The Laws Of God, The Laws Of Man (A. E. Housman) Aaron Ellenbarger (7-00)

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The Laws Of God,
The Laws Of Man
(A. E. Housman)
Aaron Ellenbarger

From: Aaron Ellenbarger
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Positive_Atheism_Letters_Section
Date: Saturday, July 22, 2000 1:45 PM

This is a great poem by a fantastic author that always kept in my mind the fact that there are others with my doubts and non-belief:

The Laws of God, The Laws of Man

The laws of God, the laws of man
    He may keep that will and can
Not I: Let God and man decree
    Laws for themselves and not for me;

And if my ways are not as theirs
    Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and most condemn
    Yet when did I make laws for them?

Please yourselves, Say I, and they
    Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
    Wrest their neighbor to their will,

And make me dance as they desire
    With jail and gallows and hellfire
And how am I to face the odds
    Of man's bedevilment and God's?

I, a stranger and afraid
    In a world I never made
They will be master, right or wrong;
    Though, both are foolish, both are strong

And since, my soul, we cannot flee
    To Saturn or to Mercury
Keep we must, If we can
    These foreign laws of God and man.

A.E. Housman

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