While I still lingered on that river-walk, And watched the tide as black as our black doom, I heard another couple join in talk, And saw them to the left hand in the gloom Seated against an elm bole on the ground, 5Their eyes intent upon the stream profound.
"I never knew another man on earth But had some joy and solace in his life, Some chance of triumph in the dreadful strife:
My doom has been unmitigated dearth." 10"We gaze upon the river, and we note The various vessels large and small that float, Ignoring every wrecked and sunken boat.""And yet I asked no splendid dower, no spoil Of sway or fame or rank or even wealth; 15But homely love with common food and health, And nightly sleep to balance daily toil.""This all-too-humble soul would arrogate Unto itself some signalising hate From the supreme indifference of Fate!" 20"Who is most wretched in this dolorous place?
I think myself; yet I would rather be My miserable self than He, than He Who formed such creatures to His own disgrace.
"The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou 25From whom it had its being, God and Lord!
Creator of all woe and sin! abhorred Malignant and implacable! I vow"That not for all Thy power furled and unfurled, For all the temples to Thy glory built, 30Would I assume the ignominious guilt Of having made such men in such a world.""As if a Being, God or Fiend, could reign, At once so wicked, foolish and insane, As to produce men when He might refrain!35"The world rolls round for ever like a mill;It grinds out death and life and good and ill;It has no purpose, heart or mind or will.
"While air of Space and Time's full river flow The mill must blindly whirl unresting so: 40It may be wearing out, but who can know?
"Man might know one thing were his sight less dim;That it whirls not to suit his petty whim, That it is quite indifferent to him.
"Nay, does it treat him harshly as he saith?45It grinds him some slow years of bitter breath, Then grinds him back into eternal death."
