And Other Poems.
35
ANNIHILATION.
Tis not true! Great Sire, it cannot be
That this bright ray of life we call the soul—
This quenchless flame of immortality,
Emblazoned on Thy grand eternal scroll—
Was kindled in its mortal lamp by Thee
To find within the grave its final goal.
That this bright ray of life we call the soul—
This quenchless flame of immortality,
Emblazoned on Thy grand eternal scroll—
Was kindled in its mortal lamp by Thee
To find within the grave its final goal.
Oh! bastard creed, conceived in vilest womb
Of meanest earth, how poor thou makest man:
A living atom, fattening for the tomb,
And struggling to its jaws as best he can,
Heir unto nothing but chaotic gloom,
The puppet of a dark, designless plan.
Of meanest earth, how poor thou makest man:
A living atom, fattening for the tomb,
And struggling to its jaws as best he can,
Heir unto nothing but chaotic gloom,
The puppet of a dark, designless plan.
Cold, dismal science, hatched within a clod,
And nursed for blank futurity, in vain
Thy teachers, with their substitute for God,
Proclaim that wrong shall change to right again.
Why then are we the tillers of the sod?
Why do we sow if others reap the grain?
And nursed for blank futurity, in vain
Thy teachers, with their substitute for God,
Proclaim that wrong shall change to right again.
Why then are we the tillers of the sod?
Why do we sow if others reap the grain?
How shall the good to come repay the dead,
If mind or soul embodied, really dies
To live no more? The suff’ring millions fled,
With all their sorrows and with all their cries
For justice, find no solace in the bed
Of dreamless death from which they may not rise.
If mind or soul embodied, really dies
To live no more? The suff’ring millions fled,
With all their sorrows and with all their cries
For justice, find no solace in the bed
Of dreamless death from which they may not rise.
