To cast them on earth's coasts in varied play
Of colour and of movement and display.
Ay, and the life that ebbed from these uncounted slain
Shall from its hidden cisterns flow again.
The light that faded from their eyes,
The strength that left their limbs,
Gathers somewhere again to pour
Upon earth's conscious shore.
The oil whose flame now dims
Comes flooding back from reservoirs beyond our awed surmise.
There shall be resurrection for the crucified!
And these who died
Clutching with bony fingers the cadaverous earth
Shall wake the eternal bounty past the gates of death
And rise again upborne on some insurgent breath,
Some outburst of celestial mirth
Commensurate to this dearth.
Their passion groping at the doors of life
And feeling up the ways of day
Shall find its utterance once again in clay;
And we who still conduct earth's play and strife
Under the sun
Shall be upborne on tempests from their oblivion
And through us they shall speak
In tones stentorian now where they before were weak:
Saying, Let no soul stand aloof;
But cords of love bind human heart to heart
Across all barriers, lest the warp and woof
Of mortal life in time
Disjoin, and the woven fabric fall apart,
Marring the pattern of the timeless art,
The hieroglyph sublime.
Yet all its strands
Even those that run out to the great unknown
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