The Weakling
I AM a weakling. God, who made
The still, strong man, made also me.
The God who could the tiger plan,
In his lithe splendour unafraid-
A thing of flame and poetry-
That Puissance made of me-a Man!
The One who reared His vast design-
Star, atom, system, germ, and soul-
Could fashion forth this tremulous
And paltry little heart of mine!
The God who could conceive the Whole,
Himself blasphemed in building thus.
When I dare look the glass within,
The -Mene Tekel- mark I see.
God made this slinking, stunted thing,
This narrowed face, this futile chin,
Prisoned a soul deliberately
-Neath these blunt nerves unanswering?
I see my fellows strong and proud,
Lustful and splendid with desires,
Secure and strenuous within,
God opulently them endowed,
And lit in them immortal fires;
And left me scarcely strength to sin.
I watch them triumph by, afar,
Crashing through life with crude disdain.
Theirs is a universe so wide,
So keen and rich the colours are
That reach each fine responsive brain.
They are the bridegrooms, Life the bride!
They carry in their veins their fate;
Foredoomed are they to victory.
Their broad brows are a diadem
Of mastery; they but await
Their long determined destiny,
For at their birth Life laurelled them.
They have their chance to win, to fall-
The fighting chance, the deathless hope;
Their fate they venture to assail;
They chafe for ever at their thrall;
They dare with their despair to cope,
Superbly strive, superbly fail.
But I starve with a stunted brain:
My vision is so mean and scant
That every hue it blurs and dulls.
God branded me-this brow of Cain!-
Put in me this heart hesitant,
And lamed me with a limping pulse.
I watch them striding on; they flout
Death even; then my path I see:
The narrow path-the narrow curse.
Ah, wonder, if I dare to doubt
If sin of mine prescribed for me
This mean and niggard universe?
The end that is upon my face
And in my wizened soul I wait-
The end that I shall count for good.
Yet they who pass me in the race
Left me to falter to my fate:
They did not slay me when they should.
But yet He found -that it was good-.
Ah! surely in the soul of God
For me some kindly pity is?
Or else I wonder how He could
Raise me-a soul-up from the sod,
Lift me from Nothingness-to this!
Yet-thin weak lips and woman-chin-
Some unknown debt to me is paid,
Some sacrifice I may not see.
I expiate some other-s sin.
I am God-s weakling. He who made
The still, strong man, made also me.
Arthur Henry Adams
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