II
VERSE
II
VERSE
UNLESS THESE TEARS
WILLIAM KENNETH CHRISTIAN
INTRODUCTION
Sometimes the hand of God is terrible,
And sometimes good.
But always it is shaping unto a destined end,
With Mind beyond our keen imaginings,
This mass of fluid, magic stuff
We call humanity.
—1–
And now the day of fear has come;
The great terror stalks the earth.
Men skulk in shrub and bush
And cast their eyes to heaven
And watch with tight-held breath
The moving shuttles in the blue
As destruction weaves its pattern o’er the earth.
The women bear their babies in the subways,
Huddle with their brood in caves,
Paw through the wreckage of a house
To find memento of a wedding
Of an early married day,
Of a parent lost in time—in place—in feeling,
Of a childhood book, of a play-fellow,
Of some proud, safe moment.
Men are at bayonet drill;
The factories hum;
The camps flourish;
Men march and countermarch;
The motors roar;
Assembly lines are speeded up;
Ships plow the deep in convoy brood;
The women knit and wind up long gauze rolls.
For the destruction that wasteth by noonday is on you,
And the evil that striketh by night smites at your doors;
The flame of your culture licks at your cities,
Blasting your dreams and your genius,
Blighting the toddling child and the withered crone,
And the earth cries out in its anguish,
Yearning to cast its great burden.
The orators orate, they rant, they roar;
They puff their cheeks and bellow into microphones
And point accusing finger at their fellowmen.
Each is guiltless and omnipotent;
His stand is righteous, others wrong.
The air is full of charge and countercharge
And words blight the ear
And stun the eye
And deepen men’s confusion;
And through the interlocking days and nights
Men work bedeviled by a passion
Born when plane first dived
And killed a child
And sent a woman screaming down a rubble-studded street
And left a man white-lipped and shaking,
Staring at a void as black and deep
As ever poet painted hell.
—2–
How sweet the earth before this quake had come!
How beautiful the flowers in valley and on mountainside!
How numerous the works of genius!
The quiet of cathedral nave,
- the clean sweep and rise of gothic stone and rib
- meeting in the dimness overhead,
- light streaming through the multi-colored glass.
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The quaint old cities, little shops with tinkling bell above the door, bookstalls by the river, boats on the canals, slow-turning windmills on a still, still day, beer gardens and gay music, narrow cobbled streets with houses leaning overhead. The cities of the warm sun, glory of Naples from volcano’s top, silver and blue of the grotto, crumbling coliseum, frescoes and mosaic and smooth marble, silent gondolas and voice of song across the water.
The ships in the great harbors of the world, boats on the mighty riversYangtze and the Nile,
Platte and Mississippi,
The cargoes on these ships‘ silks and teas, machines and metals, hemp and wool and rice, the stuff of homes and life.
The work done on these cargoes, plans of engineers, rivets and plates of steel, great engines and churning wheels, produce of the farm and forest, the factory and the deep, the work of many hands and backs, and legs and hearts and brains, all climes and colors, all nations and all ereeds.
—3–
Now let the pompous music play
With a pace that’s stately, slow!
Now let the drums be muffled
As they roll in solemn beat!
Hang out the crepe, dark symbol of men’s mourning!
Let all the flags at half—mast be!
For a world lies dead before us
Prostrate in the ruin at our feet.
—4–
Hail you mighty men of arms, all hail! Rider of the Whirlwind, hail! Blazing comet of a world’s night, all hail!
Your snorting monsters have defied the snows and rains;
They’ve driven ’cross the plains and laid the mountains low;
You glanced upon vast cities and they shook With fear;
You spoke, and millions fled the words you uttered;
The walls of homes split,
The streets cracked, and the bowels of the city were laid open;
All this—all this—at your command.
The slut of the market place shouts in her glee;
The puny little men, the potbellied men.
The whining simp, the puling coward,
The men with warped and sunless souls.
They shout for you,
They shriek,
They pledge allegiance.
Come out on the balcony and show yourself
To these—the willing ones.
Stand on a crag in Norway,
Ply o’er the tulipped lowlands,
Gaze from the top of Eiffel Tower,
Stand defiantly upon Olympus, home of faded gods.
You are the god of the beast—man.
In all ages have you lived, in every clime.
But god that you are, conqueror though you be,
You bear no name,
You have no titles, no abode, no issue;
You are the bitter frenzy of a passing dream,
The conjured shape of men’s debauchery;
You were not of woman born,
But sprang from hatred’s dragon teeth.
And When the crowds acclaim you,
When they shout in frenzied worship,
It is not you they cry for,
It is not you that they exalt,
It is themselves!
Their hatred they have deified,
You’re only symbol of it;
You’re the cruelty of little boys torturing a rabbit in the woods.
The evil things that men have dreamed, The things of earth and nature’s blindness,
The blisters on the ignorant soul,
The festering sores of organs not in unity, The pus of ill health, and the tainted blood; Of these you are the symbol.
—5–
How fallen are the mighty in these days!
The kings scurrying like rats for a friendly hole.
Where are their ermine and their gilded thrones?
Where the lush whores and the fawning mendicants?
The rich dandies with bewildered eyes,
Fear stabbing at their withered hearts?
The great men of finance in flight
Clutching at their bags of gold?
The cosmopolitans who roamed the earth,
With no allegiance to country, people, or to God?
The men of letters from their nice retreats?
These planets jarred from snug, accustomed orbits
Are sent crashing through the awesome Space.
—6–
Destiny is in the saddle Riding down the Wind of time.
The hooves of his charger bite deep in the earth.
He crosses the boundaries, mountains and seas.
He strikes at the cities, even the hamlets,
Searching the earth and dark’ning the sky.
No spot is sacred, too remote;
No people free from punishment.
He stops but in the market place
To reign his charger in
And look upon the gods
That men have set up there.
Three gods he sees.
The objects of men’s worship and their sacrifice:
The god of nation—proud, disdainful holding in hairy hand a bloody sword; The god of race—a leering beast, blind of eye,
covered with red, running sores; The god of godlessness—deity of self and all men’s evil, sanctioner of the dungeon and the poisoned cup.
To these for years have men paid homage,
Bringing for the sacrifice
The fruits of harvest and the product of the mill.
The men of slender body, blue eyed and golden haired,
Pledged their fealty even unto death,
And maidens gave their virgin worth
With joy and due humility.
The scholar and the man of wealth,
The businessman and artisan All labored for the gods which they had made.
And in the market place when Destiny has stopped,
He’s laughed a hard and mocking laugh
And raised aloft a mighty arm
To crush in shapeless clay the little deities.
In every hamlet, every city, every land,
He’s left behind a murky gloom
That’s settled o’er the people like a heavy shroud.
Destiny is in the saddle
Riding down the wind of time,
And the voice of God roars with him, Roaring through the dark’ning air, Challenging the puny men
Who have turned their backs on Him, Challenging the evil men
\Vho promote their dark designs, Pronouncing doom upon the nations, And the worshippers of earth-made gods.
Destiny is in the saddle And he bears avenging sword.
—7–
Men have sat in pleasant philosophic mood, In teacup attitude, in cloistered self—assurance, And intoned pedantically, “Yea, we are God! In every one of us some shining bit of Essence is. Divine we are. One With the Maker. He in us. We create with God. \Vithout us He is nothing.”
You stupid little men! Stir up the atoms in your old bald heads! In what military god is Essence true?
In what plunderer, what blighter of a nation’s soul?
Does God decree the flame of hatred in the hearts?
By what subtle reason do you come at this?
What fragment of Divinity in power politics, in gangs of hired henchmen, in economic war, in frockcoat prostitution of the people’s
faith,
in intellectual disdain of lower classes, in ownership of tenement, in exclusive set and little favored circle, in the sly doctors of abortion, in the selfish pillars of the local good?
As bats do love the darkness, 50 men love themselves;
They love each sinew, bone and tendon, each nerve cell and each drop of blood; And they fight to make the world safe for
themselves, not others; They plot and scheme and organize to make the world reflect themselves, their bones, their sinews, and their own bad blood. And when the time of war and crisis comes, They do not blame themselves, They blame some other man, Some man who does the same thing that they do.
0 can’t you see, you paltry little men, That you are each a drop in one great sea, That you are each a leaf upon a great green
tree,
That you are only twigs and branches of that tree?
\Vhat right has drop to rule the ocean’s surge?
What right has drop to cleave the seas, disdaining half as being of an impure
kind?
What right has leaf to shake his fellow from the branch?
\tht right has twig to warp the natural growing of the tree?
You little drop—did you create the ocean’s surging tides?
You little leaf—did you put color in yourself?
And twig upon that tree—please tell me how you made yourself,
For I would know the secret of your arrogant and god—like right.
The rhythms of the world do not depend
on man.
typhoon does not ask the tree before
uprooting it.
The first man was not asked if he desired creation.
God does not inquire: "Little man, will you have it thus, or so?”
The
But men project their will into the universe
And hope to shape it.
And when the universe rejects disdainfully
Their vaunted hope and arrogance,
They cavil at the God who made them,
And so mercifully has laid them bare;
They fly at neighbors" throats
And sink beneath the level of the wolf,
And fear is rampant in the streets,
Terror stands grinning at the windowpane,
Destruction is pronounced in solemn tones
From radio and pulpit,
Men sicken in their stomachs and women cry,
Children tremble and old ones wish a speedy passing;
For this must be whenever men create gods in the image of themselves.
—8–
A world is passing.
Let it pass
And do not weep or mourn.
Shed not a tear for things destroyed.
If you must weep,
Weep then for men and not for monuments. The past is being blotted out,
The world of man and worship of the self; The world of man’s desire
And all the conflicts that arise
When human will is made
The measure of all worth.
This, all this is gone,
Cleansed by a mighty Wind
That’s rocked the planet in a frenzied gale.
And now that monuments are gone. Men can lift their eyes Above the valley floor
To the clear blue of heaven,
Symbolic of the unknown God Within Whose Mind, past fathoming, This planetary speck was given shape, Infused with meaning,
And set upon its course.
—9–
Take a map up in your hand. What do you see?
Plains and valleys clearly marked,
Peaks and rivers, lakes and swamps,
Cities, villages and towns,
Naval bases, points of strategy,
Latitude and longitude,
Torrid zone and temperate, arctic too,
Boundaries and capitals,
Different colors here and there upon the continents.
Yes, but is this all?
Can’t you also see upon the map The living heart of all humanity On this planetary scroll?
The busy city streets with the blaring traflic horns, the officer with Whistle and an upraised hand, the jostling throngs at noontide and the emptiness at night, screaming ambulance and small delivery truck. The stray farm on the grassy plain, With windmill standing guardian and knot of trees to shade it from the sun, the flowers nursed in garden and in Window box, the gay chintz and the bright carpet, the picture on the calendar of waterfall in magic land. The small flat in the city, the lunch box on the table, the crumpled evening paper by the easy chair, the soft light in a bedroom where a baby lies. The factory With the dull brick walls, noise surging through the dusty air, the turning wheels and endless belts, and the constant, constant clang of pistons full of power.
The schoolboy With his books and a heart of pure romance, half formed smile upon his lips at the instance of the teeming pictures in his brain.
These are the things upon the map
If you read its signs aright.
Human beings are the treasures of the earth; They alone can glimpse the one reality And show it forth
In simple Ways and great.
Let the statues fall into the dust,
Let the stupid slogans ring
Until their falsity is manifest;
Human life has destiny
Which no glittering force can thwart;
It will know the rightful way
Even though a host of men and the armies of the world
Pillage, burn and tape.
—10–
What apathy upon your souls, old men? Has the world grown too rapidly, Gigantic,
Too confusing,
Full of rush and noise and constant prattle?
Are the eyes dimmed? The eyes that saw a continent spanned by steel rails, The eyes that looked to heaven and saw rockets in the blue. Are the ears dull? The ears that caught the snap of twig on forest trail, The ears that heard in wilderness the song of millions freed. Are the feet Weary? The feet that crossed the prairie, searched out mines in desert Waste, The feet that tested by the camp-fires under sparkling, crackling stars. Are the arms grown weak? The arms that cleared the forest and hewed the cabin logs, The arms that held the plow and thteshed the golden Wheat.
Is the heart faint? The heart that saw but triumph in the momentary plight, The heart that heat so steady when disaster shed its gloom.
Is nothing left to do?
Has life run its course and now the night?
I say we have but started on the road,
Our feet have merely touched the pungent soil,
Our hands have fashioned but the crudcst things,
Our brains not started yet to think,
Our hearts have known but adolescent pang;
The false dawn only have we known,
And all the glories that we fondly think upon
Are but a prelude to the greater dreams,
Are only curtain to the vaster deeds,
The mighty triumph of a race
That has but started to achieve its destiny.
Think back, old men, and you can see The stormy tortuous way that man has trod. You huddled once in damp and musty cave; Your hair was matted, full of lice and dirt; Your eyes had gleam that was companion to the beasts; You hunted for a hairy raiment And a coverlet at night; You talked in grunts And knew no gentleness nor honor; Your offspring scrambled for the meat you brought; You taught them only how to shoot the bow, to skin the animals they killed, and how to war upon their fellow-men; And When you weakened you were cast aside, And others went to hunt and shared the womenfolk.
Low—browed savage that you were,
Stinking dweller in a caVe,
In fear of light’ning and the flood,
Peopling the forests and the streams with demons
You allayed by charm and sacrifice,
You did not stop at level of the beast;
You grew beyond the early monkey grunts.
There was an urge that would not let you
be;
It fired all your atoms, stirred your blood; You learned to speak,
You saw the value of the fire,
You made a clumsy wheel,
You fashioned clay utensils,
And with crude design you painted
Record of your life, your hopes and fears.
You grew from family into tribe,
From tribe to village and to city-state,
And from the city-state emerged the nation;
And now you face the dire necessity
Of consummating all your upward strivmg
By establishing, for yourselves and your posterity,
An Order for the World!
From the cradle where the race began
You pushed across the mountains and the seas,
In wave succeeding wave you peopled all the earth;
The sun blackened your skin,
The arid places bronzed your bodies,
The frosty lands have bleached your countenance;
But sure and steady was the force
That marked your slow ascent.
Some men grumbled, many died, Others tried to plant their feet Across the path of destiny. They shouted loud into the willing cars, “This is the end. This our place. We are emergent now, victorious. This is our destiny in full. Let us enjoy it. Nothing more can come.”
Poor criers of a world’s false dawn!
The upward surge of humankind ascendant Has trampled you and all your kind,
Has laid your glory and your gain
In dusty books on history shelf.
—11–
We are the men who slew the fairest of our kind To please a grinning, stone-faced god our fathers carved. We are the men who thrilled to tom—tom 'beat And listened in the heavy jungle night for the distant thudding sound that changed us into throbbing savages.
We are the men who once drew magic circles
And knelt low before the scented flame.
We are the men who once ducked women in a pond
And tried the witches in a solemn court.
We are the men who spoke in pompous pageantry, Perpetuating pagan rite, adulterating truths for lust of power. \Ve are the men who walked out righteous way With minds turned backward to the sentimental glow that covers all the triteness and shortcomings of the past.
We are the men who talked of promised lands '
But dared not change the old accustomed way.
We are the men who heard the Prophets speak,
Then slew Them, for They glorified us not.
The past we fondly looked upon,
The rites we used as camouflage for thought,
The magic words that slipped so glibly from the tongue,
Have now betrayed us.
The changing rhythm of the spheres
Has brought at last the time
When we must learn the greater measure of a man,
When we must substitute the fact
For ideologies that feed upon
Our past mistakes and littleness.
Although we are the men of pagan time
Who burned books, hunted witches, feared advance of truth,
We have within us latent loyalty
To our common God—creator
And to universal right.
We hear a common oneness in our blood,
Denying color line and social caste.
We owe a common debt to all the Prophets,
Fearless Men, Who saw the glorious vistas man could reach,
Who inspired the saint, the poet and the painter,
Who put a kindliness in hearts of unknown lesser men.
—12–
The flaming winds of sorrow with their piercing blasts,
The gripping fears which shatter all the idols in the heart,
These cleanse,
These purge,
These purify,
And make the molten steel of faith
Which God pours, living red,
Into the mold of His ordained desire.
And still the Hope arises It cannot be crushed.
Again the Voice resounds It will be heard.
It will be heard.
The Voice of God cries out.
The stones proclaim it.
The atoms in our bodies,
The motes in shafts of sunlight,
The drops in all the seas of all the worldThe universe proclaims the birth of justice.
—13–
O Whitman, fling me your pen!
For here is a song that must be sung, For here is a cause that needs a champion, For here is a glory that has dawned!
O precious world!
0 planet filled with signs of God,
Studded with beauty,
Whirling through space propelled by breath of heaven!
O human ones!
You of tenderness and cunning mixed,
You of bodies built in perfect symmetry.
You of minds so capable,
Yet strangely, strongly fettered,
You of souls denied, of souls sleeping
Because you are enamoured of a lesser dream
Suited best for weaklings and for crones Hark you, to my song!
Hark to my song, my song and your song also!
O Whitman, fling me your pen, I beg! O Holy One of Heaven, infect my blood
And let a glorious madness seize my brain That all my atoms, all my limbs and powers May thrill in rapture to this coming birth!
—14–
After these tears
Will come the calm again;
After this drought, the healing rain.
This hate must run its course,
Disease must have its day,
The sickness must be burned from body politic.
The fever and the nightmare.
The twinge and stab of pain,
The sucked-in breath of anguish,
The burning forehead and the quaking of the limbs
Are sign that unseen universal forces
Have rallied for the healing of the nations
And of man.
The small of vision and constricted heart Are smittenMoney—grubbers and begetters of ill—fame, The weak and whining, the timid ones, The near of sight and the lovers of antiquity. The men and women who believe the universe Is centered in one continent,
in one country, in one state,
in one city, town or village,
in one race, one church, one clique; These shall suffer illness Like the tortures of the damned.
These shall be shocked, afl‘ronted, dumbfounded, amazed, stirred, shaken.
By the sweeping force of humankind
Emerging from its Chrysalis,
By disaster’s cleansing fire,
As the foibles and the follies of the past
Are burned away.
Pity then the blind of heart
Until these tears have passed.
Patient be with little men
Till their puberty is done,
And the pangs of adolescent surge,
The frustrations of a world divided, Have been welded into peace and justice, \Vith humanity at last mature.
Long may be the night and cold, The wind may lash with fury
As to shake the stoutest heart;
We may see great trees uprooted And mighty rivers cut new channels On the surface of the globe.
Let it be—and welcome.
This is the greatest moment in man’s history;
Unless these tears be shed, the heart is hard;
Unless the sky rains fire, the mind unthinking
Pursues its rutted, uncreative way;
Unless foundations crumble,
Men will not stir to build a world
Befitting their true destiny.
—15–
This is the nightmare of the soul,
The bitter bed of pain on which we toss,
Seeing the past in mockery flit in chaotic stream.
This is the deepest point of valley floor,
The dark, foreboding walls of granite hem us in,
But forward through the gloom, the cha05, and the night,
We walk with steady feet.
Nor war, nor pestilence,
Nor pen, nor sword, nor loss of family or friend,
Nor ravage of the beast that dwells so deep within us each,
Can stay the forward movement
Through the blackness of the night.
Though the ear be dulled to sound, There’s a singing in the soul:
Though the mind too stunned to think, We can grasp unconsciously
What the heart begins to sense
As we move through unknown paths.
The rhythm of the world is changed. The savage man is doomed.
On the anvil of our God,
Creator of the universe and man,
We are being forged and shaped
For the birth of fitter race,
A race of men who will make the earth Habitation for the human man,
Who shall proclaim through continents and seas,
The oneness of all humankind,
The unity of all mankind at last mature.
We shall forge a planetary scheme
To unite the nations of the globe.
Disdaining differences
Of sex, and race, and region;
We shall scrap the silly creeds
Which have kept us far apart;
We shall speak one universal tongue;
We shall know the highest, fairest human loyalty,
The loyalty of man to God,
And love of human being for his kind.
The earth is pregnant,
And she bears a burden great.
We of the new race—the lovers of all menWe are the burden living through travail.
So let the night be dark, The feet will never falter; Let the din increase, The mind will grow more clear; As the pain grows sharper, The heart will beat with a steady, steady throb, feeling the rapture of the hand of God, sensing the glory of the world to be, that is nearer than our breath or our pulsing veins, feeling the stature of the race so great, of the mind so keen and the vision clear, that is decreed by God as our destinynow—in the world’s rebirth.
NIGHT
BEATRICE IRWIN
You are the Great Initiate of Light
That we, in folly, darkness call.
You take us and tired day, within your arms
Like children weary of their play
And you enfold our littleness with love,
Love that is peace, and poetry and power!
For in your hands you hold the singing stars,
The light of all those distant worlds
Grows visible 3 love in your deep eyes
And you have knowledge of their inner flame,
That immortality that floods the heavens
813
With happiness, with song, with Light! Ah, we Within your arms asleep
Can only rest and dimly dream
Of that vast peace and love in space . . . That with the sign of silence—you impart.
"Then tell Me: Do Hoe children know t/oc Father and confess Him, or do they contradict Him as the [maple contradicted Him before?”—BAHA’I’ SCRIPTURES.
“THEN TELL ME”
ELSIE PATTERSON CRANMER
We wandered in perpetual night
Without a star, without a moon,
The Sun from which men drew their light Was hid in clouds themselves had wrought. The earth was dumb and still and stark. Oh, star, for which the wise men sought. Was there not once a promise made
That He would come when night was dark? Are we betrayed, are we betrayed?
In other lands and other skies
Lived Eastern Christs, as well—beloved As our own Christ, the Jewish Lord. Their light gave knowledge to the wise They, too, had strange symbolic birth And lived and died and rose again. And left with men their holy Word. Praise be to God that He has left
His fingerprints on all the earth!
Yet still our brothers weep, bereft ”The gold has gone from that gold story We, too, have lost the heavens’ glory.”
I have a secret I must tell
For it bursts my breast With its bursting bell,
When night was blackest and most men slept
The promise given was kept, was kept.
He shook the earth with His thunderous tread
And stirred the living and moved the dead.
Who rose from their self—wrapped winding sheet,
At the thud of His sounding shattering Feet.
Though the whole earth shivered, scarce one knew why
Scarce any knew when the Lord went by.
Oh, stars that fell in the black, black night
And lightless moon—now rich with light,
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Oh, darkened Sun, now brightly goldThe story of the Lord is told.
Shout His New Name both wide and far Bahá’u’lláh, Bahá’u’lláh.
THE CARNIVAL IS OVER
SILVIA MARGOLIS
Behold! the carnival is over!
The revelling and feasting’s done!
The vineyards burned, the fleshpots empty, The Age is wasted like a sun!
Beneath the gaunt and gaping roofs
Its multi-coloted gauds of lust
Like bits of stained confetti, lie
Dispersed and scattered in the dust!
The empty couches, jeweled thrones,
The palaces and perilous dreams All, all have been laid waste forever Beneath the Day’s uprooted beams!
The captains of command are vanquished, Dust are the hands of tyranny;
And kings and princes flee and vanish
Like chafi before the Lord’s'decree!
Ye poor and needy of all nations,
Ye tricked and taunted of the earth,
See ye not your suff’rance is accomplished, Another Era comes to birth?
Behold! beyond the ruthless carnage, Beyond the spoil and the rage,
Your blood has stormed the gates of Heaven And brings to birth the Promised Age!
DREAMERS WE WANT
SILVIA MARGOLIS
Dreamers We Want, dreamers with soaring desire! Dreamers we want, dreamers With breasts afire—Who halt not for logic and wait not on reason, But burst thru all trammels of time and season, Take loathing, if need be, take censure, take scorn, Yet dream for the dreary and date for the lorn!
Dreamers we Want, dreamers with dreams for our time!
THE Bahá’í
WORLD
Dreamers we want, dreamers with daring sublime! Who stand where the bars of the world interpose And legions are ready to slay and opposeTake rancor, if need be, take malice, take slight But plead on for Justice and strive on for Right!
Dreamers we want, dreamers, defiers of bars! Dreamers we want, dreamers, outsoarers of
stars!
Who bend not for glory and how not for gain,
But break thru all ranges and reaches a-main Take burning, take branding, take blame evcrmore
But lead forth the nations from bondage of war!
Bahá’u’lláh
PHILIP AMALFI MARANGELLA
Thou Who hast known a prison’s lost repose
Yet given me the fragrance of Thy rose;
Thou Who hast shown me Wisdom’s sunlit way
And brought to birth a new Millennial Day;
My heart shall ever of Thy fragrance sing,
And fill the future with remembering.
In vain I probe the vast, infinite grace
Which fashioned me to seek God’s placcless place.
Transcendant Orb of Beauty, Love and Power,
What can man say in this stupendous hour?
This is Thy Day! The Bill) revealed Thy story:
Thou art the Mirror of God’s Greatest Glory!
GOD’S NEW DAY
EDWINNA POWELL CLIFFORD
No longer alone on a storm-tossed crest
Need stand a soul, of peace bereft.
God’s voice, that spoke through the Prophets of yore,
From Sinai’s plain or Jordan’s shore,
From India’s isles, or Arabia’s sands,
Hath spoken today its loving commands,
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And the heart that is plowed and narrowed by pain Can still find peace and live again.
"Come,” the voice of Bahá’u’lláh cries, "Come, all ye that are men, arise!
Come, ye humble; come, ye poor,
Enter at last the open door.
With the word of power I now proclaim The Oneness of God, His Truth the same; His children, one vast family, all,
Who never in vain on Him shall call.
“This Truth of God, His flaming light,
Shall scatter superstition’s might
This Word of God, the Spirit’s Sword,
Shall conquer all hearts in the name of the Lord.
His holy Prophets, a glorious band,
Revealed to us.now, united stand,
And the shining hosts of the faithful throng
Sing all together the Triumph Song:
”The Kingdom of God on Earth shall stand,
And His Spirit reign o’er every land;
United, all men shall how the knee,
And, with clearer vision, His Glory see.
Oh, great is the message Bahá’u’lláh brings,
Harken ye learned, bow down ye kings,
The dark clouds of night shall soon pass away,
Arise, greet the dawn of God’s New Day!”
REMEMBRANZA Y FE
ADRIANA DE GéMEz REYES
Un pequefio recinto nos congrega al recuerdo de un grato aniversario, y el espiritu ansioso de dilemas, se despliega en esplendido festin.
815
Rumor de risas por doquier se escucha, lazos candentes de amistad se cruzan en abrazos de afecto y bienvenida, que conmueven muy hondo el corazén.
Se desgranan eélicas pa'labras, se entonan sentencias evangélicas, evocando en mirifica cadencia profesias pletéricas de amor.
Revive el espiritu un crepusculo en que el Padre hablara a los humanos en lenguaje de estrellas y de luces anunciando: Fraterna redencion.
Y en medio de estos cantos immortales, en medio a la embriaguez de estos perfumes a la dulce inquietud de las ideas,
y la azul placidez de esta mansion; aspirando el aroma de estas flores, sintiendo la cadencia de sus vuelos que ascienden el alcance de una cumbre, pasa mi alma, como pasa el Viento. . . .
ANSWER, WORLD!
ANGELA MORGAN
Hail, men of the future!
The world’s real patriots ye;
Above the dead I hear your trend that sets the people free!
And I hear the fife, and I hear the drum,
I hear the shouting wherever you come,
And I see the glory in your face
Who march to save the race!
Justice shall be your weapon and Truth the bomb you hurl,
Fla g of united nations the banner you unfurl. Hail, men of the present—do I hear your answering cry? "Here am I! Here am I
I”
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III
MUSIC
