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Robert Laurence Binyon - Angered Reason
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Angered Reason walked with me
 A street so squat, unshapen, bald,
 So blear--windowed and grimy--walled,
 So dismal--doored, it seemed to be

 The abortion of a mind that had
 Nor wit nor will to make, but left
 Its impotence in image, reft
 Of even the means of seeming glad.

 And there, like never--ripened fruit,
 Unsunned and starved, were human lives
 In joyless, neighbour--dreading hives
 Of care, with half their senses mute.

 It pressed on me, that patient street,
 It hurt me that it housed my kind:
 It was so abject and resigned
 And so deformed, I hated it.

 The stars that flowered above grew bright;
 The evening filled with wondrous blue;
 The lampshine glistened in the dew;
 The gliding trams were ships of light.

 And through my rebel heart there ran
 The want of things not bought or sold;
 The spirit free to make and mould;
 The naked glory of a man.

 And fevered I began to build
 A city, like the body, worth
 The natural happiness of earth,
 And with this folk its streets I filled,

 No more from widest joy exiled
 Nor helpless in a caging net.
 Suddenly by a lamp I met
 A woman carrying her child.

 I stopped the building of my dream:
 For there was all the future`s book
 Written in that enfolding look,
 And there the never--ending theme,

 And there the builder of the strong
 City of men`s desire; but there
 Also the shadow of the snare
 And the corruption and the wrong.

 Ah, now I doubted of my thought
 That could so easily perfect
 Wishes in dream, and raise the wrecked,
 And make all noble as it wrought.

 Those mother`s eyes, absorbed, unknown,
 Had made my vision wan and thin.
 There was a harder world to win
 From flesh and blood than wood and stone.

 O now of those, life`s prisoners, none,
 Soiled, soured, or hardened, but had speech
 To me of secret wonder; each
 Was once so wonderful to one!

 Yet she that bears the pang, and hears
 The first young cry and stills its want,
 And can with her vast hope enchant
 The promise of betraying years,--

 Who should have beauty`s best but she
 To whom a son is given? That street
 Of life`s denial and defeat
 Stood in my mind, accusing me.
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