Poem - Archibald Nigel Guy Irving

The Unborn

By Archibald Nigel Guy Irving

We stand upon the threshold of the earth.

We may not enter in.

We know our mothers, who have not known birth.

We cannot hope to win

A foothold in the world of blessed light.

We stand enshrouded in eternal night.

We know no sunrise. Our night has no morn.

We are the children of the dead, unborn.

The children of the dead whose youth was hurled

As sacred sacrifice

To that mad god of war who rules the world.

Our fathers paid the price

Of liberty in suffering and blood.

They passed unknown like litter on the flood

Swept to oblivion in boundless seas.

We are the fruit that never formed of these.

We are the sons who should have been. Forlorn

Dream children, dream inspired;

Conceived in thought, imagination born,

Dim wraiths of the desired

Doomed to eternal nullity by Death;

The mind-created, never to draw breath;

The pale, frustrated dreams of men who died.

We wait unborn, our heritage denied.

We may not feel the spring beneath our feet

Of green and kindly grass,

Or hear the high bird singing, far and sweet,

Beneath white clouds that pass

Across the depths of blue. We may not hear

The tinkling water running cool and clear

O’er cool brown glistening stones. We may not know

The glory of the sunset’s lingering glow.

Light fingers of soft winds shall not caress

Our cheeks, or stir our hair.

We may not pluck bright flowers in happiness,

Or wander, free from care,

Down long, dim, silent aisles of mysteries

Blessed by the benedictions of great trees.

We may not know the glory of the sun,

Or night’s still splendour when the day is done.

We may not know the pleasant things of earth,

Or its ennobling care;

Music and song, beauty and joy and mirth,

And sorrow that is there.

Each makes a part and all parts make a whole.

Each works toward the building of a soul.

But we move soulless, desolate, forlorn,

Pale fantasies of minds now dead, unborn.

We wait unborn beyond the outer stars,

Shut ever from the light.

We beat with broken hands against the bars

Which hold us from our right.

Oh men of earth! If you have tears to shed

Weep not for those who passed, the happy dead.

They lived and wrought, and now at rest they lie;

But we, the unbegotten, may not die.