We Are Fatherless

'FOUND Thee not by the starved widow's bed,
Nor in the sick-rooms where my dear ones died; see the writer's Prose Works, Volume v.
In Cities vast I hearken'd for Thy tread,
And heard a thousand call Thee, wretched-eyed,
Worn out, and bitter. But the Heavens denied
Their melancholy Maker. From the Dead!
Assurance came, nor answer. Then I fled
Into these wastes, and raised my hands, and cried:
'The seasons pass — the sky is as a pall —
Thin wasted hands on withering hearts we press —
There is no God — in vain we plead and call,
In vain with weary eyes we search and guess—
Like children in an empty house sit all,
Cast-away children, lorn and fatherless.'