Mice
I see the broken bodies of women and men,
Temples of God ruined; I see the claws
Of sinister Fate, from the reach of whose feline paws
Never are safe the bodies of women and men.
Almighty Cat, it sits on the Throne of the World,
With paw outstretched, grinning at us, the mice,
Who play our trivial games of virtue and vice,
And pray—to That which sits on the Throne of the World!
From our beginning till all is over and done,
Unwitting who watches, pursuing our personal ends,
Hither and thither we scamper....The paw descends;
The paw descends and all is over and done.
Rest
Here is tranquillity and silvan shade;
For now, emerging from that waste of sand
Which was my life, I reach a fruitful glade,
A pool of water in a thirsty land.
Your gentle soul a well of beauty is,
And crystal clear the sunlit deeps thereof;
And from that fountain of unmeasured bliss
I draw the living water of your love.
Here is the goal of all my wandering,
Here is oblivion of my bitterness,
And here the temple where my heart shall sing
Your eyes that light me and your lips that bless.