EVOLUTION

What comes from dreams in dreamland
Moves no heart but mine, turns no head
But mine; what comes with hope's swift yearning
Is just another measure in the rhythm of the tide.

Go far ahead, go, stride like those who went
Before us, who turned the narrow footpaths
To avenues, who turned the earth's resistance
To their wills, subdued the forests and the
Waters to their flared, hair-raising wills!

Sister, brother, hold to one firm course,
And never turn, look back. What's straight
Ahead has nothing on either side (yet what is
That in dreamland that cries against such pride?)

What's gone ahead will not come back,
Will stay in place despite us; whose heart
Is moved by what moves gaily out beside us
Will never know us, never show us
What makes their hearts so hopeful or so gay.

Wind swept through the brush at dawn's tide,
Rage burnt through the brain at swept-tide,
Hell made in the heart at riptide,
Cries out to hope-in-wait:
"What hope have I in hell's eye?
What hope have I?"

What comes from dreams in dreamland
Moves no heart but mine, it seems, turns no head but mine.
What comes from pride's slow turning on the spit
Is just the painful pleasure of the heedless primal tide.

rcs.

5th draft: 06/08/05
©1980 Ronald C. Southern

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