Poems (Curwen)/Is there a Hell?

by 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.