 | Voices and visions |  |
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A VISION OF PROGRESS
I dreamed that on some planet like our own
Man had for certainty at last found out
There was no God. All possibility
Of faith had shrivelled into nothingness.
The secret of the Sphinx at last was told;
The universe had no more mystery
Wherewith to enmantle its magnificence.
Knowledge reigned victor; from minutest life
To lordliest she had solved the Why and Whence.
Man had for certainty at last found out
There was no God. All possibility
Of faith had shrivelled into nothingness.
The secret of the Sphinx at last was told;
The universe had no more mystery
Wherewith to enmantle its magnificence.
Knowledge reigned victor; from minutest life
To lordliest she had solved the Why and Whence.
Then thousands, crying in horror and dismay
‘There is no God!’ slew misery and despair
By the same stab, leap, bane that slew themselves,
Till all the lands reeked red with suicide.
‘There is no God!’ slew misery and despair
By the same stab, leap, bane that slew themselves,
Till all the lands reeked red with suicide.
But myriads more (so marked I in my dream)
Dared to live on, desired it, and communed
Thus with their own souls: ‘Die, if so ye must;
Humanity is with immortality
Still wedded; right and justice, truth and love
Shall be our deity. Tear our churches down;
Too long their spires have pointed to a lie.
Far holier temples than their holiness
Are built invisibly yet palpably
By mutual pity, fellowship, and help.’
Dared to live on, desired it, and communed
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Humanity is with immortality
Still wedded; right and justice, truth and love
Shall be our deity. Tear our churches down;
Too long their spires have pointed to a lie.
Far holier temples than their holiness
Are built invisibly yet palpably
By mutual pity, fellowship, and help.’
Years passed like minutes in my dream. I saw
Life grown a sanctitude of high resolve,
Centred in one divine democracy,
With Now and Here its region of reward,
Not fabulous Hereafter. And I saw
Death utterly dispeopled of its dreads,
Ghosts, legends, fantasies and menaces.
Life grown a sanctitude of high resolve,
Centred in one divine democracy,
With Now and Here its region of reward,
Not fabulous Hereafter. And I saw
Death utterly dispeopled of its dreads,
Ghosts, legends, fantasies and menaces.
Then, in my dream, I said to my glad heart,
‘Knowledge hath told this world there is no God,
Yet left it love and cast out fear of death.
Surely such boon of unexampled peace
Were worth a million vacuous creeds and prayers!’
‘Knowledge hath told this world there is no God,
Yet left it love and cast out fear of death.
Surely such boon of unexampled peace
Were worth a million vacuous creeds and prayers!’
| Voices and visions | |