Anne Harlan Prather - Hymn to Breaking Strain lyrics

The careful text-books measure – Let all who build beware! – The load, the shock, the pressure material can bear: So, when the buckled girder lets down the grinding span, The blame of loss, or murder, is laid upon the man; Not on the Steel – the Man! But, in our daily dealing with stone and steel, we find The Gods have no such feeling of justice toward mankind. To no set gauge they make us, for no laid course prepare – In time they overtake us with loads we cannot bear: Too merciless to bear. The prudent text-books give it in tables at the end – The stress that shears a rivet, or makes a tie-bar bend – What traffic wrecks macadam – what concrete should endure – But we, poor Sons of Adam, have no such literature To warn us or make sure! We hold all Earth to plunder – all Time and Space as well – Too wonder-stale to wonder at each new miracle; Till in the mid-illusion of Godhood 'neath our hand Falls multiple confusion on all we did or planned – The mighty works we planned. We only in Creation – how much luckier the bridge and rail! – Abide the twin damnation: to fail and know we fail. Yet we – by which sole token we know we once were Gods – Take shame in being broken, however great the odds – The Burden or the Odds. Oh, veiled and secret Power, whose paths we seek in vain, Be with us in our hour of overthrow and pain, That we – by which sure token we know Thy ways are true – In spite of being broken, or because of being broken, Rise up and build anew. Stand up and build anew!