Veils

Veils, everywhere float veils; veils long and black,     Framing white faces, oft-times young and fair,     But, like a rose touched by untimely frost,     Showing the blighting marks of sorrow's track.     Veils, veils, veils everywhere.    They tell the cost     Of man-made war.    They show the awful toll     Paid by the hearts of women for the crimes,     The age-old crimes by selfishness ill-named     'Justice' and 'Honour' and 'The call of Fate' -     High words men use to hide their low estate.     About the joy and beauty of this world     A long black veil is furled.     Even the face of Heaven itself seems lost     Behind a veil.    It takes a fervent soul     In these tense times     To visualise a God so long defamed     By insolent lips, that send out prayers, and prate     Of God's collaboration in dark deeds,     So foul they put to shame the fiends of hell.     Yet One DOES dwell     In Secret Centres of the Universe -     The Mighty Maker; and He hears and heeds     The still small voice of soulful, selfless faith;     And He is lifting now the veil of death,     So long down-dropped between those worlds and earth.     Yea!    He is giving faith a great new birth     By letting echoes from the hidden places     Where dwell our dead, fall on love's listening ear.     Hearken, and you shall hear     The messages which come from those star-spaces!     That is the reason why     God let so many die;     That the vast hordes of suffering hearts might wake     Mighty vibrations, and the silence break     Between the neighbouring worlds, and lift the veil     'Twixt life on earth, and life Beyond.    All hail     To great Jehovah, Who has given life     Eternal, everlasting, after strife!     Veils, long black veils, you shall be bridal white.     Eyes, blind with tears, you shall receive your sight,     And see your dead alive in Worlds of Light.