You tell me this is God?
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n the desertA silence from the moon's deepestvalley.Fire rays fall athwart the robesOf hooded men, squat and dumb.Before them, a womanMoves to the blowing of shrill whistlesAnd distant thunder of drums,While mystic things, sinuous, dull withterrible color,Sleepily fondle her bodyOr move at her will, swishing stealthily overthe sand.The snakes whisper softly;The whispering, whispering snakes,Dreaming and swaying and staring,But always whispering, softly whispering.The wind streams from the lone reachesOf Arabia, solemn with night,And the wild fire makes shimmer of bloodOver the robes of the hooded menSquat and dumb. Bands of moving bronze, emerald, yellow,Circle the throat and arms of her,And over the sands serpents move warilySlow, menacing and submissive,Swinging to the whistles and drums,The whispering, whispering snakes,Dreaming and swaying and staring,But always whispering, softly whispering.The dignity of the accursed;The glory of slavery, despair, death,Is in the dance of the whispering snakes. A newspaper is a collection of half-injusticesWhich, bawled by boys from mile to mile,Spreads its curious opinionTo a million merciful and sneering men,While families cuddle the joys of the firesideWhen spurred by tale of dire lone agony.A newspaper is a courtWhere every one is kindly and unfairly triedBy a squalor of honest men.A newspaper is a marketWhere wisdom sells its freedomAnd melons are crowned by the crowd.A newspaper is a gameWhere his error scores the player victoryWhile another's skill wins death.A newspaper is a symbol;It is fetless life's chronical,A collection of loud talesConcentrating eternal stupidities,That in remote ages lived unhaltered,Roaming through a fenceless world. The wayfarer,Perceiving the pathway to truth,Was struck with astonishment.It was thickly grown with weeds."Ha," he said,"I see that none has passed here"In a long time."Later he saw that each weedWas a singular knife."Well," he mumbled at last,"Doubtless there are other roads." A slant of sun on dull brown walls,A forgotten sky of bashful blue. Toward God a mighty hymn,A song of collisions and cries,Rumbling wheels, hoof-beats, bells,Welcomes, farewells, love-calls, final moans,Voices of joy, idiocy, warning, despair,The unknown appeals of brutes,The chanting of flowers,The screams of cut trees,The senseless babble of hens and wise men--A cluttered incoherency that says at thestars;"O God, save us!" Once a man clambering to the housetopsAppealed to the heavens.With a strong voice he called to the deafspheres;A warrior's shout he raised to the suns.Lo, at last, there was a dot on the clouds,And--at last and at last----God--the sky was filled with armies. There was a man with tongue of woodWho essayed to sing,And in truth it was lamentable.But there was one who heardThe clip-clapper of this tongue of woodAnd knew what the manWished to sing,And with that the singer was content. The successful man has thrust himselfThrough the water of the years,Reeking wet with mistakes,--Bloody mistakes;Slimed with victories over the lesser,A figure thankful on the shore of money.Then, with the bones of foolsHe buys silken bannersLimned with his triumphant face;With the skins of wise menHe buys the trivial bows of all.Flesh painted with marrowContributes a coverlet,A coverlet for his contented slumber.In guiltless ignorance, in ignorant guilt,He delivered his secrets to the riven multitude."Thus I defended: Thus I wrought."Complacent, smiling,He stands heavily on the dead.Erect on a pillar of skullsHe declaims his trampling of babes;Smirking, fat, dripping,He makes speech in guiltless ignorance,Innocence. In the nightGrey heavy clouds muffled the valleys,And the peaks looked toward God alone."O Master that movest the wind with afinger,"Humble, idle, futile peaks are we."Grant that we may run swiftly acrossthe world"To huddle in worship at Thy feet." In the morningA noise of men at work came the clear blue miles,And the little black cities were apparent."O Master that knowest the meaning of raindrops,"Humble, idle, futile peaks are we."Give voice to us, we pray, O Lord,"That we may sing Thy goodness to the sun."In the eveningThe far valleys were sprinkled with tiny lights."O Master,"Thou that knowest the value of kings and birds,"Thou hast made us humble, idle, futile peaks."Thous only needest eternal patience;"We bow to Thy wisdom, O Lord--"Humble, idle, futile peaks."
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