My days are haunted by the thought <br />Of men in coils of Justice caught <br />With stone and steel, in chain and cell, <br />Of men condemned to living hell,-- <br /> Yet blame them not. <br /> <br />In my sun-joy their dark I see: <br />For what they are and had to be <br />Blame Nature, red in tooth and claw, <br />Blame laws beyond all human law, <br /> --Blame Destiny. <br /> <br />Behind blind walls I see them go, <br />Grim spectres of eternal woe, <br />Drained grey of hope, dead souls of self-slain,-- <br />And yet I know with pang of pain <br /> It must be so. <br /> <br />I know that brother's blood they've spilt, <br />And sons of Cain must pay their guilt; <br />I know the deviltries that stem <br />From dark abyss we must condemn; <br />I know that but for heaven's grace <br />We might be rotting in their place: <br /> --God pity them!<br /><br />Robert William Service<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-damned/
