Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/20

Millions of men innumerably spread,
Faces along the illimitable wave,
Float up, and look, and sink,—O star-cold Space,
When hast thou answered, unto whom, or where!
O, sudden sprang in him the formless fear,
And swift the dark assault began to mount,
Motions of sorrow, instincts of despair!
Before my boyhood done, such darkness came—
Night in the soul; and heaviest on him,
Who most was born to be the child of trust,
Heaviest on him and earliest, sank the stroke.
Then, O, too early chosen, his tender heart
Broke into voice and mingled tears and vows.
He stares into the waste; nought else he sees;
Base if he go not, if he go then rash,
Yet must he go; for such a soul He made
Who made him man, and set him yet a child
Among his enemies exposed and left,
And gave his naked bosom to the sword,
His heart unfortified to sure defeat,
And his pure spirit to the bond of sin;
For high designs stern counsel; not with men
Who wheel with day and night, and think 'tis fate,
His journey lies; O, sent not seldom here,

Too mortal is he born whom God doth choose!