This broken world.
This endless, falling, heap of shattered dreams
Adrift in broken slate and concrete walls,
Between the darkened, reaching minds that cannot see
The light that struggles vainly to impress,
The silence that implores and is not heard
Amid the ceaseless din of man’s design.
The tired evening breaks with cold gray dawn
And one by one they fall on broken backs
And cannot rise nor see through tinted eyes.
The life is gone – they cannot see its breath
Nor feel its grace on still and death-gray hearts.
They should but cry for hope, but weep for day,
Yet lips are sealed and voiceless tongues are stopped
In ceaseless babble, falling on deaf ears.
The music stopped, the world stands in its course.
No song, no sound to break the whirl of life.
We are the silent men.
We rise and stand; our eyes look towards the sun,
Lips moving softly in a silent song.
And standing ‘mid the smoke and dust and pain,
In silent tread we walk the broken ground.
With earthen swords and spades of purest gold,
With silver hammer and with nail of blood
In country, forest, wend our silent way,
To overturn, move rock, and stone and branch
And no one yet contended or cried out…
Onward we go.
To burn and blaze, build earth and sky and tree,
And through the falling rubble of a failing world
Our hymn rings out, now soft, and growing clear,
The silent song.
They are all gone, they all are lost in death,
But yet it shall be made to sing anew,
This broken world.
