The Burden of Lost Souls.
This was our sin. When Hope, with wings enchanted
And shining aureole,
Hung on the blossomed steps of Youth and haunted
The chancel of the soul;
When we whose lips haply had blown the bugle
That cheers the wavering line,
And solaced those to whom the world was frugal
Of Love, the food divine;
Whose hands had strength to strike men’s chains asunder
And heal the poor man’s wrong,
Whose breath was blended with the chords that thunder
Along the aisles of song;
Whose eyes had seen and hailed the Light of Ages,
In cloudiest heavens a star,
Whose ears had heard, on ringing wheels, the stages
Of Freedom’s trophied car:—
We turned, rebellious children, to the clamour
And tumult of the world;
We gave our souls in fee for Circe’s glamour
And white limbs lightly whirled;
We drank deep draughts of Moloch’s unclean liquor
Even to the dregs of shame,
And blinded by the golden lights that flicker
From Mammon’s altar-flame
We burned strange incense, bowed before his idol
Whose eucharist is fire,
And on the neck of passion loosed the bridle
Of fierce and wild desire:—
Till now in our own hearts the ashy embers
Of Love lie smouldering,
And scarce our Autumn chill and bare remembers
The glory of the Spring;
While faith, that in the mire was fain to wallow,
Returns at last to find
The cold fanes desolate, the niches hollow,
The windows dim and blind,
And, strown with ruins round, the shattered relic
Of unregardful youth,
Where shapes of beauty once, with tongues angelic,
Whispered the runes of Truth.