Classic Poem

It tears at the heart in the night, that moan of the wind,
That desolate moan.
It is worse than the cry of a child. I can hardly bear
To hear it, alone.

It is worse than the sobbing of love, when love is estranged:
For this is a cry
Out of the desolate ages. It never has changed.
It never can die.

A cry over numberless graves, dark, helpless and blind,
From the measureless past,
To the measureless future, a sobbing before the first laughter,
And after the last!

* * * * *

From the height of creation, in passion eternal, the Word
Rushes forth, the loud cry,
Forsaken! Forsaken! It cuts through the night like a sword!
Shall it win no reply?

Not of earth is that height of all sorrow, past time, out of space,
Therefore here, here and now,
Universal, a Calvary, crowned with Thy passionate face,
Thy thorn-wounded brow.

Ah, could I shrink if Thy heart for each heart upon earth
Must break like a sea?
Could I hear, could I bear it at all, if I were not a part
Of this labour in Thee?

Shall I accuse Thee, then? God, I account it my own
All the grief I can bear,
On Thy Cross of Creation, to balance earth's bliss and atone,
Atone for life there.

If this be the One Way for ever, which not Thine all-might
Could change, if it would,
Till the truth be untrue, till the dark be the same as the light,
And till evil be good,

Shall I who took part in Thine April, shrink now from my part
In Thine anguish to be?
If Thy goal be the One goal of all, shall not even man's heart
Endure this, with Thee;

Die with Thee, balancing life, or help Thee to pay
For our hope with our pain?...
O, the voice of the wind in the night! Is it day, then, broad day,
On the blind earth again?