Children of the Night

Two Sonnets

       I

     Just as I wonder at the twofold screen
     Of twisted innocence that you would plait
     For eyes that uncourageously await
     The coming of a kingdom that has been,
     So do I wonder what God's love can mean
     To you that all so strangely estimate
     The purpose and the consequent estate
     Of one short shuddering step to the Unseen.

     No, I have not your backward faith to shrink
     Lone-faring from the doorway of God's home
     To find Him in the names of buried men;
     Nor your ingenious recreance to think
     We cherish, in the life that is to come,
     The scattered features of dead friends again.

       II

     Never until our souls are strong enough
     To plunge into the crater of the Scheme —
     Triumphant in the flash there to redeem
     Love's handsel and forevermore to slough,
     Like cerements at a played-out masque, the rough
     And reptile skins of us whereon we set
     The stigma of scared years — are we to get
     Where atoms and the ages are one stuff.

     Nor ever shall we know the cursed waste
     Of life in the beneficence divine
     Of starlight and of sunlight and soul-shine
     That we have squandered in sin's frail distress,
     Till we have drunk, and trembled at the taste,
     The mead of Thought's prophetic endlessness.