One day the Great Designer sought <br />His Clerk of Birth and Death. <br />Said he: "Two souls are in my thought, <br />to whom I gave life-breath. <br />I deemed my work was fitly done, <br />But yester-eve I saw <br />That in the finished brain of one <br />There was a tiny flaw. <br /> <br />"It worried me, and I would know, <br />Since I am all to blame, <br />What happened to them down below, <br />Of honour or of shame; <br />For if the later did befall, <br />My sorrow will be grave . . ." <br />Then numbers astronomical <br />unto the Clerk he gave. <br /> <br />The Keeper of the Rolls replied: <br />"Of them I've little trace; <br />But one he was a Prince of pride <br />And one of lowly race. <br />One was a Holy Saint proclaimed; <br />For one no hell sufficed . . . . <br />Let's see - the last was Nero named, <br />The other . . . Jesus Christ."<br /><br />Robert William Service<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/divine-detachment/
