We are the earth his word must sow like wheat And, if it finds no earth, it cannot grow. We are his earth, the mortal and the dying, Led by no star —… - Stephen Vincent Benét

I'm waiting. … For something new and strange, Something I've dreamt about in some deep sleep, Truer than any waking, Heard about, long ago, so long ago, In sunshine and the summer grass of childhood, When the sky seems so near. I do not know its shape, its will, its purpose And yet all day its will has been upon me, More real than any voice I ever heard, More real than yours or mine or our dead child's, More real than all the voices there upstairs, Brawling above their cups, more real than light. And there is light in it and fire and peace, Newness of heart and strangeness like a sword, And all my body trembles under it, And yet I do not know.

For the cold of the pistol-butt and the bullet's heat, For the ropes that choke, the manacles that bind, The huge voice, metal, that lies from a thousand tubes And the stuttering machine-gun that answers all.

For the women who mourn their dead in the secret night, For the children taught to keep quiet, the old children, The children spat-on at school. For the wrecked laboratory, The gutted house, the dunged picture, the pissed-in well The naked corpse of Knowledge flung in the square And no man lifting a hand and no man speaking.