The Weakling

I am a weakling. God, who made
The still, strong man, made also me.
The God who could the tiger plan,
In his lithe splendour unafraid —
A thing of flame and poetry —
That Puissance made of me — a Man !

The One who reared His vast design —
Star, atom, system, germ, and soul —
Could fashion forth this tremulous
And paltry little heart of mine !
The God who could conceive the Whole,
Himself blasphemed in building thus.

When I dare look the glass within,
The ' Mene Tekel ' mark I see.
God made this slinking, stunted thing,
This narrowed face, this futile chin,
Prisoned a soul deliberately
'Neath these blunt nerves unanswering ?

I see my fellows strong and proud,
Lustful and splendid with desires,
Secure and strenuous within,
God opulently them endowed,
And lit in them immortal fires ;
And left me scarcely strength to sin.

I watch them triumph by, afar,
Crashing through life with crude disdain.
Theirs is a universe so wide,
So keen and rich the colours are
That reach each fine responsive brain.
They are the bridegrooms, Life the bride !

They carry in their veins their fate ;
Foredoomed are they to victory.
Their broad brows are a diadem
Of mastery ; they but await
Their long determined destiny,
For at their birth Life laurelled them.

They have their chance to win, to fall —
The fighting chance, the deathless hope ;
Their fate they venture to assail ;
They chafe for ever at their thrall ;
They dare with their despair to cope,
Superbly strive, superbly fail.

But I starve with a stunted brain :
My vision is so mean and scant
That every hue it blurs and dulls.
God branded me — this brow of Cain U—
Put in me this heart hesitant,
And lamed me with a limping pulse.

I watch them striding on ; they flout
Death even ; then my path I see :
The narrow path — the narrow curse.
Ah, wonder, if I dare to doubt
If sin of mine prescribed for me
This mean and niggard universe ?

The end that is upon my face
And in my wizened soul I wait —
The end that I shall count for good.
Yet they who pass me in the race
Left me to falter to my fate :
They did not slay me when they should.

But yet He found ' that it was good '.
Ah ! surely in the soul of God
For me some kindly pity is ?
Or else I wonder how He could
Raise me — a soul — up from the sod,
Lift me from Nothingness — to this !

Yet — thin weak lips and woman-chin —
Some unknown debt to me is paid,
Some sacrifice I may not see.
I expiate some other's sin.
I am God's weakling. He who made
The still, strong man, made also me,