By the Earths Corpse

 I 

 "O Lord, why grievest Thou? - 
 Since Life has ceased to be 
 Upon this globe, now cold 
 As lunar land and sea, 
And humankind, and fowl, and fur 
 Are gone eternally, 
All is the same to Thee as ere 
 They knew mortality." 

II 

"O Time," replied the Lord, 
 "Thou read'st me ill, I ween; 
Were all THE SAME, I should not grieve 
 At that late earthly scene, 
Now blestly past--though planned by me 
 With interest close and keen! - 
Nay, nay: things now are NOT the same 
 As they have earlier been. 

III 

 "Written indelibly 
 On my eternal mind 
 Are all the wrongs endured 
 By Earth's poor patient kind, 
Which my too oft unconscious hand 
 Let enter undesigned. 
No god can cancel deeds foredone, 
 Or thy old coils unwind! 

IV 

 "As when, in Noe's days, 
 I whelmed the plains with sea, 
 So at this last, when flesh 
 And herb but fossils be, 
And, all extinct, their piteous dust 
 Revolves obliviously, 
That I made Earth, and life, and man, 
 It still repenteth me!"

Form: Dramatic Verse Comments

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Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace