Explore "Roses and Rue" by Leigh Gordon Giltner on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Awake, alive to pain! The first steel gleam of morn / Stabs deep the heart I thought had shrunk to dust, / The love I prayed might die to loveless scorn / Awakes and cries. Ah, God, how is it just / A fault so slight such meed of pain should pay, / That one mad word in pride and anger spoken / Should leave two lives forever crushed and broken, / Should plait a scourge to lash my soul for aye?
How can a just God see men suffer thus?-- / Unheedful of the cosmic cry of pain, / Unmoved by all the pangs that torture us, / Knowing our prayers and tears alike are vain-- / Like to a wanton boy who feels no thrill / Of pity for the weak his strength holds thrall, / Who pins a helpless butterfly against a wall, / Watching the bright wings flutter and grow still.