Its bands of rock, and laughing at “Thus far!” Rolls wildly over peopled towns, and homes In fancied safety; playing fearful pranks, O’er which to chuckle in its briny bed; Jeering the stones because they cannot swim, And crushing like a shell all work of wood; Docking the laden ships upon the hills, And tossing lighter craft about like weeds; Till, wearied with the spoiling, sinks to rest. Thus Nature to herself is but half kind, But over man holds fullest tyranny; And man, a creature who cannot prevent His own existence! Why not happy made? For surely ’twere as easy to create Man in a state of happiness and good, And keep him there, as to create at all. If misery’s not deserved before his birth, Then misery must from purest malice flow; Yet malice none assign to Providence. But some may say: Were man thus happy made, He would not be a person, but a thing, And lose the very seed of happiness, The consciousness of merit. Grant ’tis true! Then why does merit rarely meet reward? And why does there appear a tendency, Throughout the polity divine, to mark With disapproval all the good in man, And bless the evil? Through the entire world Is felt this conflict: some strange power within Exciting us to good, while all events Proclaim its folly. Throughout Nature’s laws, Through man in every station, up to God, This fatal contradiction glares. The storm, With ruthless breath, annihilates the cot That, frail and humble, shields the widow’s head; And while she reads within the use-worn Book That none who trusts shall e’er be desolate, The falling timbers crush the promise out, And she is dead beneath her ruined home! The prostrate cottage passed, the very wind Now howls a rough but fawning lullaby Around the marble walls, and lofty dome, That shelter pride and heartless arrogance.