AMBERGRIS 
113 
 
 
 
FROM GARGOYLES 
 
Prayer 
 
The light streams stronger through the lamps of sense. 
Intelligence 
Grows as we go.  Alas :  its icy glimmer 
Show dimmer, dimmer 
The awful vaults we traverse.  Were the sun 
Himself the one 
Glory of space, he would but illustrate 
The night of Fate. 
Are not the hosts of heaven in vain arrayed ? 
Their light dismayed 
Before the vast blind spaces of the sky ? 
O galaxy 
Of thousands upon thousands closely curled ! 
Your golden world 
Incalculably small, its closest cluster 
Mere milky lustre 
Staining the infinite darkness !  Base and blind 
Our minion mind 
Seeks a great light, a light sufficient, light Insuf-
ferably bright, 
Hence hidden for an hour :  imagining 
This vast vain thing, 
We call it God, and Father.  Empty hand 
And prayer unplanned 
Stretch fatuous to the void.  Ah !  men my friends, 
What fury sends 
This folly to intoxicate your hearts ? 
Dread air disparts 
Your vital ways from these unsavoury follies. 
Black melancholies 
Sit straddled on your bended backs.  The throne Of 
the unknown