The Unpardonable Sin · A Novelty · Ultimate

The Unpardonable Sin

I do not cry, beloved, neither curse.
  Silence and strength, these two at least are good.
  He gave me sun and stars and ought He could,
But not a woman's love; for that is hers.

He sealed her heart from sage and questioner—
  Yea, with seven seals, as he has sealed the grave.
  And if she give it to a drunken slave,
The Day of Judgment shall not challenge her.

Only this much: if one, deserving well,
  Touching your thin young hands and making suit,
  Feel not himself a crawling thing, a brute,
Buried and bricked in a forgotten hell;

Prophet and poet be he over sod,
  Prince among angels in the highest place,
  God help me, I will smite him on the face,
Before the glory of the face of God.

A Novelty

Why should I care for the Ages
  Because they are old and grey?
To me, like sudden laughter,
  The stars are fresh and gay;
The world is a daring fancy,
  And finished yesterday.

Why should I bow to the Ages
  Because they were drear and dry?
Slow trees and ripening meadows
  For me go roaring by,
A living charge, a struggle
  To escalade the sky.

The eternal suns and systems,
  Solid and silent all,
To me are stars of an instant,
  Only the fires that fall
From God's good rocket, rising
  On this night of carnival.

Ultimate

The vision of a haloed host
  That weep around an empty throne;
And, aureoles dark and angels dead,
  Man with his own life stands alone.

'I am,' he says his bankrupt creed:
  'I am,' and is again a clod:
The sparrow starts, the grasses stir,
  For he has said the name of God.