Rebel Angel

If ever I am  angel bright
    With golden wings to fit,
I'll pluck from one a feather light
    And make a pen of it;
And write a verse of nobler worth
    Than I composed on earth.

What shall it Be? I do not know -
    But of weariness  and woe,
    Of earth-folk downward driven;
Of ruthless martyrdom of man,
    Since human life began.

Of those first children of the night
    In caves of bitter bale,
Who fought their way up to the Light,
    Through filth   and cold and ail;
Whose depth of pain was all their measure,
    And lack of pain their pleasure.

Our ancestors who knew not tears
    And had no heart for grief;
Who thought old age was thirty years,
    And bore beyond belief
A suffering that men today
    Seek morphine to allay.

And unto HIM who rules on high,
    Whose face I may not see,
With indignation I would cry:
    "Why had this blight to be?
Aeons of agony to pass
    Till champagne brim the glass!"

Then would the Lord of Heaven say:
    "Why should this bard rebel?"
And send me downward straight away
    To plumb the depths of hell.
But I would rather languish  there
    Than know in Paradise despair
For all the darkness  and the dearth,
    The Hell of sons of Earth.