University of Virginia Library

TWO SONNETS

I
MERCY AND JUSTICE

“Mercy, good Lord,” the sea-beach preachers pray:
“Mercy for sinful man; for he deserves
His doom, and thy great justice never swerves,—
Mercy for man in thy grim judgment-day!”
So they exclaim,—beside the sea-waves grey
O'er which that unconverted sea-gull curves.
And some with craven hearts and cowardly nerves
Bend to the lurid God their words portray.
But I—I stand secluded and apart,
And mix my spirit with the sea's great heart,
And with the voice, as it were, of all the sea
I cry: “Not mercy,—justice, we require;
Be thou true-souled, O God,—and be no liar;
Lo! that much sorrowing man demands from thee.”

II
THE GREAT CHANGE

Of old the singers spake of loving ways
Of God towards man, of wondrous mercies shown:
God was the Giver of all things—man alone
Received, and homage of high love and praise
Was due to God,—altars mankind must raise;
With gladness shout or for transgressions moan.—
But now crime's torrent gushes from God's throne!
God seems to us the sinner in these days.
Of old, it seemed, the heavenly eye pursued
Sinners who fled from it beyond the light,
Cowered in the darkness, trembled at the sun.
Now man demands of God: “But art thou good?
Hast thou, Lord God, in every point done right?
Hast thou loved justice? Yea, what hast thou done?”