Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CRY OF THE UNCREATED, by ARTHUR HENRY GOODENOUGH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CRY OF THE UNCREATED, by                    
First Line: In the din and dust of the street
Last Line: From either your race or mine.


In the din and dust of the street,
In the tumult which never dies,
From the gray dust under my feet
I heard a voice arise.

"Forbear, O God," it said,
"To give us a name and a shape!
From hunger and doubt and dread
Let us, we pray, escape."

"We are quiet here in the earth,
And in quiet let us be;
Nor beckon and call us forth
To wrestle with destiny."

"Why should we join in the chase
For the phantom men call Life?
We are better out of the race—
With its doubt and its sin and its strife."

"Over us fall the feet
Of the ever-hastening throng,
But we know nor hurry nor heat
Nor the burden of human wrong."

"In the world there is scath and scar,
Malice and lust and hate;
Let us remain as we are,
Strangers to Time and Fate."

"They are none too few today,
The beggars who borrow breath
From Time with his visage gray
And pay it to waiting Death!"

"Let us in quiet lie,
And let us in silence be;
Till the stars go out in the sky
And the salt withdraws from the sea."

But the Lord stooped down to the earth,
From His chariot formed of flame,
And He beckoned and called them forth
And gave them a place and a name.

He gave them a name and a shape,
He put into each a soul;
And that none might hope to escape,
He traced their names on a scroll.

They shuddered—as one who dies;
They wearied from skin to core;
But they bred like the summer flies,
And the many brought forth more.

Like the tiny ant which delves
Or the toiling bees in the hive,
They could not succor themselves—
Yet something kept them alive!

Till they ceased at last to lament
For the old oblivion theirs,
And the hope for a life to come
Entered into their prayers!

You may call this fable or truth,
You shall ask in vain for a sign;
For this was a different folk
From either your race or mine.





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