O Wisdom! What are you? And how can I
Name you? Even the philosopher, who
Calls himself your lover, and who would sigh
To possess you, can he weave a wreath to
Crown you worthily? Will anything do
To offer fitting homage? My poor song
Shall, truly - if you should help it along.

O Wisdom! I shall praise you! You, like light
Which scythes through crowding darkness, are a blade
Which sunders the veil, driving into sight
What ignorance hides; and, having been made
Manifest, your glory shall never fade.
You slip past the warden’s dark, foolish walls
And cause dawn to break in black prison halls.

O Wisdom! Hear me, as I thee invoke,
With haste fly to me from thy golden throne,
For I would take upon myself thy yoke,
I would thy precepts, all sweet, gladly own,
For without thee I should be quite alone,
E’en with friends abounding (and golden must
Her throne be, I know, for gold does not rust).

I have sung too much, too long, of pain.
The litany of syllables dictating pangs of wounds
And memories of shattered hearts and minds
Has drowned out all else.
My suit, my complaint, has become a filibuster
Against the very light whose absence I mourn.

I do not reproach myself for it;
T’was necessary, and, more importantly,
It was thoroughly real.
Even the bleakest song was a worthy agony
And so this is not a new lament,
But a canticle of reversal.

Now I will sing of truth, for truth is beautiful and good.
I will sing of wisdom in her refulgence,
I will sing of knowledge upon her ivory throne,
I will sing of understanding which pierces the veil,
Breaking down barriers between hearts and minds,
Of that light which dispels ignorant shadows.

I will sing of goodness, for goodness is true and beautiful.
I will sing of courage, hero’s courage, bold, ****** courage,
I will sing of love, mother’s love, sacrificial love,
I will sing of charity, generous charity, of humble almsgiving,
I will sing of justice, no less just for being merciful,
I will sing of humility, so true and sweet it will not sing for itself.

I will sing of beauty, for beauty is good and true.
I will learn at the knees of the weeping willow,
And the stoic mountain shall reveal his smile,
I will rediscover sunrise and sunset with each revolution of earth,
And I will dance with the birds of paradise,
Cackling gleeful with cheering toads and crickets and hooting apes,

And I will sing you a new song.

The president of the assembly stood,
Ready to give his speech. He checked a thrill
Which nearly overcame him, for he would
Now accomplish something new; there was still
One frontier, only one, on which man’s will
Had not yet been imposed - destiny had
Chosen him; to shy away would be mad.

“Esteemed peers,” he cooed, “You are now aware,
Surely, of our scientists’ wild surprise,
A shock in which all of us have a share:
Life! In outer space! Right before our eyes!
I shall not waste your time with pretty lies -
The hard truth is, our position is grave:
We’ve our dear Earth and our people to save.”

A worried murmur, according to plan,
Broke out then - a signal of confusion
Which in the right hands (his hands, of course) can
Give credibility to delusion
And bring to life a fearsome illusion,
A terror of no small utility,
All resistance rendered futility.

“My dear patriots of Earth, understand,
I beg you, I come not to cry alarm,
No, but rather merely common sense and
That kind of vigilance which steels the arm
So as to guard our hearth and home ‘gainst harm
And war and slavery and needless pain
And the vile rule of the alien brain.

“Nay! Say I, never! We shall not consign
Our children to languish under hands, claws,
Or hooves of oppressors; they shall not pine
Away, waste away, labor to feed maws
Of monstrous fiends which heed not human laws.
No tentacled tyranny shall hold sway
While one man yet breathes to stand in the way

“Of whatever horrific despot waits,
Biding its time till the moment to spring
Upon us unprepared. Lo! At the gates
A bleak myriad of foes come to sing
Our doom! When sweet freedom ceases to ring
In mankind’s valleys and plains, it will be
A dark day, our darkest; I would not see

“It, personally, given the choice. No,
I for one will not submit to the yoke
Extraterrestrial when there is so
Much yet to be done to save us. No cloak
Lies o’er my words; I speak plainly: I spoke
With clarity of the awful menace
Threat’ning Cairo, Tokyo, Baghdad, Venice,

“Riga, Beijing, New York, Seoul, all the same;
I’ll speak with equal clarity on hope -
The space-bound devil has not won the game,
Not yet; our hands aren’t bound by Martian rope,
Not yet; we’re not yet forced to merely cope;
For if we’re brave, they’ll find, meeting our ire,
That man’s first and last invention was fire.”

Now the delegate of the Holy See,
His eyes wide, his face flushed, raised his hand, rose,
And offered: “Esteemed peers, it seems to me
That we move too fast to so quickly close
The case on this matter as though the woes
Suggested by our president were now
Presently among us! I don’t see how

“We are prevented from supposing that
Our strange new neighbors are lovers of peace;
How are we obliged to dream he grows fat
On the bones of the innocent? Increase
Your lens, widen your minds; war without cease
Is inevitable only if he,
The alien, quite un-alien, be

“So near to us as to think only from
Within the confines of man’s warlike heart,
Marching to the dread beat of our own drum.
Be wise, be men, play the peacemaker’s part.”
The assembly roared him down. They would cart
Him out, they’d have none of it; this was no
Place for men of God; the rule Divine so

Providentially governing the Earth
And Heaven above had only control
Over mankind and the place of our birth;
Space, foreign stars, the void, seemed then to pull
Down all blessèd sovereignty and give full
Force of reality to fearsome Hell,
The tyranny articulated well

By the president suddenly made real
And final in all of those assembled:
A black kingdom of fear which they could feel,
A blind hatred of all that resembled
Not men of Earth; the hall shook and trembled
As with one voice the assembly took up
The chant: “Burn them! Burn them all! Burn them up!”

As they chanted, far away, on pink sands,
Dancing in the light of a silver moon,
Cheers and clapping of ethereal hands
Of a people who, not realizing soon
That they, folk who laugh, weep, learn, sing, call, swoon,
And wax poetic no less than clay men,
Would be born and die no more, marked that then

Festival was begun, a feast of light
Inaugurated here to celebrate
A sacred dawn for a people who might
Have been able to, were it not too late,
Compose a psalm to overthrow hate,
Intoning a verse to dash chains that bind,
And drawing to unity those who’d find

Solidarity, fraternity, all
Those things which make harmony and life sweet;
But alas! For these poor ones who would call
All creatures brethren, they with dancing feet
Would an extinction all untimely meet,
Pondering aloud, all childlike, “Surely
This fiery dawn is breaking too early?”

He’s just finished. He’s had it. And that’s it. What does he want?
Something else, maybe.
What is the problem, exactly? He knows. He’s tired.
He can’t bear it anymore, and supposedly that’s good?
That’s a good thing? It’s unbearable. That’s it. We’re done. He’s done.

He’s out, finished, won’t be having any more.
Will my father hear me? I don’t care if he listens.
But, will he say something; will he look me in the eye
And meet my gaze and hold it, will a tear stand in that eye
(It doesn’t have to fall, in fact I’d rather it didn’t),
Will I know that He cares and is just as helpless as I am?

That’s it. I don’t even need to be saved, not from this: how can I?
The removal of any one thing
Or even all the barbs and thorns would not restore peace.
But a communion of helpless suffering? That would make it bearable.
Share this with me, and let me see it. I have to see it.

I can’t imagine it, it has to be real,
And I have to see it with my eyes, and that’s it.
Perhaps the tear could even fall. Weep with me, weep silently.
No, raise your voice, wail aloud with me.
Lament, and let me know for one blessed moment
That I don’t have to be so alone. It’s crushing, it’s truly suffocating.
Please; I beg, on my knees, prostrate; I beg.

Where were we when they killed Him? Where did we
Find ourselves in that sixth hour, when there fell
That sepulchral darkness, and none could see
Ought but tree and nails? We know well

Where Caiaphas stood. He rose to gloat and
Jeered at Him who dared to suggest He would
Raise the Temple of God by His own hand;
“Let Him come down, save Himself, if He could!”

Judas was in a different tree - he prayed
Not, believed not, hoped not; but hoarsely sang
A curse against himself who had betrayed
His Teacher, and resigned himself to hang.

Peter, Rock, the chief, nowhere to be found;
For he in fear ran to a lonely place
And stretched himself out upon the cold ground
While burning tears of shame streamed down his face.

Poor Dismas, hanging, recognized his sin.
The bleeding thief sought pardon from his Lord;
He begged, seeing the peril he was in,
He touched the King’s heart before the cruel sword.

John, the Magdalen, and the Mother too,
Kept vigil on ****** sand ‘neath the Cross;
That Mother’s heart which alone truly knew
The height and depth of the world’s present loss.

But where was I? What was my part, you ask?
I’ll confess it, though I cry and stammer
With cowardice: when I finished my task,
I stood, mouth agape, and dropped my hammer.

I had prepared myself against any
Rebuke you might have levelled against me –
My sins I knew were both grave and many –
Any but this. Indeed, do I love Thee?
Indeed, does the ear hear, does the eye see?
Do I still draw breath, and do I yet live?
What is it I have, that Thou didst not give?

You might have chastised me, but instead You
Burst the dam of my heart, and something pure,
Some hot, heavy sorrow came rushing to
Flood and drown the channels of my soul. Cure
Me, help me! Do I love Thee? It is Your
Own very love that burns within my breast!
Do I, indeed, more even than the rest?

Do I love Thee? I am undone. Am I
To find elsewhere what in Thee I have found?
Shall my soul, drunk now with tears, cease to sigh
For Thee? Or shall mem’ry forget the sound
Of Thy sweet words, Thy voice? I bless the ground
Thy feet have kissed; I’ll kiss it too. I’ll keep
Thy law – Do I love Thee? – I’ll feed Thy sheep.

To lonely, bent Charon, it seemed
As though beneath the sunless sky
The waveless River somehow gleamed
With light unseen. A long, soft sigh

Breathed like wind over the dead fields
As there approached One who, sunlike,
Crested the fort that never yields;
Pale Death o’ercome by One unlike

Any that yet had passed these shores.
Strange sight! A naked king, each hand
And foot marked deep with cruel red sores,
Addresses the ageless Styx and

Meets the ferryman’s soulless gaze
With eyes whose irises of gold
Seem to encompass endless days.
Before Eternity the Old

One flinches; his strength cannot bear
To match for long seconds the weight
Of the Stranger’s undying stare.
A trembling seizes him - a great

Terror swallows the ferryman.
“What hast Thou to do with us? Thou
Who opens the door, and none can
Close?” The Visitor waits. “And how

“Can I grant Thee passage, and see
Such light made food for my fell lord?”
Then lo, having finished his plea,
Charon resolves to keep his word

And carry out his solemn task.
But still, as he takes up his oar
He glances up, as though to ask
His charge for some sign, some word, or

Anything that might give him peace.
The Sojourner answers: “I will
That your master’s reign should now cease;
So go, then, that we may fulfill

“All righteousness.” Thus He boarded
The morbid ark, and a low wail
Creaked from boards which ‘neath the sordid
Weight of lost souls were used to sail.

Thus the ferryman sets out, he
Navigates rivers men have wept,
Plying across the morbid sea;
Meanwhile, the Guest lay down and slept.

Before an hour in Death’s domain
Had passed upon the waters, all
Ears were pricked by a cry of pain;
The Styx let out a plaintive call

And shuddered while the shuddering
O’ercame the ferryman as well
For ne’er was dread Styx known to sing
And ne’er before did whimper Hell.

Then, falling at the Master’s knee
Charon woke the Sleeper and cried
Aloud: “O Lord! Depart from me,
A poor wretch!” The Passenger sighed,

Looked up, and with a quiet, bold
Command He rebuked the River
And all fell silent. Blood ran cold
In the guide’s black veins, a shiver

Gripped him as they approached the shore
Where on the nearing beach there stood
A company of phantoms, for
Their dry bones ached for Him who would

With beautiful feet step onto
The sepulchral sands to declare
That doleful ghosts shall be made new,
Allowed to breathe the Heav’nly air.

**! Life’s Author disembarking!
Thund’rous Life into Satan’s hall!
Death, shattered, kneels before the King!
His Heart oped, Hades proves too small!

The vault of Hell’s bleak sky does shake
And burst, for the Word has spoken
With grave finality: “Awake
Now, arise! The Dawn has broken!”