AN IMPRESSION
A roaring furnace, and a passing-bell;
Grim vitreous gloom, and one low, raking gleam
From a spent sun that spills its passive beam
Athwart a smouldering city. Comes the smell
Of sweat and labour. The sad, sullen knell
Booms in the brain. As in a baleful dream
A panting siren, veiled with hissing steam,
Shrieks like a looming horror deep in hell.
A flaccid flood of faces, blanched with doom,
And raucous cries from out a blinking dark
Crowd on the callous dusk. With haunting bark
Death hunts his hapless victims. Heaven's sick bloom
Swoons in the frost. Through droning twilight—hark!
The slow, thick, ominous burden of the tomb.
CONDEMNED
FIAT JUSTITIA: FIAT LUX
Our deeds avail not; and our dreams are thrust
Into the dark and wither from the sky.
We live in duress, and to sweetness die;
And lo! our guerdon is the world's distrust.
Yet have we dreamt of judgment that is just,
And seen a splendour trailing from on high;
From mean abortion mounts our piteous cry:
"Out of the dust, O Christ! out of the dust!"
We are as leaves within the winter gale,
And are through tribulation darkly driven;
And all the promise that the prime hath given
Is as faint smoke before the winds that wail.
Wan from the drowning pools of bitter bale
Our futile faces front the hush of heaven!