winged devil-birds,
All bent on slaughter and destruction. These and yet more shameful things
mine eyes beheld:
Old men upon lascivious conquest bent, and young men living with no thought
of God,
And half-clothed women puffing at a weed, aping the vices of the
underworld,
Engrossed in shallow pleasures and intent on being barren wives.
These things I saw.
(How God must loathe His earth!)

Glad man, Glad man, tell me, pray.
What did you see to-day?

I saw an aged couple, in whose eyes
Shone that deep light of mingled love and faith,
Which makes the earth one room of paradise,
And leaves no sting in death.

I saw vast regiments of children pour,
Rank after rank, out of the schoolroom door
By Progress mobilised. They seemed to say:
'Let ignorance make way.
We are the heralds of a better day.'

I saw the college and the church that stood
For all things sane and good.
I saw God's helpers in the shop and slum
Blazing a path for health and hope to come,
And True Religion, from the grave of creeds,