Sometimes I laugh—what else can a man do <br />Who does not know ? This little ego here <br />Braving the void, this fleck upon the blue, <br />This filmy wing sounding the starry sphere— <br />What bold abysmal incongruity, <br />What joke of the gods to make a mock of me ! <br /> <br />I hear you sing, and wonder how you dare. <br />Too fine for song they are—the tint of the rose, <br />The touch of a child, love's beauty and despair, <br />All the sad furtive exquisiteness that blows, <br />Like scent of gardens I may never see, <br />Across my sense to make a mock of me. <br /> <br />That I, this atom infinitesimal, <br />This chance-blown seed of flesh and fire, that I <br />Should front the dread immensity, the all, <br />Shocking the silence with my futile cry— <br />What dark inscrutable absurdity, <br />What joke of the gods to make a mock of me!<br /><br />Harriet Monroe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-mockery/
