The Blinding Sun

I recently published this poem on Rational Faiths under the title "Growing Doubt". I need to publish it here, and I just encountered a famous sonnet that uses the same imagery. The messages are both the same and contrary. I will let you enjoy and judge them as you wish.

I was once told. . .

2002

I was once told there’s danger in a question—
Faith and doubt cannot live in one mind,
And doubt leads men to shun the truth and fight
Their God—so I was told. I also learned
Truth shines eternal in the Son, and that is
All the light we need—straight from the source—

But I’ve seen mortal eyes fixed on the sun
Now following his brightness filtered through
Closed eyelids, doing good and seeing the world
As this light tells them it must look. Then when
Night comes they work to morning, filling their call
And telling those who stand in darkness what
The sun is like—the joys of fixing on his light.

They have forgotten that the child of night
Is not the child of darkness. There is truth
At night. The moon and wandering stars reflect
That same sun closed eyes preach, but no closed eyes
Will find these lights; and stars we cannot see
Give still more light than the sun that leads the blind.

I was told I’d built a tower to see the heavens,
And the Lord would cast it down and show
The foolishness of men. Maybe it is so,
But truth is good and light, and I will love it.

And from Joseph Blanco White (1775-1841)

To Night

Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And lo! Creation widened in man's view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind!
Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife?
If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?