A Plaint to Man
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 youThe 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 shape on a lantern-slideShown forth in the dark upon some dim sheet,And by none but its showman vivified.
“Such a forced device,” you may say, “is meetFor easing a loaded heart at whiles:Man needs to conceive of a mercy-seat
Somewhere above the gloomy aislesOf this wailful world, or he could not bearThe irk no local hope beguiles.”
—But since I was framed in your first despairThe doing without me has had no playIn the minds of men when shadows scare;
And now that I dwindle day by dayBeneath the deicide eyes of seersIn 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 facedThat had best been faced in earlier years:
The fact of life with dependence placedOn the human heart’s resource alone,In brotherhood bonded close and graced
With loving-kindness fully blown,And visioned help unsought, unknown.
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