Within a city I paused, in pity
Of human sorrow and human wrong;
Of bitter toiling, of sad assoiling,
Of fatal foiling to weak and strong.
I paused where centred on sin throngs entered
A door of evil and lust and greed.
I saw dark faces whereon disgraces
Had writ their traces for all to read.
I said: It is human; nor man nor woman
Is worse or better than men before.
Since time's beginning there has been sinning,
While time is spinning there shall be more.
For, spite of sages that search the ages
Back to the mammoth and saurian;
That find a growing, an upward flowing
Of Good all-knowing, man is but man.
In spite of heavens, in spite of leavens,
Of yeasty yearnings to run and climb,
He is no surer that life is purer,
Or that a Juror sits over time.
So for acquittal of much or little
Great Nature strangely impels him to,
He cries bravely, yet ever gravely,
Or sad or suavely, the Skies will woo.
And tries while wooing, to keep pursuing
Two roads — one starry and one of earth.
But never clearer seems one, or nearer
His goal — or dearer in weal or worth.
Within a city, impelled by pity
Thus in despair I paused and cried.
But in my being a deeper seeing,
A truer pleaing to me replied: —
You speak in passion — in the dark fashion
Of those who suffer because they grope:
To whom despairing seems the true daring
When doubt long-faring no door can ope.
For 'tis not certain that sin's dark curtain
Of imperfection hangs still so black;
That man has lifted no edge, or rifted
No fold, or sifted light through no crack.
He stumbles ever, in his endeavour,
And seems no better than he has been.
But life is vaster and he more master
If, now, no faster he sinks in sin.
And, too, his duty is not mere beauty
Of moral being, he is a Child
Of higher station, of all creation —
Whose aspiration runs through him wild.
A thousand courses on him life forces,
A thousand visions that bring a need
To search abysses for all he misses:
From all he wisses to frame his creed.
So all the wages that through the ages
He, Nature's vassal, with toil has won,
All secrets looted, all lies refuted
Must be computed as good well done.
Praise then be to him that strongly through him
There flows the effort to find his goal,
That faith defeated, by false gods cheated,
And oft unseated, still rules his soul.
Of human sorrow and human wrong;
Of bitter toiling, of sad assoiling,
Of fatal foiling to weak and strong.
I paused where centred on sin throngs entered
A door of evil and lust and greed.
I saw dark faces whereon disgraces
Had writ their traces for all to read.
I said: It is human; nor man nor woman
Is worse or better than men before.
Since time's beginning there has been sinning,
While time is spinning there shall be more.
For, spite of sages that search the ages
Back to the mammoth and saurian;
That find a growing, an upward flowing
Of Good all-knowing, man is but man.
In spite of heavens, in spite of leavens,
Of yeasty yearnings to run and climb,
He is no surer that life is purer,
Or that a Juror sits over time.
So for acquittal of much or little
Great Nature strangely impels him to,
He cries bravely, yet ever gravely,
Or sad or suavely, the Skies will woo.
And tries while wooing, to keep pursuing
Two roads — one starry and one of earth.
But never clearer seems one, or nearer
His goal — or dearer in weal or worth.
Within a city, impelled by pity
Thus in despair I paused and cried.
But in my being a deeper seeing,
A truer pleaing to me replied: —
You speak in passion — in the dark fashion
Of those who suffer because they grope:
To whom despairing seems the true daring
When doubt long-faring no door can ope.
For 'tis not certain that sin's dark curtain
Of imperfection hangs still so black;
That man has lifted no edge, or rifted
No fold, or sifted light through no crack.
He stumbles ever, in his endeavour,
And seems no better than he has been.
But life is vaster and he more master
If, now, no faster he sinks in sin.
And, too, his duty is not mere beauty
Of moral being, he is a Child
Of higher station, of all creation —
Whose aspiration runs through him wild.
A thousand courses on him life forces,
A thousand visions that bring a need
To search abysses for all he misses:
From all he wisses to frame his creed.
So all the wages that through the ages
He, Nature's vassal, with toil has won,
All secrets looted, all lies refuted
Must be computed as good well done.
Praise then be to him that strongly through him
There flows the effort to find his goal,
That faith defeated, by false gods cheated,
And oft unseated, still rules his soul.