Songs Of The Road

Name: Songs Of The Road
Author: Doyle, Arthur Conan
Doyle, Arthur Conan
English poetry
5
     And Holiness that so the bole
          Be solid at the core;
     And Plague and Fever, that the whole
          Be changing evermore.

     6
     He strews the microbes in the lung,
          The blood-clot in the brain;
     With test and test He picks the best,
          Then tests them once again.

     7
     He tests the body and the mind,
          He rings them o'er and o'er;
     And if they crack, He throws them back,
          And fashions them once more.

     8
     He chokes the infant throat with slime,
          He sets the ferment free;
     He builds the tiny tube of lime
          That blocks  the artery.

     9
     He lets the youthful dreamer store
          Great projects in his brain,
     Until He drops the fungus spore
          That smears them out again.

     10
     He stores the milk that feeds the babe,
          He dulls the tortured nerve;
     He gives a hundred joys of sense
          Where few or none might serve.

     11
     And still He trains the branch of good
          Where the high blossoms be,
     And wieldeth still the shears of ill
          To prune and prime His tree.




MAN'S LIMITATION


     Man says that He is jealous,
          Man says that He is wise,
     Man says that He is watching
          From His throne beyond the skies.

     But perchance the arch above us
          Is one great mirror's span,
     And the Figure seen so dimly
          Is a vast reflected man.

     If it is love that gave us
          A thousand blossoms bright,
     Why should that love not save us
          From poisoned aconite?

     If this man blesses sunshine
          Which sets his fields aglow,
     Shall that man curse the tempest
          That lays his harvest low?

     If you may sing His praises
          For health He gave to you,
     What of this spine-curved cripple,
          Shall he sing praises too?

     If you may justly thank Him
          For strength in mind and limb,
     Then what of yonder weakling &mdash;
          Must he give thanks to Him?

     Ah dark, too dark, the riddle!
          The tiny brain too small!
     We call, and fondly listen,
          For answer to that call.

     There comes no word to tell us
          Why this and that should be,
     Why you should live with sorrow,
          And joy should live with me.




MIND AND MATTER


     Great was his soul and high his aim,
     He viewed the world, and he could trace
     A lofty plan to leave his name
     Immortal  'mid the human race.
     But as he planned, and as he worked,
     The fungus spore within him lurked.

     Though dark the present and the past,
     The future seemed a sunlit thing.
     Still ever deeper and more vast,
     The changes that he hoped to bring.
     His was the will to dare and do;
     But still the stealthy fungus grew.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Songs Of The Road

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