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By what random accident or governed Chance That shaped a rule out of fortuitous steps, Made destiny from an hour's emotion, came Into the unreadable mystery of Time The direr mystery of grief and pain? Is it thy God who made this cruel law? Or some disastrous Power has marred his work And he stands helpless to defend or save? A fatal seed was sown in life's false start When evil twinned with good on earthly soil. Then first appeared the malady of mind, Its pang of thought, its quest for the aim of life. It twisted into forms of good and ill The frank simplicity of the animal's acts; It turned the straight path hewn by the body's gods, Followed the zigzag of the uncertain course Of life that wanders seeking for its aim In the pale starlight falling from thought's skies, Its guides the unsure idea, the wavering will. Lost was the instinct's safe identity With the arrow-point of being's inmost sight, Marred the sure steps of Nature's simple walk And truth and freedom in the growing soul. Out of some ageless innocence and peace, Privilege of souls not yet betrayed to birth, Cast down to suffer on this hard dangerous earth Our life was born in pain and with a cry. Although earth-nature welcomes heaven's breath Inspiring Matter with the will to live, A thousand ills assail the mortal's hours And wear away the natural joy of life; Our bodies are an engine cunningly made, But for all its parts as cunningly are planned, Contrived ingeniously with demon skill, Its apt inevitable heritage Of mortal danger and peculiar pain, 
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