Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Blasphemy of Guns

There must be lonely moments when God feels
The need of prayer-
Such lonely moments, knowing not anywhere,
In any spot or place,
In all the far recesses of vast space,
Dwells any one to whom His prayers may rise,
And then, methinks-so urgent is His need-
   God bids His prayers descend.
He that has ears to hear, let him take heed,
   For much God’s prayers portend.

God flings His solar system forth to be
   Finished by beings who befit each sphere.
Not ours to pry the secrets out of Mars;
   Our work lies here.
To star-folk leave the stars.
There must be many worlds that give God care:
   Young worlds that glow and burn,
Old worlds that freeze and fade.
   This world is man’s concern.
Methinks God must be very much dismayed,
   Seeing the use we make of earth to-day,
   While loud we pray.

Last night, in sleep, beyond the earth’s small zone,
Adventurously my spirit went alone,
Past lesser hells and heavens, where souls may pause
To learn the meaning of death’s larger laws,
Past astral shapes and bodies of desire,
Past angels and archangels, high and higher,
Until the pinnacles of space it trod,
Then, awestruck, paused, hearing the voice of God.

’Mortals of earth, for whom I shaped a sphere
(So spake the Voice), ’there rises to Mine ear
Eternal praises and eternal pleas.
Now, after centuries, I tire of these.
Have ye no knowledge of the Maker’s needs,
Ye who ask favours and who praise by creeds?

Why has it not sufficed
That unto this small earth I sent great Christ,
Divine expression of the mortal man,
To aid my plan?

’Why ask for more when all has been refused?
Why praise My name Who hourly am abused?
Why seek for Me or heaven, when in you dwells
Hate’s lurid hells?

’Persistent praises and persuasive pleas-
I tire, I tire of these;
But I, the Maker of a billion suns,
Ask men to stop the blasphemy of guns.’
This is God’s prayer.

(There must be many worlds that give God care.)

1. Behold the Earth
2. The Birth of the Orchid
3. The Black Charger
4. In England
5. All the World

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