Page:An epic of women and other poems (IA epicofwomenother00osha).pdf/115

For through whole bitter days it seemed in vain
That all the mighty desert had no stain
  Of sin around him; that the burning breaths
Went forth from the eternal One, and rolled
  For ever through it, filling it with deaths,
And plagues, and fires; that he did behold
The earthquakes and the wonders manifold:

It seemed in vain that all the place was bright
Ineffably with that unfading light
  No man who worketh evil can abide;
That he could see too with his open eyes
  Fair troops of deathless ones, and those that died
In martyrdoms, or went up to the skies
In fiery cars—walk there with no disguise;—

It seemed in vain that he was there alone
With no man's sin to tempt him but his own;—
  Since in his body he did bear about
A seeming endless sin he could not quell
  With the most sharp coercement, nor cast out
Through any might of prayer. O, who can tell—
Save God—how often in despair he fell?