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!)