Classic Poem

“SPIRIT,” said God, “come up for Judgment now.”
The words seemed spoke in such familiar tone
As if the accents of a natural voice
Close to the heart as its own beating pulse.

“Come up,” it said, “for final judgment now

Before the absolute court of Me in Thee,
The court which hears no plea, allows no charge,
Abates no jot in estimating wrong,
Awards no punishment and grants no boon,
But weighs precise the actual quality

Of Spirit proven by the appointed tests,
And true decides if it recruit in Me
The Immortal Strength, or if the tempted one,
Too weak for toils eternal, sanely pass
To that which I am not, Oblivion.”


Then Thee reviewed with Me, O God, the course,—
What bodily appetites indulged or quelled;
What hates and harms repaid with hurts and scorns,
Or with forgetfulness or benefits;
The proper rest that merged to slothful ease,

Or was in pain enduringly ignored;
That laughing, wholesome impulse which, unchecked,
Became derision’s cruelty of glee;
The righteous anger rushing headlong on,
What did, when calmly visioned, piteous seem;

That pity for the Weak, which blamed alike
The unjust heedless and the heedful Strong;
The passionate heart’s excess in everything,
Its wild unsteadiness unto the Soul
Which yet persisted, sternly right, to chide

The insensate rebel part averse from Thee.

The Thee and Me, O God, revised it all
Clearly, relentlessly, and grave declared,—
“Thou didst not ever fail the Heart, O Soul,
Nor doth it fail thee now. Nay, We elect

No Lethe, no Oblivion, but the strife
Eternal, toward we know not what, save Good.”

Then some calm happiness known not before
Came to the Life whose Judgement hour was o’er.