University of Virginia Library

X. God's Dream.

I hear a voice, ‘How should God pardon sin?
How should He save the sinner with the sinless?
That would be ill: the Lord my God is just.’
Further I hear, ‘How should God pardon lust?
How should He comfort the adulteress?
That would be foul: the Lord my God is pure.’
Further I hear, ‘How should God pardon blood?
How should the murtherer have a place in heaven
Beside the innocent life he took away?’
And God is on His throne; and in a dream
Sees mortals making figures out of clay,
Shapen like men, and calling them God's angels.
And sees the shapes look up into His eyes,
Exclaiming, ‘Thou didst ill to save this man;
Damn Thou this woman, and curse this cut-throat, Lord!’
God dreams this, and His dreaming is the world;
And thou and I are dreams within His dream;
And nothing dieth God hath dreamt or thought.