Man is no captive in a foreign world
Of death and dark deception—wingless child
Adrift on chartless winds, forever hurled
From night to night. He is no slave defiled
By sin and serfdom, clutching to his breast
The piteous fragments of his dignity.
Man is Love's holy child, the honored guest
Of God, the noble son of Deity.
He never lived within the violent dreams
That haunt this waking earth with mad torment
And mob-ruled rivalry. Hate's ruthless schemes
Cannot invade Soul's righteous government.
When pilgrim feet on hillside paths ascend,
The slumber and the serpent's lie shall end.
What passage of escape? What plan or place
For homeless falcons chained by glittering bands
To servile tasks? Can flag or passport trace
A path of liberty through tyrant lands
To Spirit's star-swept mountaintop apart?
From sunless, crowded rooms the quiet mind
Looks out through many windows of the heart,
Unlocks its doors, and journeys forth to find
Its height. No far frontiers, no numbered nights.
For him who turns away from lock and key.
The singing freedom of victorious flights
Unfolds its wings in vales of apathy.
Amid the dullness of the shifting throng
The looms of destiny shall sing their song.
The viewless limits break, the captives flee.
From dreams of avarice and sensuous mirth
The sleepers stir. One day the refugee
Shall prowl no more the crooked streets of earth,
Nor burrow in the darkness like the mole.
The bounds, the barriers, shall fall away,
And chastened hearts shall turn from sin to Soul.
From midnight panic into tranquil day.
Man is no toy of fate or circumstance,
Lost victim in a jungle world of strife;
He lives beyond the dream, beyond the chance
And change of sense, within the sweep of Life.
Above the thunder and the battle cry
Truth's mountain kingdom stands against the sky.
