Perhaps

by William James Roe

More of the island do they see
   Whose feet the highest summits press,
And more of death—that dreadful sea
   For whose deep wrong seems no redress.

Vain, o’er the dark horizon, vain
   For the white angel’s wings I scan;
They come, they go, they come again;
   But in them is there hope for man?

But they who from deep caverns gaze,
   Or who on highest summits are,
Behold the glory he displays
   Who gave the eye to see the star.

Perhaps our Undersea begins
   Here; through eternity to run,
For those who suffer for the sins
   In some far puter island done.

I view the ocean—stormy, still—
   It seems so sure; it seems so vast,
I only trust th’ Almighty will
   Some happy home shall give at last.

Where I shall find my Oversea
   When the tense cord of living snaps
I do not know; but life must be;
   For justice there is no perhaps.

No truth, whatever be its name,
   To Mathematics is offence;
For love demands no mightier claim,
  No holier creed than innocence.

We hear opinion’s vain perhaps,
   And think it faith to call unwise
Who hear the heart’s low thunder claps
  Of some grand cadence—truth’s device.

Oh, truth, thy growth is full of speed.
   First must thy roots strike deeply down,
Thou hast the life within the seed,
   The tree, alas! has not yet grown.

Prophet is he whose earnest brain
   And upturned cup yet holdeth still,
Waiting in trust the holy rain,
   That blackest clouds shall sooner fill;

Or one whose thoughts, like falling rain,
   Pour forth from overflowing cup;
Who could not, if he would, restrain
   What the glad sunlight gathered up.

And if upon his bosom writ
   Some bow of hope mankind may mark,
Or on the tears wrung out of it
   What matter if himself be dark.