The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs ; 



His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon ; 



His death-pang rent my heart ! the insensate mob 



Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept. 



Weep not, child ! cried my mother, for that man 



Has said, There is no God. 



TAIRY. There is no God ! 



Nature confirms the faith his death-groan seal'd : 



Let heaven and earth, let man's revolving race, 



His ceaseless generations, tell their tale ; 



Let every part depending on the chain 



That links it to the whole, point to the hand 



That grasps its term ! Let every seed that falls, 



In silent eloquence unfold its store 



Of argument : infinity within, 



Infinity without, belie creation ; 



The exterminable spirit it contains 



Is Nature's only God ; but human pride 



Is skilful to invent most serious names 



To hide its ignorance. 



The name of God 



Has fenced about all crime with holiness, 

 Himself the creature of his worshippers, 

 Whose names and attributes and passions change, 

 Seeva, Buddh, Foh, Jehovah, God, or Lord, 

 Even with the human dupes who build his shrines, 

 Still serving o'er the war-polluted world 

 For desolation's watchword ; whether hosts 

 Stain his death- blushing chariot wheels, as on 

 Triumphantly they roll, whilst Brahmins raise 

 A sacred hymn to mingle with the groans ; 

 Or countless partners of his power divide 

 His tyranny to weakness ; or the smoke 

 Of burning towns, the cries of female helplessness, 

 Unarmed old age, and youth, and infancy, 

 Horribly massacred, ascend to heaven 

 In honour of his name ; or, last and worst, 

 Earth groans beneath religion's iron age, 

 And priests dare babble of a God of peace, 

 Even while their hands are red with guiltless blood, 

 Murdering the while, uprooting every germ 

 Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all, 

 Making the earth a slaughter-house ! 



There is no God ! What, then, caused this mighty universe ? To 

 be caused implies a cause, certainly ; and that cause must, in the very 

 nature of things, be adequate for the production of the effect manifested- 

 But, inasmuch as cause and effect are but relative terms, the cause could 

 not exist independently of the effect, and vice versa. Therefore, as far 

 as the human mind is capable of mentating, the universe could not 



