Voices of Light
Us in unholy thought
Patiently lying,
Eöns of violence wrought,
Violence defying;
When, on a mighty wind,
Voiced of a godly mind,
Big with a motive kind,
Girdled with wonder,
Flame and a strength of song,
Rolling vast light along,
Thundered the Word, and Wrong
Vanished,—and we were strong,
Strong as the thunder.
Voices of Darkness
We people the lower spaces,
Where our cities of silence make scorn
Of the sun, and our shadowy faces
Are safe from the splendors of morn.
Our homes are wrecked worlds and each planet
Whose sun is a light that is sped;
Bleak moons, whose cold bodies of granite
Are hollow and flameless and dead.
Voices of Light
We in the living sun
Live like a passion:
Ere the sad Earth begun
We and the sun were one,
As God did fashion.
Lo! from our burning hands,
Flung like inspired brands,
Sowed we the worlds, like sands,
Countless as ocean:
And ’tis our breath gives life,
Life to those stars, all rife
With iridescent strife,
Music and motion.
Voices of Darkness
We joy in the hate of all mortals;
Inspire their crimes and the thought
That falters and halts at the portals
Of actions, intentions unwrought.
We cover the face of to-morrow:
We frown in the hours that be:
We breathe in the presence of sorrow:
And death and destruction are we.
Voices of Light
We are man’s hope and ease,
Joy and his pleasure;
Authors of love and peace,
Love that shall never cease,
Free as the azure.
Lo! we but look, and light
Heartens the world with might,
Vanquishes death and night
Hate and its burnings:
And from our bosoms stream
Beauty and yearnings
For a diviner dream,
Higher discernings.