[BNP/E3, 79 – 5]

I went into the world and there I saw

Men were a vile and an †hood

I found that Vice had but a child in law

I saw childhood and youth and maidenhood

Borne like weak straws on a relentless flood

I woke wild-eyed from my most human dream

To find men thirsting for each other’s blood

And purity and love[1] things made to seem

Shadows of passing things within a passing stream.

_______

I walkèd among men not unsublime

And grew to show their ways and souls

I pitied the criminal, and hated crime {…}

And so scarce issued from my life’s bright morn

I found all enemies, in smiles revealed

But my young soul with these was never torn

For I paid sneer with sneer, and I gave scorn for scorn.

_______

If I did good, they paid me with their sneers,

If e’er I erred, they rose in useless rage

[5^v]

And my weak spirit rose in rage and tears

Against the Cause of All, Maker of woes and fears…

_______ ___ _______

Quietly, by night, when men their prayers are saying

Or gone to their poor pleasures, sad and late,

Fevered within my bed, instead of praying,

I cursed the God of men with rage and hate

I cursed him for man’s weak and servile state

I cursed him with the ardour of my years

I thought on the world’s woes and crimes and hates

And my weak spirit rose in rage[2] and tears

Against the Cause of all, Maker of woes and fears.

_______

I learned to temper my young spirit blind

To strength and scorn, strong arms and hard to mild,

I hid my love, true as truth, for mankind

And entered hopefully upon the field

But men and women were too weak to yield;

{…}     

[1] love ^/truth\

[2] And my weak spirit rose in rage ^{/And as I thought my soul rose\} in rage