the story of two lives.
7
Observance of these rites to God is due,
My station claims my presence in my pew;
I doubt the dogma, but respect the form,
Nor yawn unless the tedious day be warm.
I gravely hear of life, of sin, of death,
And sanction give to Him of Nazareth:
Religion is a social state machine;
A fence to keep the untutored herd within.
I listen, and I hear unmoved the doom—
"Woe, woe to him through whom offences come!"
My station claims my presence in my pew;
I doubt the dogma, but respect the form,
Nor yawn unless the tedious day be warm.
I gravely hear of life, of sin, of death,
And sanction give to Him of Nazareth:
Religion is a social state machine;
A fence to keep the untutored herd within.
I listen, and I hear unmoved the doom—
"Woe, woe to him through whom offences come!"
But now the frozen surface of the stream
Breaks wide; below, the heaving waters gleam.
How quietly I have recalled all this,
And yet, between me and this Past there is
A murdered Life! What is it that I feel?
I think I swooned, and still my senses reel.
What chance divorced me from my Life? uptorn
From all which made my life until this morn.
I rushed into the air exhausted, spent;
My wife, saw she I staggered as I went?
My stainless wife, that she should live to have
A husband weeping o'er a wanton's grave!
Breaks wide; below, the heaving waters gleam.
How quietly I have recalled all this,
And yet, between me and this Past there is
A murdered Life! What is it that I feel?
I think I swooned, and still my senses reel.
What chance divorced me from my Life? uptorn
From all which made my life until this morn.
I rushed into the air exhausted, spent;
My wife, saw she I staggered as I went?
My stainless wife, that she should live to have
A husband weeping o'er a wanton's grave!
