Poems (Rowe)/"Unnameable! For ever, everywhere"
UNNAMEABLE! For ever, everywhere,Whose dwelling house is Space, whose servant Time. Why should we localize thy Spirit's place, And call it sometimes Heaven, and sometimes Hell? Forgetting that amongst the thousand Worlds Poor Mother Earth but takes the seventh rank. "God made the Stars." Has each a Heaven then, And each a Hell? Does God repeat the sin Of killing Innocence to save the souls Of Men sent here in pristine ignorance? Oh! coward Hearts, who first conceived the thought Of letting others suffer for your sake!
"Ask, and ye shall have!" Why all this pother? Does God not give without beseeching then? Think of a Mother waiting to be asked To give her milk to little hungry lips! Is God less generous than a Mother? Oh! Infinite! Forgive our foolish thoughts of Thee!
Why should mere Mortals praise Omnipotence, Like Savages appeasing Devil Gods? Dust that we are, what right have we to dare To laud, and criticize Creator's work? Is God a Man with nothing else to do But lend an ear to all our selfish cries? Cries of "Dear Lord, do this; dear Lord, do that," "If not for my sake, for Thy dear Son's sake".Can God be bribed then? Can perfection err? Oh! foolish people, what a God you make, In your own likeness! A mere fleshly God Swayed by the self-same passions, Love and Hate, Whom you can praise or damn, as suits your case. If Angels be, and wait about the Throne We put Him on, how they must crack their sides With laughter loud at the huge joke called Man! At Man who dares to ask a God to fight His other children for his benefit! Oh! the sad humour of it!
For if, within our souls, we really think The God we worship be omnipotent, What need is there to prompt as if he were A foolish Actor who'd forgot his part? Could He go wrong? Ah! no! He were no God Worthy our reverence, if this were so. And if He be, then leave it all to Him, And let God do His work in His own way, And we in ours be Gods ourselves. Be kind to one another, help the weak. Do well the Duty nearest to our hand.
For all this seeking for Eternal Life Is but of self, a longing of the flesh, To put our lives, and our small petty wants, Before the cry of suffering Brotherhood. Let us no longer wear our finite brains To wonder what we are, and whence we go, Nor waste our strength in fruitless argument. The Future lies in God's hands, not in Man's.