But I see but shadows around me, illusion in everything.
How knowest thou aught of God, of his favour or his wrath?
Can the little fish tell what the lion thinks, or map out the eagle’s path?
Can the finite the infinite search,—did the blind discover the stars?
Is the thought that I think a thought, or a throb of the brain in its bars?
For aught that my eye can discern, your god is what you think good,
Yourself flashed back from the glass when the light pours on it in flood!
You preach to me of his justice, and this is his realm, you say,
Where the good are dying of hunger, and the bad gorge every day.
You tell me he loveth mercy, but the famine is not yet gone,—