If you go after leading me here
There is a vacuum, an empty place
Because I can't call to you if you aren't there

I would read those words over
As I did, looking for the meanings
They are gone
It's like a song being forgotten

If you go and leave us to predators
My own words are empty
Only having life if you read them

Entrenched in religion
Taught from my birth
I began to awaken

I branched to the path
Of a strict regime
Thinking there was truth
Eyes started to see
Contradictions

The others had shown
Had spoken to me
In an earlier time
I noticed there be
Repetitions

One day I slipped
From tight rules and laws
The elders came
To point out my flaws

You can stay they said
So to begin
Swear now on this book
You won't do it again

I knew well the book
Cover to cover
I looked at them
Thought of my lover

Swear I won't I replied
For I have not the power
To pledge for all time
In this single hour

For that book you hold
Says Don't make an oath
I refuse I say no
To your ungodly troth

So they turned in their pride
With their unseeing eyes
To wander in darkness
Condemned me to die

I thought I was ******
For a while and a while
Then the ones I knew better
On me they did smile

They sent me the clues
Gave me new keys
To follow the truth
Wherever it leads

If it leads to damnation
Still truth is the path
If it leads to pure knowledge
Home I'll be at last

from
On the Infinite Universe and Worlds
(DE L'INFINITO UNIVERSO ET MONDI)

by GIORDANO BRUNO
1548 – 17 February 1600
burned at the stake in Rome's Campo de' Fiori

THREE SONNETS

Passing alone to those realms
The object erst of thine exalted thought,
I would rise to infinity: then I would compass the skill
Of industries and arts equal to the objects.
There would I be reborn: there on high I would foster for thee
Thy fair offspring, now that at length cruel
Destiny hath run her whole course
Against the enterprise whereby I was wont to withdraw to thee.
Fly not from me, for I yearn for a nobler refuge
That I may rejoice in thee. And I shall have as guide
A god called blind by the unseeing.
May Heaven deliver thee, and every emanation
Of the great Architect be ever gracious unto thee:
But turn thou not to me unless thou art mine.

Escaped from the narrow murky prison
Where for so many years error held me straitly,
Here I leave the chain that bound me
And the shadow of my fiercely malicious foe
Who can force me no longer to the gloomy dusk of night.
For he who hath overcome the great Python
With whose blood he hath dyed the waters of the sea
Hath put to flight the Fury that pursued me.
To thee I turn, I soar, O my sustaining Voice;
I render thanks to thee, my Sun, my divine Light,
For thou hast summoned me from that horrible torture,
Thou hast led me to a goodlier tabernacle;
Thou hast brought healing to my bruised heart.

Thou art my delight and the warmth of my heart;
Thou makest me without fear of Fate or of Death;
Thou breakest the chains and bars
Whence few come forth free.
Seasons, years, months, days and hours --
The children and weapons of Time -- and that Court
Where neither steel nor treasure avail
Have secured me from the fury [of the foe].
Henceforth I spread confident wings to space;
I fear no barrier of crystal or of glass;
I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite.
And while I rise from my own globe to others
And penetrate ever further through the eternal field,
That which others saw from afar, I leave far behind me

Sweet darkness of the night where every sound is clear and even a tiny spark is bright.
In darkness there's no fear

Sweet darkness of the void where no emptiness presides and galaxies appear so close
In darkness all is near

Light that pains and burns feeds trees and scorches land in dryness where the sand is made
Where phantoms walk disguised

Light reveals the crimes and tears of creatures slaves for man In truth we need the light
To be despised

There was a saviour
          Rarer than radium,
     Commoner than water, crueller than truth;
          Children kept from the sun
          Assembled at his tongue
     To hear the golden note turn in a groove,
Prisoners of wishes locked their eyes
In the jails and studies of his keyless smiles.

          The voice of children says
          From a lost wilderness
     There was calm to be done in his safe unrest,
          When hindering man hurt
          Man, animal, or bird
     We hid our fears in that murdering breath,
Silence, silence to do, when earth grew loud,
In lairs and asylums of the tremendous shout.

          There was glory to hear
          In the churches of his tears,
     Under his downy arm you sighed as he struck,
          O you who could not cry
          On to the ground when a man died
     Put a tear for joy in the unearthly flood
And laid your cheek against a cloud-formed shell:
Now in the dark there is only yourself and myself.

          Two proud, blacked brothers cry,
          Winter-locked side by side,
     To this inhospitable hollow year,
          O we who could not stir
          One lean sigh when we heard
     Greed on man beating near and fire neighbour
       But wailed and nested in the sky-blue wall
Now break a giant tear for the little known fall,

          For the drooping of homes
          That did not nurse our bones,
     Brave deaths of only ones but never found,
          Now see, alone in us,
          Our own true strangers' dust
     Ride through the doors of our unentered house.
Exiled in us we arouse the soft,
Unclenched, armless, silk and rough love that breaks all rocks.

I'm an eccedentesiast
Don't blame me
I can't help it.
And I prefer to see other people
With smiles across their faces
Rather
Than a blood-smeared etch on mine.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho' the soldiers knew
  Someone had blundered:
Theirs was not to make reply,
Theirs was not to reason why,
Theirs was but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
  Volleyed and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
  Rode the six hundred.

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sab'ring the gunners there,
Charging and army, while
  All the world wondered:
Plunging in the battery smoke,
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
  Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not--
  Not the six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
  Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that fought so well,
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
  Left of the six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
Oh, the wild charge they made!
  All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
  Noble Six Hundred!