How Can I Keep From Singing

My life flows in on endless song
above Earth's lamentation
I hear the real tho' far-off hymn
that hails a new creation.
No storm can shake my inmost calm
while to that rock I'm clinging;
Since Love is Lord of Heaven and Earth,
How can I keep from singing?

What though the tempest loudly roars,
I hear the truth it liveth;
What though the darkness round me close,
songs in the night it giveth.
Through all the tumult & the strife,
I hear the music ringing.
It sounds an echo in my soul -
How can I keep from singing?

When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,
their final death knells ringing;
When Friends rejoice, both far & near,
How can I keep from singing?
In prison cell or dungeon vile,
our thoughts to them are winging.
When Friends by shame are undefiled,
How can I keep from singing?
© 1957, Sanga Music Inc.

---

I originally posted this Saturday, Feb. 18, and Blogger apparantly ate it. This is my response to Rev. Mommy's question, "How do you express the hope for the New Jerusalem?" [I paraphrase]. She expresses her hope through the William Blake poem of the same name, linked above.

This is my favorite song. I'm told it's Sparks', as well. There are a number of excellent recordings of it; I think my introduction was through Pete Seeger's.

According to the Rise Up Singing collection (© 1988), "This is an old Quaker hymn that dates back to pre-Civil War North Carolina, when Friends there suffered persecution for their opposition to slavery."

This is what gives me hope. Individuals may be cruel, venal, and so on - the "Children of Night". They are outnumbered by the "Children of Light". Humanity, as a whole, tends toward the positive. The movement is frustratingly slow, but it does occur.

Slavery is no more in the U.S. Racism persists, but great strides have been made there as well.

Just as these evils were eventually overcome, the present unpleasantness will come to an end in time. Already the witnesses against America's Iraq folly are increasing - the Christian Peacekeeper Teams being the most notable.

I put my "arrows of desire" in my quiver. I pledge myself to the "Lord of Love". I shall strive this day to be an agent of hope.