Latent Possibilities

A giant force lies slumbering in the dark
     Of war’s death-engine, that ye well might think
     The dull, black Icaria o the coal-pit’s brink,
But roused to action by a tiny spark
It hurls their bolted thunder to its mark,
     Making the steel Leviathan reel and sink!
     So blackened natures from whom angels shrink,
Touched by a ray from Heaven’s Great Hierarch,
May kindle into glory and become
     God’s chosen champion to redeem a land,
Or wear the crown of glorious martyrdom
     For a new heaven-born Faith, sublime and grand;
The breath of God, that our of sodden earth
Evoked a living soul, can give such wond’rous birth!