REMAINDER

 

I dreamed that Science would relieve my pain;

And through the weary night I tossed and turned,

Tormented by utopian concerns

To satisfy all cravings in my brain—

Surmount the bounds of space and time and strain

With brave new breakthroughs of Technology:

When suddenly, all Nature turned on me

The elements I thought that I had tamed!

Consumed with fire, choked in a watery grave,

By earth’s upheavals torn, I gasped for breath;

As every atom of which these were made

Split open, to reveal the jaws of death—

But in the twisted ruins of my toys,

Compassion stood, of all things undestroyed.