Sonnet #3

When to this world some madness seems to cling,

Old words of war, old hatreds violence bring,

Or to the world itself seems damage made

Now dam-held flow, now fear where children played.

 

Then ours is not to weakly weep and sigh.

The answer known from birth until we die;

That all that seems without is yet within,

That all the world’s our body, sky our skin.

 

And ours a power larger than the sun,

To speak our will, for by our will be done

All works of earth, of rock and wall and gate;

The world expressed. Our saying is our fate.

 

Thus speak from deep within of glorious day;

We make the unending world by what we say.