Poem March 17, 1962 Issue

SPACE-AGE QUESTION

Francis Ward Grubb

What will men do, out in the starry deeps
Of far-flung universe, if they meet life
In form unlike their own?
Become once more as Cain? Again enact
The age-old crime and, weeping, reap anew
The anguish they have sown?

Nor lift a hand in fellowship and peace?

Or will those blazing trails through light-years' reach
Open men's eyes to see the Word was there;
Was Life before they came?
Unseal their hearts to know omnipotence?
That image and His likeness are beyond
This flesh and mortal frame?

So, finding Truth, from self-love finally cease?

Is this the reason for that constant urge
That forced men's vision upward to the stars
Since first their eyes knew light?
To learn, in the immensities of space,
The allness of supreme intelligence
Wherein there is no night?

Thus know at-one-ness with Love's constancy?

Greeting their fellows on the trackless trails
And knowing they are brother beings too,
Despite their outward seem?
So learn—and learning give and giving find—
The resurrection from this chrysalis
Of flesh and mortal dream;

Be heirs in Truth and claim Love's legacy?

Francis Ward Grubb

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