Poems (Jenkins)/Artificial Light
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!