TO THE MORNING STAR.
Lucifer, Lucifer Son of the Morning,
Trembling and fair on the opening skies,
Heralding, truly, a day that is dawning,
Telling the “Light of the World” shall arise.
Lucifer, Lucifer, all through the Ages
Weary hearts struggled and watched for the light,
Now it is coming, and thou the forerunner,
Mystical prophet, the herald of Right.
There in the desert of Night where thou dwellest,
Round thee in myriads the feebler lights stand;
Lucifer, Lucifer, ever thou tellest
The glorious Kingdom of Right is at hand.
Rising and setting, O, Star of the Morning!
Strangely prophetic, thou atom of light;
Revealing in silence the law of creation.
Out from the unseen abyss of the night,
Into a world where the stars, sympathetic,
Seem to be fraught with a pulsating breath;
Brilliant, yet shining like tear-drops pathetic,
But sinking at last in oblivion of death!
Sinking, but wrapped in the shroud of the Morning,
Folded in splendour as light shall arise;
Lucifer, herald of Truth that is dawning,
Ride through thy glorious pathway, the skies!
Soon in the east, with a splendour triumphant,
Morning shall break like a great altar-fire,
Ignorance, darkness, and gross superstition,
Shall melt in its beams, and in silence expire!
Helen Fagg.
.... “The faith that you call sacred—‘sacred as the most delicate or manly or womanly sentiment of love and honour’—is the faith that nearly all of your fellow men are to be lost. Ought an honest man to be restrained from denouncing that faith because those who entertain it say that their feelings are hurt? You say to me: ‘There is a hell. A man advocating the opinions you advocate will go there when he dies.’ I answer: ‘There is no hell, the Bible that teaches it is not true.’ And you say: ‘How can you hurt my feelings?’”—R. G. Ingersoll.—Secular Review.