Poem “God is Cold” by agnostic Stephen Crane, famous as the author of “The Red Badge of Courage.”
A man adrift on a slim spar
A horizon smaller than the rim of a bottle
Tented waves rearing lashy dark points
The near whine of froth in circles.
God is cold.
The incessant raise and swing of the sea
And growl after growl of crest
The sinkings, green, seething, endless
The upheaval half-completed.
God is cold.
A horizon smaller than a doomed assassin’s cap,
Inky, surging tumults
A reeling, drunken sky and no sky
A pale hand sliding from a polished spar.
God is cold.
The puff of a coat imprisoning air;
A face kissing the water-death
A weary slow sway of a lost hand
And the sea, the moving sea, the sea.
God is cold.
Crane’s angry lyrics reflect the despairing heart-song of today’s secular consensus: if God is there, he cares little about humankind’s needs – God has an arctic heart. If the truth be known, most Christians have had similar thoughts of God. The predictable atheism of our sinful natures naturally quarrels with God when we go through hard times.