The Stars' Accusal

How can the makers of unrighteous wars         Stand the accusal of the watchful stars?     To stand--     A dust-speck, facing the infinitudes     Of Thine unfathomable dome, a night like this,--     To stand full-face to Thy High Majesties,     Thy myriad worlds in solemn watchfulness,--     Watching, watching, watching all below,     And man in all his wilfulness for woe!     --Dear Lord, one wonders that Thou bearest still     With man on whom Thou didst such grace bestow,     And with his wilful faculty for woe!     Those sleepless sentinels!    They may be worlds     All peopled like our own.    But, as I stand,     They are to me the myriad eyes of God,--     Watching, watching, watching all below,     And man in all his wilfulness for woe.     And then--to think     What those same piercing eyes look down upon     Elsewhere on this fair earth that Thou hast made!--     Watching, watching, watching all below,     And man in all his wilfulness for woe.     --On all the desolations he hath wrought,     --On all the passioned hatreds he hath taught,     --On all Thy great hopes he hath brought to nought;--     --Man rending man with ruthless bitterness,     --Blasting Thine image into nothingness,     --Hounding Thy innocents to awful deaths,     And worse than deaths!    Happy the dead, who sped     Before the torturers their lust had fed!     --On Thy Christ crucified afresh each day,     --On all the horrors of War's grim red way.     And ever, in Thy solemn midnight skies,     Those myriad, sleepless, vast accusing eyes,--     Watching, watching, watching all below,     And man in all his wilfulness for woe.     Dear Lord!--     When in our troubled hearts we ponder this,     We can but wonder at Thy wrath delayed,--     We can but wonder that Thy hand is stayed,--     We can but wonder at Thy sufferance     Of man, whom Thou in Thine own image made,     When he that image doth so sore degrade!     If Thou shouldst blot us out without a word,     Our stricken souls must say we had incurred     Just punishment.     Warnings we lacked not, warnings oft and clear,     But in our arrogance we gave no ear     To Thine admonishment.     And yet,--and yet!    O Lord, we humbly pray,--     Put back again Thy righteous Judgment Day!     Have patience with us yet a while, until     Through these our sufferings we learn Thy Will.