The lights are out; the rainbow pictures fade;
Their magic beauty and their color-flow
And rhythmic grace no eye again shall know;
‘Tis ended now, the lovely masquerade,
And those who, wondering, looked, and those who played,
Back to the busy commonplace they go,
To toiling life that moves so dull and slow;
And silent darkness cloaks the parkland glade.
The rainbow pictures fade; but still there gleams
The rainbow hope to hold us to our dreams;
And lowly toil grows beautiful and bright
As hearts urge forward to the coming light;
And men in lifelong memory will see
The vision of the city that shall be.
The 1916 Pageant of Newark was a piece of historical and allegorical theater written by Thomas Wood Stevens and produced, literally, with a cast of thousands. It offered an exuberant vision of Newarkers’ collective future.
This sonnet appeared on the front page of the Newark Evening News of June 3, 1916, the day after the final performance.
newarkpoems 