The World’s Tragedy

THE GREY NIGHT. II9 Hath grasped at the blackness of the ban : And thus do I crush it. As the storm Whirls shrieking round thy ghastly form Thy spirit’s torture shall abate The bodily pangs of thy fearsome fate. Weak fool ! The fate of Arcady And the whole world — that hung on thee ! Hadst thou but made thee Emperor, And led thy legions into war ! Thou broken reed — a birth unclean, A life sucked up in sordid spleen, A death absurd, most foully wrought To the shape of thy father’s leper-thought. This be thy doom, that thou shalt see The curses that are born of thee ! Thou black bat that hast barred the sun From the sight of man, thou minion Of death and disease, of toil and want, Of slavery, knavery, greed and cant, Of bigotry, murder, hypocrisy — Speak thou the things that are seen of thee ! ISSA Canst thou not save me, Pan, And balk the bestial plan ?