William Brighty Rands

I Saw a New World

I SAW a new world in my dream,
Where all the folks alike did seem:
There was no Child, there was no Mother,
There was no Change, there was no Other.

For everything was Same, the Same;
There was no praise, there was no blame;
There was neither Need nor Help for it;
There was nothing fitting or unfit.

Nobody laugh’d, nobody wept;
None grew weary, so none slept;
There was nobody born, and nobody wed;
This world was a world of the living-dead.

I long’d to hear the Time-Clock strike
In the world where people were all alike;
I hated Same, I hated Forever;
I long’d to say Neither, or even Never.

I long’d to mend, I long’d to make;
I long’d to give, I long’d to take;
I long’d for a change, whatever came after,
I long’d for crying, I long’d for laughter.

At last I heard the Time-Clock boom,
And woke from my dream in my little room;
With a smile on her lips my Mother was nigh,
And I heard the Baby crow and cry.

And I thought to myself, How nice it is
For me to live in a world like this,
Where things can happen, and clocks can strike,
And none of the people are made alike;

Where Love wants this, and Pain wants that,
Where all our hearts want Tit for Tat
In the jumbles we make with our heads and our hands,
In a world that nobody understands,
But with work, and hope, and the right to call
Upon Him who sees it and knows us all!