Then, since Thou mak’st not these things be, But these things dost not know, I’ll praise Thee as were shown to me The mercies Thou would’st show! BY THE EARTH’S CORPSE I “O LORD, why grievest Thou?— Since Life has ceased to be Upon this globe, now cold As lunar land and sea, And humankind, and fowl, and fur Are gone eternally, All is the same to Thee as ere They knew mortality.” II “O Time,” replied the Lord, “Thou read’st me ill, I ween; Were all _the same_, I should not grieve At that late earthly scene, Now blestly past—though planned by me With interest close and keen!— Nay, nay: things now are _not_ the same As they have earlier been. III “Written indelibly On my eternal mind Are all the wrongs endured By Earth’s poor patient kind, Which my too oft unconscious hand Let enter undesigned. No god can cancel deeds foredone, Or thy old coils unwind! IV “As when, in Noë’s days, I whelmed the plains with sea, So at this last, when flesh And herb but fossils be, And, all extinct, their piteous dust Revolves obliviously, That I made Earth, and life, and man, It still repenteth me!” MUTE OPINION I I TRAVERSED a dominion Whose spokesmen spake out strong Their purpose and opinion Through pulpit, press, and song. I scarce had means to note there A large-eyed few, and dumb, Who thought not as those thought there That stirred the heat and hum. II When, grown a Shade, beholding That land in lifetime trode, To learn if its unfolding Fulfilled its clamoured code, I saw, in web unbroken, Its history outwrought Not as the loud had spoken, But as the mute had thought. TO AN UNBORN PAUPER CHILD I BREATHE not, hid Heart: cease silently, And though thy birth-hour beckons thee, Sleep the long sleep: The Doomsters heap Travails and teens around us here, And Time-wraiths turn our songsingings to fear. II Hark, how the peoples surge and sigh, And laughters fail, and greetings die: Hopes dwindle; yea, Faiths waste away, Affections and enthusiasms numb; Thou canst not mend these things if thou dost come. III Had I the ear of wombèd souls Ere their terrestrial chart unrolls, And thou wert free To cease, or be, Then would I tell thee all I know, And put it to thee: Wilt thou take Life so? IV