Their own strange God they have set up,
Of clay, of iron, and mothéd hide;
Whose eyes, each convex as a cup,
Reflect the herd endeified.
Their twisted feet in boots He made
To walk the narrow asphalt way,
And gave each room a curtain's shade
To muffle out the light of day.
For this God understands their need;
Created lids for each pale eye;
He sculped each mouth to say "Agreed,"
And gives them coffins if they die.
When, if for punishment they go
To other lands, why, it should be
The judgment that, down there below,
They see this world as they might see!
A world of contrast, shade and light—
Clashing romance and cruelty,
But stricken with the dreadful blight
Of fear to feel and fear to cry.
Where for a moment lives are filled
With love or hate—where born of pain
The children grow up—to be killed!
Where freedom—dead—is born again.
Wherein life's pattern crude and shrill
Is weft by neither foe nor friend,
But by some rough colossal will
Towards some vast invisible end.
But in those houses dark there creep,
With bodies wrapt in woollen dress,
With eyes that blink but never weep,
The sentimental wonderless!
DE LUXE
I.