“SHADOW OF THE ATOM!”

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 8, 21 March 1947, Page 7

“SHADOW OF THE ATOM!”

Man by prodigious labour, Relentless drive, unflagging grit, Harnessing tremendous forces The mighty atom, split! From mother nature’s heart was torn One infinitesimal speck, A secret grasped by puny hands, That if unwisely used may wreck The future hopes and plans of man; Create a living Frankenstein To stalk and slay,, and maim And maybe, finally destroy The last of Adam’s Line!

This swift dynamic power Held in fragile mortal hands; This vanguard of potential giants Innumerable as the sands; May hold times’ guarded key That locks the secret door Of the mighty universe; A door by human hands unlocked That well may prove A modern curse; For man is only man And probing where he cannot see, Gambles in the dark And risks, per chance His own futurity!

A fleeting glimpse Of vast undreamed things, Quickens his feverish questings And on soaring wings His thoughts adventuriously speed, To seek and grasp; To shape to his tremendous will, Those gigantic untapped forces Of strange fantastic shape That lure, and would elude him still! For man has seen the power Of atomic force in war;

The shape of things to come Cast on Oriental shore! Is Hiroshima a symbol? A shadow already begun That growing with the years Will fall on everyone? Or will mankind, appalled By this devastating thing, Divert its powers to projects That in turn may bring, Those blessings that enrich And eventually, create That hoped-for new world order Of which men dream and wait?

In the shadow of the Atom, Herald of a fateful age, Mankind awaits the grave decisions Of those who hold the stage. With them rests the future Of generations yet unborn, May wisdom, faith and brotherhood, Pilots tried and true, Stand beside and guide them Through dangerous straits; and at

the dawn Of better days for all mankind When shadows pass away, Man will reap the Atom’s harvest And only Peace hold sway! William Bichard Whiteside,