better laugh and foolish be Than laugh not and be wise. The wild-birds heed thee not; Of thee no torrents roar; The deep seas know no jot Of all thy little lore; But man who cannot ’scape To follow thee and trust, Thou takest by the nape And grindest in the dust. * * * * * WORLD-SORROWS I Lo! here accursèd caste Hath made men things that creep; The beggars totter past, The baser sultans sleep; The limping lepers crawl, The tricking traders cheat; The lean ones cry and fall, The fat ones curse and beat; Never hath freedom’s cry The stifling stillness cleaved; The hopeless millions die That yet have never lived. No noble god of earth, Man can but snatch and eat; Starvation murders worth, Wealth makes the beast complete. What horror here! Is this Thy revelation, Truth? I shake at the abyss. What hunger, rage, and ruth, How hopeless! Heaven, we men Are not the gods we think!— Base pismires of the fen That fight and bite and sink. II O myriad-childed Mother, Sitting among their graves Who thee and one another Have made for ever slaves, Great East; O aged Mother, Too old for Fear and Hope— Fear that is Pleasure’s brother, And Sorrow’s sister, Hope— As erst in ages gone, So now, thou art half dead, Thy countenance turned to stone By an eternal dread. With lips that dare not move And awful lids apart, While yet faint pulses prove The life about thy heart, Thou sitt’st at dreadful gaze Into the dreadful Vast: For thou canst well appraise The future by the past, Where thou beholdest Death Confound and desolate, And men like ants beneath The giant feet of Fate. III Are these thy mighty deeds, O Past, thy gains, O Time? This wrack of ruin’d creeds, This scroll or two of rhyme?—