The Mockery

Sometimes I laugh—what else can a man do

Who does not know ? This little ego here

Braving the void, this fleck upon the blue,

This filmy wing sounding the starry sphere—

What bold abysmal incongruity,

What joke of the gods to make a mock of me !

I hear you sing, and wonder how you dare.

Too fine for song they are—the tint of the rose,

The touch of a child, love's beauty and despair,

All the sad furtive exquisiteness that blows,

Like scent of gardens I may never see,

Across my sense to make a mock of me.

That I, this atom infinitesimal,

This chance-blown seed of flesh and fire, that I

Should front the dread immensity, the all,

Shocking the silence with my futile cry—

What dark inscrutable absurdity,

What joke of the gods to make a mock of me!