VIII

Ay. be silent!  Let them hear each other breathing
For a moment, mouth to mouth;
Let them touch each other’s hands, in a fresh wreathing
Of their tender human youth;
Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
Is not all the life God fashions or reveals;
Let them prove their living souls against the notion
That they live in you, or tinder you, O wheels! 
Still all day the iron wheels go onward,
Grinding life down from its mark;
And the children’s souls, which God is calling sunward,
Spin on blindly in the dark.

IX

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,
To look up to Him, and pray;
So the blessed One who blesseth all the others
Will bless them another day. 
They answer, “Who is God, that he should hear us
While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred? 
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word;
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
Strangers speaking at the door. 
Is it likely God, with angels singing round him,
Hears our weeping any more?

X

“Two words, indeed, of praying we remember;
And at midnight’s hour of harm,
‘Our Father,’ looking upward in the chamber,
We say softly for a charm. 
We know no other words except ‘Our Father’;
And we think that, in some pause of angels’ song,
God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
And hold both within his right hand, which is strong. 
‘Our Father!’ If he heard us, he would surely
(For they call him good and mild)
Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,
‘Come and rest with me, my child.’

XI

“But no!” say the children, weeping faster,
“He is speechless as a stone;
And they tell us, of his image is the master
Who commands us to work on. 
Go to!” say the children,—­“up in heaven,
Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find. 
Do not mock us:  Grief has made us unbelieving: 
We look up for God; but tears have made us blind.” 
Do you hear the children weeping and disproving,
O my brothers, what ye preach? 
For God’s possible is taught by his world’s loving—­
And the children doubt of each.

XII

And well may the children weep before you! 
They are weary ere they run;
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
Which is brighter than the sun. 
They know the grief of man, without its wisdom;
They sink in man’s despair, without its calm;
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom;
Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm;
Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly
The harvest of its memories cannot reap;
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly—­
Let them weep! let them weep!

XIII