Mandragora/Be Hard!
- "BE HARD!"
SWEET Christ — our hearts should be stone.
Then it would be the end!
For the sake of one — of one ———
I hurt my friend.
There should be lamps in the sky,
Not dead moons flickering,
Not mists to cover us.
There should be lamps in the sky.
We tread too heavily
And the darkness is over us.
Sweet Christ, our hearts should be stone!
There should be lamps in the sky
To read the loneliness,
The loneliness we cannot smother
While blindly we stab at one another
With a rage that is a cry.
O that our hearts in one lightning flash
Were illumined thro' and thro'!
Then we should know the oak from the ash,
The rosemary from the rue!
Then would be proved what we dare not prove,
And seen what we dare not see;
Then love would be justified of love,
And a friend a friend would be.
There are no lamps in the sky;
There are hearts under all our feet,
And we tread heavily,
And the circle is complete.
Sweet Christ, our hearts should be stone!
Then it would be the end.
For the sake of one — of one —
I hurt my friend.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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