'The Voice from Over Yonder'

  “Did she care as much as I did
  When our paths of Fate divided?
  Was the love, then, all onesided—
Did she understand or care?”
  Slowly fall the moments leaden,
  And the silence seems to deaden—
And a voice from over yonder answers sadly: “I’ve been there.”

  “Have you tramped the streets of cities
  Poor? And do you know what it is—
  While no mortal cares or pities—
  To have drifted past ambition;
To have sunk below despair?
  Doomed to slave and stint and borrow;
  Ever haunted in your sorrow
  By the spectre of To-morrow?”
And the voice from over yonder answers sadly: “I’ve been there.”

  “Surely in the wide Hereafter
  There’s a land of love and laughter?
  Say: Is this life all we live for—
Say it! think it, if you dare!
  Have you ever thought or wondered
  Why the Man and God were sundered?
  Do you think the Maker blundered?”
And the voice, in mocking accents, answered only: “I’ve been there.”