God or Chaos

To-day all music
And worship are vain,
The vast holy beauty
Around me, pain.

The high, worn windows
And arches that rise,
The great dead at rest here
Draw tears to my eyes.

For is it not useless,
The race men run?
The Hell-blood of battle
And that of God's Son?

Are poets and prophets
Who die for high dreams
Not dupes of a Being
That soullessly streams?

Or, unto its Purpose,
If purpose there be,
Are men as amoebae
To that of the sea?

Swarm they through the ages,
Like vermin, to die?
Have they no true reason
For living soul-high?

None? even to better
Their kind, till a day
When life for the living
Shall seem good alway?

Ah, that were an anguish
Surpassing appal,
To strive through the ages
For No Soul at all;

To suffer our years out,
Then utterly die
Of use unto no one—
Ourselves or the Sky.

To No One! but living
And dying in pain,
To find ourselves quickly
Refashioned again.

Refashioned for ever:
No hope in the grave!
Oblivion nowhere
To silence and save.

Death useless as living!—
O God, thou must bide,
Or nought can avail us,
Not world-suicide.

And if the earth rages,
Immense in its crime,
And bleeds as if blotting
Thy face from all time,

Yet must we unshaken
Remember Thou art,
Not fear that blind chaos
Is lord of life's heart.