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!