| |
| I AM a weakling. God, who made | |
| The still, strong man, made also me. | |
| The God who could the tiger plan, | |
| In his lithe splendour unafraid— | |
| A thing of flame and poetry— | 5 |
| That Puissance made of me—a Man! | |
| |
| The One who reared His vast design— | |
| Star, atom, system, germ, and soul— | |
| Could fashion forth this tremulous | |
| And paltry little heart of mine! | 10 |
| The God who could conceive the Whole, | |
| Himself blasphemed in building thus. | |
| |
| When I dare look the glass within, | |
| The ‘Mene Tekel’ mark I see. | |
| God made this slinking, stunted thing, | 15 |
| This narrowed face, this futile chin, | |
| Prisoned a soul deliberately | |
| ’Neath these blunt nerves unanswering? | |
| |
| I see my fellows strong and proud, | |
| Lustful and splendid with desires, | 20 |
| Secure and strenuous within, | |
| God opulently them endowed, | |
| And lit in them immortal fires; | |
| And left me scarcely strength to sin. | |
| |
| I watch them triumph by, afar, | 25 |
| Crashing through life with crude disdain. | |
| Theirs is a universe so wide, | |
| So keen and rich the colours are | |
| That reach each fine responsive brain. | |
| They are the bridegrooms, Life the bride! | 30 |
| |
| They carry in their veins their fate; | |
| Foredoomed are they to victory. | |
| Their broad brows are a diadem | |
| Of mastery; they but await | |
| Their long determined destiny, | 35 |
| For at their birth Life laurelled them. | |
| |
| They have their chance to win, to fall— | |
| The fighting chance, the deathless hope; | |
| Their fate they venture to assail; | |
| They chafe for ever at their thrall; | 40 |
| They dare with their despair to cope, | |
| Superbly strive, superbly fail. | |
| |
| But I starve with a stunted brain: | |
| My vision is so mean and scant | |
| That every hue it blurs and dulls. | 45 |
| God branded me—this brow of Cain!— | |
| Put in me this heart hesitant, | |
| And lamed me with a limping pulse. | |
| |
| I watch them striding on; they flout | |
| Death even; then my path I see: | 50 |
| The narrow path—the narrow curse. | |
| Ah, wonder, if I dare to doubt | |
| If sin of mine prescribed for me | |
| This mean and niggard universe? | |
| |
| The end that is upon my face | 55 |
| And in my wizened soul I wait— | |
| The end that I shall count for good. | |
| Yet they who pass me in the race | |
| Left me to falter to my fate: | |
| They did not slay me when they should. | 60 |
| |
| But yet He found ‘that it was good’. | |
| Ah! surely in the soul of God | |
| For me some kindly pity is? | |
| Or else I wonder how He could | |
| Raise me—a soul—up from the sod, | 65 |
| Lift me from Nothingness—to this! | |
| |
| Yet—thin weak lips and woman-chin— | |
| Some unknown debt to me is paid, | |
| Some sacrifice I may not see. | |
| I expiate some other’s sin. | 70 |
| I am God’s weakling. He who made | |
| The still, strong man, made also me. | |
| |
