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WHEN THE LAST SHIP SAILS
Written by Morrighan
I
I stand, beneath tall trees, in solitude
Amid the greyness of the closing day,
The wind calls softly, blust'ring force subdued
In dark of even, dim the faded ray.
The years are gone, the darkest night descends,
The time of dreams, when all that was is past.
Voices silent now, songs have reached their ends
With dying cadence: silence falls at last...
O, where are songs of old? The sagas brave?
Where, harp and lyre, or fire within the hearth?
They pass so soon, within the newest grave.
Yea: for their resting-place is richest earth.
Among the leaves, the green wood stillness sends,
And, as I sing, the quiet rain descends.
II
I burned and sang; and winged flew song and flame
Beyond the compass of my present sight,
And lit the velvet closeness of the night
To write on midnight vellum Thy bright name.
For though I burned, yet was I not consumed;
Nor could the midnight quell the light I shone,
Or silence seek to overrule my song,
As Thy bright light the barren world illumed.
For even while I sing, alone, forlorn,
And like a gutt'ring candle glow and spark
Amid the barren wasteland of the dark,
My words, undying, prophesy the morn.
Fly, song of mine! Thy rising strains extend
That all the world may know: the night shall end!
III
The spray, which to the flow'ry garden brings
The gift of liquid death to living things,
Brings life to those it spares, and health and food,
But taints them too - thus bought with others' blood.
For silent still, on leaf and petal waits
That unseen agent with its dark dictates
Whose remnants linger on, invisible,
And still by stealth enact their silent cull.
The despot human, thus, to shape the land,
Commits foul genocide by his own hand -
Deems one flow'r beautiful; another, weed.
Keeps or rejects; destroys or gathers seed.
Then weep, ye tainted blooms, in slavery,
And envy nature's wild democracy.
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