Iii

Imperfect, imperfect God made us,--or the power that men call God.-- And I think that a Power so perfect, that made us with merely a nod, Could have fashioned us beings less faulty; more able to wear and to bear; Less open to mar and to fracture; less filled with the stuff of despair: Less damned with the unavailing; less empty of all good things-- The hopes and the dreams that mature not while the clay still to them clings: I am sick of it all, belovéd! of the world and the ways of God; The thorns that have pierced thy bosom; the shards of the paths we have trod: I am sick of going and coming; and of love I am sickest of all: The striving, the praying, the dreaming; and the things that never befall.-- So there in the storm and the darkness,--O fair, and O fugitive!-- Out there in the night, belovéd, must thou die so I may live!