Not that the earth is changing, O my God!
Nor that the seasons totter in their walk,
Not that the virulent ill of act and talk
Seethes ever as a winepress ever trod,
Not therefore are we certain that the rod
Weighs in thine hand to smite thy world; though now
Beneath thine hand so many nations bow,
So many kings:not therefore, O my God!
But because Man is parcelled out in men
To-day; because, for any wrongful blow
No man not stricken asks, I would be told
Why thou dost thus; but his heart whispers then,
He is he, I am I. By this we know
That our earth falls asunder, being old.
On Refusal Of Aid Between Nations
written byDante Gabriel Rossetti
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti