God’s Funeral
I saw a slowly-stepping train—Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar—Following in files across a twilit plainA strange and mystic form the foremost bore.
And by contagious throbs of thoughtOr latent knowledge that within me layAnd had already stirred me, I was wroughtTo consciousness of sorrow even as they.
The fore-borne shape, to my blurred eyes,At first seemed man-like, and anon to changeTo an amorphous cloud of marvellous size,At times endowed with wings of glorious range.
And this phantasmal variousnessEver possessed it as they drew along:Yet throughout all it symboled none the lessPotency vast and loving-kindness strong.
Almost before I knew I bentTowards the moving columns without a word;They, growing in bulk and numbers as they went,Struck out sick thoughts that could be overheard:—
“O man-projected Figure, of lateImaged as we, thy knell who shall survive?Whence came it we were tempted to createOne whom we can no longer keep alive?
“Framing him jealous, fierce, at first,We gave him justice as the ages rolled,Will to bless those by circumstance accurst,And longsuffering, and mercies manifold.
“And, tricked by our own early dreamAnd need of solace, we grew self-deceived,Our making soon our maker did we deem,And what we had imagined we believed.
“Till, in Time’s stayless stealthy swing,Uncompromising rude realityMangled the Monarch of our fashioning,Who quavered, sank; and now has ceased to be.
“So, toward our myth’s oblivion,Darkling, and languid-lipped, we creep and gropeSadlier than those who wept in Babylon,Whose Zion was a still abiding hope.
“How sweet it was in years far hiedTo start the wheels of day with trustful prayer,To lie down liegely at the eventideAnd feel a blest assurance he was there!
“And who or what shall fill his place?Whither will wanderers turn distracted eyesFor some fixed star to stimulate their paceTowards the goal of their enterprise?” . . .
Some in the background then I saw,Sweet women, youths, men, all incredulous,Who chimed as one: “This figure is of straw,This requiem mockery! Still he lives to us!”
I could not prop their faith: and yetMany I had known: with all I sympathized;And though struck speechless, I did not forgetThat what was mourned for, I, too, once had prized.
Still, how to bear such loss I deemedThe insistent question for each animate mind,And gazing, to my growing sight there seemedA pale yet positive gleam low down behind,
Whereof to lift the general night,A certain few who stood aloof had said,“See you upon the horizon that small light—Swelling somewhat?” Each mourner shook his head.
And they composed a crowd of whomSome were right good, and many nigh the best . . .Thus dazed and puzzled ’twixt the gleam and gloomMechanically I followed with the rest.
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