Benjamint Griffith Brawley, "Shakespeare" (1915)
Swinging adown the dark abysm of time,
Some lamp portentous in the dimness rears,
Some taper high, ineffable, sublime:
Now darts a gleam faint thrilling through the deep,
And now a glimmer from archangels' wings;
And then once more the mighty aeons sleep,
Lost in the slumber that the darkness brings;
And then I creamed of one Promethean light,
That, throbbing, as a mystic searchlight blazed
Through all the caverns. Nature leaped in might
To greet the signal from the rampart raised;
Her innocent heart at last a flame inquired;
And one by one all other lights expired.
Published in The Crisis, May 1915