Hymn Of Breaking Strain

The careful text-books measure     (Let all who build beware!)     The load, the shock, the pressure     Material can bear.     So, when the buckled girder     Lets down the grinding span,     The blame of loss, or murder,     Is laid upon the man.     Not on the Stuff, the Man!     But, in our daily dealing     With stone and steel, we find     The Gods have no such feeling     Of justice toward mankind.     To no set gauge they make us,,     For no laid course prepare,     And presently oertake us     With loads we cannot bear:     Too merciless to bear.     The prudent text-books give it     In tables at the end,     The stress that shears a rivet     Or makes a tie-bar bend,     What traffic wrecks macadam,     What concrete should endure,     But we, poor Sons of Adam,     Have no such literature,     To warn us or make sure!     We hold all Earth to plunder,     All Time and Space as well     Too wonder-stale to wonder     At each new miracle;     Till, in the mid-illusion     Of Godhead neath our hand,     Falls multiple confusion     On all we did or planned,     The mighty works we planned.     We only of Creation     (Oh, luckier bridge and rail!)     Abide the twin-damnation,     To fail and know we fail.     Yet we, by which sole token     We know we once were Gods,     Take shame in being broken     However great the odds     The Burden or the Odds.     Oh, veiled and secret Power     Whose paths we seek in vain,     Be with us in our hour     Of overthrow and pain;     That we, by which sure token     We know Thy ways are true,     In spite of being broken,     Because of being broken,     May rise and build anew.     Stand up and build anew!