Why Not?

Why not look forward far as Plato looked
And see the beauty of our coming life,
As he saw that which might be ours to-day?
If his soul, then, could rise so far beyond
The brutal average of that old time,
When icy peaks of art stood sheer and high
In fat black valleys where the helot toiled;
If he, from that, could see so far ahead,
Could forecast days when Love and Justice both
Should watch the cradle of a healthy child,
And Wisdom walk with Beauty and pure Joy
In all the common ways of daily life,—
Then may not we, from great heights hardly won,
Bright hills of liberty, broad plains of peace,
And flower-sweet valleys of warm human love,
Still broken by the chasms of despair
Where Poverty and Ignorance and Sin
Pollute the air of all,—why not, from this,
Look on as Plato looked, and see the day
When his Republic and our Heaven, joined,
Shall make life what God meant it?
Ay, we do!