What They Saw

Sad man, Sad man, tell me, pray,

What did you see to-day?

I saw the unloved and unhappy old, waiting for slow delinquent death to come;

Pale little children toiling for the rich, in rooms where sunlight is ashamed to go;

The awful almshouse, where the living dead rot slowly in their hideous open graves.

And there were shameful things.

Soldiers and forts, and industries of death, and devil-ships, and loud- winged devil-birds,

All bent on slaughter and destruction.    These and yet more shameful things mine eyes beheld:

Old men upon lascivious conquest bent, and young men living with no thought of God,

And half-clothed women puffing at a weed, aping the vices of the underworld,

Engrossed in shallow pleasures and intent on being barren wives.

These things I saw.

(How God must loathe His earth!)

Glad man, Glad man, tell me, pray.

What did you see to-day?

I saw an aged couple, in whose eyes

Shone that deep light of mingled love and faith,

Which makes the earth one room of paradise,

And leaves no sting in death.

I saw vast regiments of children pour,

Rank after rank, out of the schoolroom door

By Progress mobilised.    They seemed to say:

'Let ignorance make way.

We are the heralds of a better day.'

I saw the college and the church that stood

For all things sane and good.

I saw God's helpers in the shop and slum

Blazing a path for health and hope to come,

And True Religion, from the grave of creeds,

Springing to meet man's needs.

I saw great Science reverently stand

And listen for a sound from Border-land,

No longer arrogant with unbelief -

Holding itself aloof -

But drawing near, and searching high and low

For that complete and all-convincing proof

Which shall permit its voice to comfort grief,

Saying, 'We know.'

I saw fair women in their radiance rise

And trample old traditions in the dust.

Looking in their clear eyes,

I seemed to hear these words as from the skies:

'He who would father our sweet children must

Be worthy of the trust.'

Against the rosy dawn, I saw unfurled

The banner of the race we usher in,

The supermen and women of the world,

Who make no code of sex to cover sin;

Before they till the soil of parenthood,

They look to it that seed and soil are good.

And I saw, too, that old, old sight, and best -

Pure mothers, with dear babies at the breast.

These things I saw.

(How God must love His earth!)