Part 13 (1/2)

THE SUNRISE

The Sun is G.o.d's great joy to Human sight.

Oh, up and off in chariots, Sea! and ride, All generations, up, till mountain-eyed, To welcome earth-ward, G.o.d's Supreme delight.

Imagination swirls in swallow flight, Giddy with Beauty, deepening--Oh, how glide From star to star, to the haloes, season-dyed And countless! Its wings shrivel up like night.

Oh, yea, the Sun in one subliming rise From Wisdom's infinite mind! This Reason knows.

It has no set. There, Sense, with weals or woes For beads, or fingers, count our shuts of eyes, Excluding Knowledge. What! G.o.d's joy to close And all its goodness break and drift cloud-wise?

TWO DARKNESSES

There are two darknesses; one where the Lord Hides beauty--that by which men know His face.

All, in that darkness, feel His fingers trace Their features gently, and their hearts record The feeling, as of one, whose eyes, restored, Would see, but for the Father's close embrace.

The other is the outer dark--a place Where hate turns black the light upon it poured.

O G.o.d! the only darkness that I dread, Is where Thou art not--that where Hate's black fire Surmounts the heavens, to burst with thunder dire And, in its fall forever, drag the dead Of heart and spirit--those whom Thy desire Would fain have made the halo round Thy head.

THE DOOM OF HATE

A spirit pa.s.sed the Sun, the Moon and Star, And dwelled and dreamed in darkness all its own.

The music of the spheres, though thither blown, As faint as fragrance from a flower afar, Disturbed this spirit's ear, attuned to jar Of orb with orb; for hate of light, truth known, Fas.h.i.+ons hot worlds which, cooled to clay and stone, Clash, rising toward calm Heaven, which they would mar.

Ah, if where love was not, he smiled elate, His smile at G.o.d returned, a lightening flash That shattered him. He saw his planets clash, Burst and, then, by the downward law of hate, Sink and leave not a single spark, nor ash, For the new firmament he would create.

THE EVIL IN THE WORLD

There are two G.o.ds--one, Good, the other, Ill.

They clash in Nature--so the Persian taught, And long a sect in Europe spread the thought.

Why there is evil is a problem still To many, who see not in Human Will, A being that with beauty could have caught Up to his Maker, had he gladly wrought With light and warmth, instead of dark and chill.

G.o.d said, ”Let there be Light,” and light was made.

G.o.d made not darkness--that is light's exclusion, Forming a region where, in wild confusion, Men, Nations, each a ferret, blood-eyed shade, Worry each other, till, with disillusion For lamp, comes conscience, crying, ”G.o.d Betrayed!”

THE EARTH RENEWED BY MEMORY

Ah, in the angel-fall from Heaven, is hope?

The wing-whir discord of the legion's fall From G.o.d forever, mocks my heart's loud call.