Report on Experience
I have been young, and now am not too old;And I have seen the righteous forsaken,His health, his honour and his quality taken. This is not what we were formerly told.
I have seen a green country, useful to the race,Knocked silly with guns and mines, its villages vanished,Even the last rat and last kestrel banished— God bless us all, this was peculiar grace.
I knew Seraphina; Nature gave her hue,Glance, sympathy, note, like one from Eden.I saw her smile warp, heard her lyric deaden; She turned to harlotry;—this I took to be new.
Say what you will, our God sees how they run.These disillusions are His curious provingThat He loves humanity and will go on loving; Over there are faith, life, virtue in the sun.
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