WHEN you slowly emerged from the den of Time, And gained percipience as you grew, And fleshed you fair out of shapeless slime, Wherefore, O Man, did there come to you The unhappy need of creating me - A form like your own - for praying to? My virtue, power, utility, Within my maker must all abide, Since none in myself can ever be, One thin as a phasm on a lantern-slide Shown forth in the dark upon some dim sheet, And by none but its showman vivified. 'Such a forced device,' you may say, 'is meet For easing a loaded heart at whiles: Man needs to conceive of a mercy-seat Somewhere above the gloomy aisles Of this wailful world, or he could not bear The irk no local hope beguiles.' - But since I was framed in your first despair The doing without me has had no play In the minds of men when shadows scare; And now that I dwindle day by day Beneath the deicide eyes of seers In a light that will not let me stay, And to-morrow the whole of me disappears, The truth should be told, and the fact be faced That had best been faced in earlier years: The fact of life with dependence placed On the human heart's resource alone, In brotherhood bonded close and graced With loving-kindness fully blown, And visioned help unsought, unknown. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DAWN by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON BETRAND AND GOURGAUD TALK OVER OLD TIMES by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THE EXAMPLE by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES TO SIR HENRY WOTTON (1) by JOHN DONNE ON SOME BUTTERCUPS by FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN |