Burn Like a Torch

Burn Like a Torch

 

-Encouragement of the Spirit-

 

Burn like a torch, brave candlelight;

We have that bone to pick with Night[1]

 

Do not unto the darkness yield

What you aflame in faith revealed

 

Rise high into the air and breathe,

And do not seek our cause to leave,

 

But rage against the drafts that come

With chills, uncouth and feelings none

 

Gleam in your golden verity,

And grace those pages yet to be,

 

With every physic

Mind can make

 

That heals the man

 

And kills the snake

 

Burn like a torch, brave candlelight;

We have that bone to pick with Night!

---

[1] The poet was highly critical of post-modern forays into the world of Western mysticism. He could not rightly conceive of an infinite number of interpretations working to man’s benefit regarding good and evil.  According to him, the business that light has with darkness is the eradication of what is malignant, not the exposition of what is neutral and without objective meaning. To Paris, there could be no “happy balance” in the universe.