Poems (Jenkins)/Artificial Light

by Elinor Jenkins

Artificial Light

WARM and golden and dear
 In custom and kindness set,
We builded against our fear
 A place wherein to forget
Darkness that rings us near.

Here our hearts we deceive
 And will not understand.
Whether we laugh or grieve
 We dwell in a lamp-lit land—
A land of make-believe

Not too high for our pride
 Whereto we are ever bond
Nor for our souls too wide—
 And all is night beyond
Where monstrous things abide.

Still without ceasing we
 Watch on our stronghold keep,
Lest lamps burn flickeringly,
 And, while we slumber and sleep,
Outcast eternity

Break in a moment through
 Our soul-built barriers slight,
Look in on us with blue
 Lustreless eyes, whose light
Life everlasting slew.

Heavy with endless days,
 With endless wisdom sad,
Should those eyes behold our days
 And our loves wherein we are glad,
We might not abide their gaze.

Our sorrows flee fast away
 Like shadows before the morn,
In the light of eternal day
 Pale all our joys forlorn,
Elf-gold that will not stay;

Find we, looking again,
 For all our cherished treasures
And all our labours vain,
 Weariness all our pleasures
And worthless all our pain.

Our vanities kissed and curled,
 Ere the swift vision is gone.
Into the void are hurled;
 But we ourselves live on,
Waifs in a blasted world,

Where light and laughter and love
 Lie dead in the dark together
And we brood their dust above,
 Knowing not surely whether
'Tis life at our hearts doth move.

Lost without remedy,
 We sit under pitiless skies
Mourning the moment we
 Looked with our finite eyes
Into Infinity!