The poem
You say I am the slave of Fate Bound by unalterable laws. I harken, but your words I hate, Your damnable Effect and Cause. If there's no hope for happy Chance Give me the bliss of ignorance.
You say my life ends with the tomb; This brain, my mind machine, will rot; Its many million cells that room My personality and thought Will in the Dark Destroyer's term Provide a banquet for the worm.
You say--yet though your wisdom wells, To it I am unreconciled; My mind admits, my heart rebels . . . O let me listen like a child To Him who spoke with blessed breath From bench of toil in Nazareth!