O LIFE with the sad seared face, I weary of seeing thee, And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace, And thy too-forced pleasantry! I know what thou would’st tell Of Death, Time, Destiny— I have known it long, and know, too, well What it all means for me. But canst thou not array Thyself in rare disguise, And feign like truth, for one mad day, That Earth is Paradise? I’ll tune me to the mood, And mumm with thee till eve; And maybe what as interlude I feign, I shall believe! DOOM AND SHE I THERE dwells a mighty pair— Slow, statuesque, intense— Amid the vague Immense: None can their chronicle declare, Nor why they be, nor whence. II Mother of all things made, Matchless in artistry, Unlit with sight is she.— And though her ever well-obeyed Vacant of feeling he. III The Matron mildly asks— A throb in every word— “Our clay-made creatures, lord, How fare they in their mortal tasks Upon Earth’s bounded bord? IV “The fate of those I bear, Dear lord, pray turn and view, And notify me true; Shapings that eyelessly I dare Maybe I would undo. V “Sometimes from lairs of life Methinks I catch a groan, Or multitudinous moan, As though I had schemed a world of strife, Working by touch alone.” VI “World-weaver!” he replies, “I scan all thy domain; But since nor joy nor pain Doth my clear substance recognize, I read thy realms in vain. VII “World-weaver! what _is_ Grief? And what are Right, and Wrong, And Feeling, that belong To creatures all who owe thee fief? What worse is Weak than Strong?” . . . VIII —Unlightened, curious, meek, She broods in sad surmise . . . —Some say they have heard her sighs On Alpine height or Polar peak When the night tempests rise. THE PROBLEM SHALL we conceal the Case, or tell it— We who believe the evidence? Here and there the watch-towers knell it With a sullen significance, Heard of the few who hearken intently and carry an eagerly upstrained sense. Hearts that are happiest hold not by it; Better we let, then, the old view reign; Since there is peace in it, why decry it? Since there is comfort, why disdain? Note not the pigment the while that the painting determines humanity’s joy and pain! THE SUBALTERNS I