Songs and Satires

by Edgar Lee Masters

SUPPLICATION

For He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust.—Psalm ciii. 14.

Oh Lord, when all our bones are thrust
Beyond the gaze of all but Thine;
And these blaspheming tongues are dust
Which babbled of Thy name divine,
How helpless then to carp or rail
Against the canons of Thy word;
Wilt Thou, when thus our spirits fail,
Have mercy, Lord?
Here from this ebon speck that floats
As but a mote within Thine eye,
Vain sneers and curses from our throats
Rise to the vault of Thy fair sky:
Yet when this world of ours is still
Of this all-wondering, tortured horde,
And none is left for Thee to kill—
Have mercy, Lord!
Thou knowest that our flesh is grass;
Ah! let our withered souls remain
Like stricken reeds of some morass,
Bleached, in Thy will, by ceaseless rain.
Have we not had enough of fire,
Enough of torment and the sword?—
If these accrue from Thy desire—
Have mercy, Lord!
Dost Thou not see about our feet
The tangles of our erring thought?
Thou knowest that we run to greet
High hopes that vanish into naught.
We bleed, we fall, we rise again;
How can we be of Thee abhorred?
We are Thy breed, we little men—
Have mercy, Lord!
Wilt Thou then slay for that we slay,
Wilt Thou deny when we deny?
A thousand years are but a day,
A little day within Thine eye:
We thirst for love, we yearn for life;
We lust, wilt Thou the lust record?
We, beaten, fall upon the knife—
Have mercy, Lord!
Thou givest us youth that turns to age;
And strength that leaves us while we seek.
Thou pourest the fire of sacred rage
In costly vessels all too weak.
Great works we planned in hopes that Thou
Fit wisdom therefor wouldst accord;
Thou wrotest failure on our brow—
Have mercy, Lord!
Could we but know, as Thou dost know—
Hold the whole scheme at once in mind!
Yet, dost Thou watch our anxious woe
Who piece with palsied hands and blind
The fragments of our little plan,
To thrive and earn Thy blest reward,
And make and keep the world of man—
Have mercy, Lord!
Thou settest the sun within his place
To light the world, the world is Thine,
Put in our hands and through Thy grace
To be subdued and made divine.
Whether we serve Thee ill or well,
Thou knowest our frame, nor canst afford
To leave Thy own for long in hell—
Have mercy, Lord!

---

THE CONVERSATION

The Human Voice

You knew then, starting let us say with ether,
You would become electrons, out of whirling
Would rise to atoms; then as an atom resting
Till through Yourself in other atoms moving
And by the fine affinity of power
Atom with atom massed, You would go on
Over the crest of visible forms transformed,
Would be a molecule, a little system
Wherein the atoms move like suns and planets
With satellites, electrons. So as worlds build
From star-dust, as electron to electron,
The same attraction drawing, molecules
Would wed and pass over the crest again
Of visible forms, lying content as crystals,
Or colloids—ready now to use the gleam
Of life. As 'twere I see You with a match,
As one in darkness lights a candle, and one
Sees not his friend's form in the shadowed room
Until the candle's lighted? Even his form
Is darkened by the new-made light, he stands
So near it! Well, I add to all I've asked
Whether You knew the cell born to the glint
Of that same lighted candle would not rest
Even as electrons rest not—but would surge
Over the crest of visible forms, become
Beneath our feet things hidden from the eye
However aided,—as above our heads
Beyond the Milky Way great systems whirl
Beyond the telescope,—become bacilli,
Amœba, starfish, swimming things, on land
The serpent, and then birds, and beasts of prey
The tiger (You in the tiger) on and on
Surging above the crest of visible forms until
The ape came—oh what ages they are to us—
But still creation flies on wings of light—
Then to the man who roamed the frozen fields
Neither man nor ape,—we found his jaw, You know,
At Heidelberg, in a sand-pit. On and on
Till Babylon was builded, and arose
Jerusalem and Memphis, Athens, Rome,
Venice and Florence, Paris, London, Berlin,
New York, Chicago—did You know, I ask,
All this would come of You in ether moving?

A Voice
I knew.

The Human Voice
You knew that man was born to be destroyed,
That as an atom perfect, whole, at ease,
Drawn to some other atom, is broken, changed
And rises o'er the crest of visible things
To something else—that man must pass as well
Through equal transformation. And You knew
The unutterable things of man's life: From the first
You saw his wracked Deucalion-soul that looks
Backward on life that rises, where he rose
Out of the stones. You saw him looking forward
Over the purple mists that hide the gulf.
Ere the green cell rose, even in the green cell
You saw the sequences of thought—You saw
That one would say, "All's matter" and another,
"All's mind," and man's mind which reflects the image,
Could not envision it. That even worship
Of what you are would be confused by cries
From India or Palestine. That love
Which sees itself beginning in the seeds,
Which fly and seek each other, maims
The soul at the last in loss of child or friend
Father or mother. And You knew that sex,
Ranging from plants through beasts and up to us
Had ties of filth—And out of them would rise
Diverse philosophies to tear the world.
You knew, when the green cell arose, that even
The You which formed it moving on would bring
Races and breeds, madmen, tyrants, slaves,
The idiot child, the murderer, the insane—
All springing from the action of one law.
You knew the enmity that lies between
The lives of micro-beings and our own. You knew
How man would rise to vision of himself:
Immortal only in the race's life.
And past the atom and the first glint of life,
Saw him with soul enraptured, yet o'ershadowed
Amid self-consciousness!