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A Sleep of
Prisoners
by
Christopher
Fry
The human heart can go
the lengths of God...
Dark and cold we may be, but
this
Is no winter now. The frozen
misery
Of centuries breaks, cracks,
begins to move;
The thunder is the thunder of
the floes,
The thaw, the flood, the
upstart Spring.
Thank God our time is
now when wrong
Comes up to face us
everywhere,
Never to leave us till we
take
The longest stride of soul
men ever took.
Affairs are now soul
size.
The enterprise is exploration
into God.
Where are you making for? It
takes
So many thousand years to
wake...
But will you wake,
for pity's
sake?
 Portrait
of Christopher Fry by the
artist June
Mendoza
Christopher Fry (1907 - 2005)
was an English playwright
(visit Wikipedia
to find out more), and
further described in his
obituary (in The
Guardian), appropriately
as a Christian humanist
playright - which this poem
testifies to.
Annie
(Locke) visited Christopher
Fry back in the 1970s: She
said, The reason that I
went to interview him was
because the BBC Drama Group,
of which I was a member, was
doing the play; The
Trojan War Will Not Take
Place, by French
dramatist Jean Giraudoux. Fry
had translated this into
English back in 1955. I was
the Assistant Director and we
performed the play at the
Minack
Theatre which, with the
sky and the sea, was the
perfect backdrop for it, and
a real experience...
Annie of course is better
known for her music, which
you can check out on this
website. Her Memories
album also carries a
desiderative poem on the
Golden Age.
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'Ask now of
Death'
by Kahlil
Gibran
Then Almitra spoke,
saying, We would ask now
of Death. And he
said: You would know the
secret of death. But
how shall you find it unless
you seek it in the heart of
life? 
The owl whose
night-bound eyes are blind
unto the day cannot unveil
the mystery of light.
If you would indeed
behold the spirit of death,
open your heart wide unto the
body of life. For life
and death are one, even as
the river and sea are
one.
In the depth of your
hopes and desires lies your
silent knowledge of the
beyond; and like seeds
dreaming beneath the snow
your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for
in them is hidden the gate to
eternity.
Your fear of death is
but the trembling of the
shepherd when he stands
before the king whose hand is
laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not
joyful beneath the trembling,
that he shall wear the mark
of the king? Yet he is
not more mindful of his
trembling.
For what is
it to die but to stand naked
in the wind and to melt into
the sun? And what is it
to cease breathing but to
free the breath from its
restless tides, that it may
rise and expand and seek God
unencumbered?
Only when you drink
from the river of silence
shall you indeed sing.
And when you have
reached the mountain top,
then you shall begin to
climb. And when the
Earth shall claim your limbs,
then you shall truly
dance.
Extracted
from The Prophet, by Kahlil
Gibran, Pan Books 1980.
Visit Wikipedia to
find out more about Kahlil
Gibran. The book,
The Prophet, is recommended
reading and can be found in
most good bookstores.
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