4489322Poems — Is there a Hell?Annie Isabel Curwen
Is there a Hell?
WRITTEN DURING A NEWSPAPER CONTROVERSY ON THE SUBJECT.
O God! great God! answer Thou me, If mortal may dare to question Thee,— Is there a hell? A place of torment where the soul, Long as eternal ages roll, Is doomed to dwell? A place where, to appease Thine ire, The souls of men must burn in fire Unquenchable?
Father! O Father, Infinite! Would'st doom to everlasting night, To endless pain, Souls that repented them too late? Is Divine wrath insatiate? And would'st Thou gain Aught that would serve a God like Thee By witnessing the misery Of suff'ring men?
O God! great God! pity Thou me, If, questioning thus, I anger Thee; But we rebel Against the thought that love like Thine Could such a fiendish plan design As create hell; The thought is a monstrosity— A slur on Thy divinity: Is there a hell?
With beating heart and straining ear, I wait in mingled awe and fear For God's reply. Was it a whisper that I heard, Or the rustling wing of a passing bird, Or spirit's sigh? Or did I, for a moment's space, Meet a lost soul face to face In eternity?
Surely the veil was rent aside, And I heard on the "other side" A spirit's wail: A wail that came from some dread place In the fathomless bounds of space, Where the lost dwell: Echoing through the ghostly air Came the anguished voice of Despair— "There is a hell!"
"Hell made by man; its torturing fires Kindled by his own base desires And purpose fell; And here, where ghosts of dead sins rise, Here, where the worm of grief ne'er dies, We lost souls dwell; Bound by remorse in galling chains, We suffer agonising pains In our own hell."
Thus did that awful spirit voice Tell me that hell is man's own choice. Thus do I tell This strange thing, hoping it may win Some soul from the dark path of sin, From purpose fell; For, surely as God liveth, I Assert with all solemnity,— There is a hell!
And, from its dark and dread abyss, The lost will gaze on worlds of bliss Which they have lost; Will see afar the pastures green, The fountains with their silver sheen, The shining host; And know that they themselves have fixed The barriers that lie betwixt The happy coast.
