A Keynote [extract]
Heard, from the speaking stones that strew
The hillside of Success;
From spheres whose harmonies anew
Can those who listen bless;
From breaths of every sacred isle
By which my Muses move,
Released from battle’s claim a while,
In Brendan voyage of Love;
From shambles of the Dispossessed;
From Croesus in his sty;
From old Democracy obsessed
By fiends about to die:
Read, in the scars of veterans
In Want’s resultless fray;
In noon-day Science’ futile plans
To yoke the soul to clay;
In watchings of the social sky
And soundings of its deep;
And where Oppression’s vultures fly,
And sad Redeemers weep;
‘Neath living palimpsests of Pain;
On shards of deathless song;
hi God’s magnificent disdain
Of Might enthroned on Wrong;
Read where, unheeded, outcasts groan,
And waits Rebellion’s form:
These verses voice an undertone–
The prelude to a storm?
