As light versus dark
In a darkly shaded room--
Flip the switch, flick the light,
No changes come, no sunlit moon--
Pitch as black and black as night,
Death is imminent,
Death will come soon
As acowering and shivering
And weeping and awailing,
As the wrong in the room.
'Til soft glows come swiftly,
Creeping over eyes;
A spark of the fire, a spark of the bright
And the darkness dies.
A battle ensues,
'Tween shadows and shapes,
Forms and the formless,
Bruise, beat, and break;
Fire catches hold, and the light flares to noon
'Til naught is near to dark
As there's right in the room.
Careful then, Reckless,
Care not to put it out--
Flames burning hotly
With light all about--
Dowsed in wrong water, and darkness thus returns;
Care not to turn away from
The rightness that surely burns.
Flip the switch, flick the light,
Still no changes come;
Easiness is unreadiness,
Dark counts: three, two, one--
Violent and consuming,
It may already have won;
Care not to kill the sparks
Or the fight may soon be done.