fast." 

 Hear what the voice of all Sorrows saith: "They lead you out to die; For the love you gave they will dig your grave, And their thanks to you is death. Take up, take up your burden of woe, And proudly to your scaffold go, For men were born to suffer so, That mankind might be great." 

 

 

   TAPESTRY 

 God the omnipotent wearied of space, And the void of endless blue, And the light of eternity in His face, And eternity's emptiness round the place That the presence of Godhead knew. 

 So He wove Him a piece of tapestry O'er all infinity drawn, And out of His brain and its subtlety Were the suns that stand, and the comets that flee, And the paths of the planets born. 

 No plan too great, no design too small, For the fingers of God the Lord, The joy of invention lived through all, From the orbit curve of the earthly ball To the shell where sound is stored. 

 And all continued as they were made, Clean cast from Perfection's brain, Not a beam of light from its circle strayed, But the whole the heavenly laws obeyed, —God looked, and wearied again. 

 So He wove Him a piece of tapestry With fingers thrice refined, And He mingled the threads with subtlety, The threads of our human destiny, And the light with the dark He twined. 

 For shadow and shine were mingled there, And white was matched with red, And the thread of the silver gleamed more fair For the gloom that, surrounding, made it rare; And God in His wisdom said: 

 "Of my handiwork but the human soul Can suffer the laws of change, That only errs from my set control, And takes in pleasure, and pays in toll, The whole of its passion's range. 

 "But who shall judge or who condemn This work that my hands have made, For the thread that here appears a gem, —So have I mingled and twisted them— Is there the gleam of a blade? 

 "Nor evil nor good exists for me, As I mingle strand with strand; The past is the visible tapestry, The present I weave, and the destiny Of the future is in my hand. 

 "And the past and the 

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