p^ 
 
 The Cosmos 
 
 and Other 
 Poems 
 
 Herbert Goodell 
 
 Copyright 1914 
 
 Oliver M. Rogers 
 Dixon, Illinois 
 
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 DEC 29 1914 
 
 CI.A388982 
 
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 Facsimile of two stanzas from the manuscript of the poem "To My Mother. 
 
Introduction 
 
 Herbert Goodell was born at Charlton, Mass., December 
 
 5, 1836. While he was still young, his parents moved to a 
 
 farm near Viroqua, Wisconsin. At the age of sixteen he 
 
 had a severe illness of several months, after which he was 
 
 obliged to use crutches. For a time he thought he would 
 
 never be able to walk without them, but he finally recovered 
 
 so he could walk without even a sign of lameness. With 
 
 his brother-in-law he took a farm, but the crops failed the 
 
 first year and his brother-in-law left. He, however, still 
 
 kept the farm and taught school that winter on his crutches. 
 
 He could not attend college, so he read by himself most of 
 
 the books of the college curriculum. He was always a great 
 
 reader, being especially interested in science. In 1870, he 
 
 went to Sedgwick, Kansas. There he taught school at first, 
 
 but soon became clerk in a drug store. He finally became 
 
 sole owner of this store and was its proprietor at the time of 
 
 his death, October 10, 1913. Soon after he went to Kansas 
 
 he began work on this poem, which is thus the product of 
 
 the hours he could spare from business during a long period 
 
 of years. It is now given to our friends and the public in 
 
 loving remembrance of him by his daughter, 
 
 Nettie D. Goodell 
 
Contents 
 
 THE COSMOS 
 
 Chapter One 1 1 
 
 Chapter Two 27 
 
 Chapter Three 46 
 
 Chapter Four 56 
 
 Chapter Five 70 
 
 Chapter Six 88 
 
 Chapter Seven 106 
 
 Chapter Eight 122 
 
 Chapter Nine 136 
 
 Chapter Ten 153 
 
 Chapter Eleven 164 
 
 Chapter Twelve 169 
 
 Chapter Thirteen 179 
 
 Chapter Fourteen 186 
 
 Chapter Fifteen 193 
 
 Chapter Sixteen 201 
 
 Chapter Seventeen 207 
 
 Chapter Eighteen 216 
 
 Chapter Nineteen 220 
 
 Lines to Asia 23 1 
 
 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 To My Mother 232 
 
 In Memory of Mrs. 241 
 
 To the Forest 252 
 
 Lines on the Civil War 256 
 
 Lines on Lincoln 266 
 
 Lines 266 
 
 The Black Man's Complaint 267 
 
 General Rusk 270 
 
 England 272 
 
 Kansas 272 
 
 The Poet 276 
 
 The Montenegrin 276 
 
 Twilight 277 
 
 My Angel 278 
 
 A Wedding 279 
 
 Lines on Life 280 
 
 The Lady of Murany 281 
 
 Lines on Religion 283 
 
 The Reformer's Dream 284 
 
 Lines on Politics 286 
 
The Cosmos 
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 A VOICE, deep, from the Increate, a beam 
 Of light, the work was done. The Spirit bond 
 That held to earth, was loosed; for unadorned. 
 Unfledged, the spirit from the casket of life 
 Withdrew to wander in trackless realms, impelled 
 By power, felt, unseen, to strive along 
 That lonely way, scarce conscious of the change; 
 Yet there seemed a murmuring sound, deep and clear. 
 The life that once I knew was past and gone — 
 Gone, like the blissful dreams of childhood's hour — 
 Gone, like the luring vision, brighter far, 
 Of youthful days — gone, like the mystic play 
 Of wisdom in the fruit of ages past — 
 And what is it.? From death to life.? From Earth 
 To air.? From air to space— to space — and where.? 
 A dream, a fitful thought, and this was death.? 
 The death idealized in horror, in woe 
 Festooned! is it no more.? If this were all. 
 To dread, not much; to ask, but little more. 
 
 The earth was far below me, it was night. 
 Though far away, to her was I nothing.? 
 Gone, but not missed.? So stately in her poise. 
 Serene in beauty, on she moved in her 
 Course, sublime, peerless, massive, grand! 
 What is an atom.? Matter, not mind she is, 
 And yet, by a power higher far than she, 
 Constrained to feel inexorable law. 
 So I, too, was made to feel myself still 
 A part of earth, wedded to her by ties 
 That nature makes, with impulse tending to 
 The skies; but I cared not to go, for earth 
 Was dear to me; her fields, her music, voiced 
 In thousand forms; the ties of blood, the plaint. 
 The grief, in memory seemed to blend, and fill 
 With curious melody the wastes of space. 
 Fame, being, life, ambition, as they were. 
 
12 THE COSMOS 
 
 Were centered there, and all to pass away. 
 
 What was I ? That I of flesh and bone, yet now 
 
 Disrobed? Is mine a form of spirit mold? 
 
 With eyes we see, with ears we hear, with nerves 
 
 We feel — they are of outward form and thus 
 
 They serve a purpose well, but of such I had 
 
 No need; of finer substance, yet was I 
 
 In semblance human, and I felt, I knew, 
 
 That I was conscious thought itself, while through 
 
 My being impulses of nature ran. 
 
 I looked — for I could see with keener sight — 
 
 Myself to know, the mystery of life 
 
 To solve; but deeper truth so closely linked 
 
 In all existence and so intricate 
 
 I could not pierce. My outward look was like 
 
 The fragment of a cloud torn from its mass 
 
 And molded into perfect human shape. 
 
 Translucent, fit to cleave the depths and speed away. 
 
 My mind had every faculty of life 
 
 Intensified, prepared to witness soon 
 
 The changes yet unseen by mortal eyes; 
 
 And then the shadow passed — my life was new. 
 
 The glow was bright, intense, and clear, yet deep; 
 
 And beauty brooded o'er the universe. 
 
 Her garlands fresh, her gems like gleams of light. 
 
 The earth was grand! Long ages had flown since 
 
 With giant force from central orb she sprung 
 
 And, set among the stars, went wheeling on 
 
 In space, circling around the parent mass. 
 
 The frosts of time hung like a coronal 
 
 Upon her mountain brow more regal than 
 
 In summer days and as enduring as 
 
 The granite base just peeping from below. 
 
 The air was floating round, an azure robe. 
 
 Soft as the zephyr, and as graceful as 
 
 The bridal veil; then all the plain was still; 
 
 The ocean slumbered; deep in silence hushed 
 
 The earthquake lay, no sound of discord here, 
 
 And no disturbing voice to break the spell. 
 
 In quiet nature breathed — and this is peace! 
 
 There was an hour in time, one hour of rest, 
 
CHAPTER ONE 13 
 
 When nature gathered all her energies 
 
 And folded them within herself, and then 
 
 She looked, as if to say, My hour is come! 
 
 For thus within, around, both far and near 
 
 And everywhere there was a gentle lull, 
 
 A soft repose — no thought, no struggle now, 
 
 No fitful action — voice of tempest, clash 
 
 Of elements no longer marred the scene. 
 
 I might have thought it thus, above the world 
 
 In space, beyond her reach, had I not felt 
 
 The hidden forces pulsating from star 
 
 To star, in living unity binding 
 
 Unnumbered millions of the stellar worlds! 
 
 That silence, and the stiller calm of death. 
 
 Is not nature's high estate — hers is still 
 
 One in possibilities of a law 
 
 Universal; and space above, below. 
 
 Is not unlike. Apart was I from earth. 
 
 But still not far away I saw it turn. 
 
 Each feature, full, distinct; its history. 
 
 Its outline, coloring, and life were traced 
 
 In legible characters made by years. 
 
 Nymphs, legends, grottoes, mingled with them now; 
 
 And sacred memories, hallowed influences 
 
 In deeper tracery marked themselves where hand 
 
 Of man was known. The beauty of the grove 
 
 Was lost in the mysterious arcana 
 
 Of the Temple; simple wants, and conditions 
 
 Simpler, of life were merged in wonderful 
 
 And varying complexity of being. 
 
 The land of shrines, of pilgrims, land of streams 
 And mountains, sacred, eloquent once, was mute; 
 For no Jehovah and no Brahma walks 
 Thy shores in human form, or speaks to thee 
 With human voice; no angels come and go; 
 No prophets speak; but dream or vision may 
 Remain; the valley, pool, or hill be as 
 Of old; the image, shrine, and altar stand 
 For less than then, but mystic glow, the veil. 
 May hang in glint of memory and cast 
 Their spell — no Presence is in bush or cloud 
 
14 THE COSMOS 
 
 To give to earth the draperies of skies. 
 
 The fires that burned have died; the harp, the song, 
 
 The life, have passed to other lands; the loss 
 
 Of youth, the wear of ages, mark the lines 
 
 Of time and evidence decay; the land 
 
 Is common clay; bold, rugged, peerless, grand. 
 
 Sublime, the mountains stand as at their birth; 
 
 The rivers are but rain; they cleanse as waters cleanse, 
 
 But have no healing power; their way to the skies 
 
 Is the way of the cloud; they go to fall 
 
 Again; thy gods, thy prophets, work no more 
 
 In marvels; yet another world, another faith 
 
 Sees Sinai's peak in cloud divine and hears 
 
 A voice whose words are chiseled in the stone 
 
 To shape the destiny of the moral world. 
 
 Go seek the rugged sides of Nebo's dark 
 And mantling heights; explore them well; wind round 
 The base and mark each shrub, each spot, each nook; 
 With more than mortal power scrutinize 
 As if the very secrets to disclose. 
 Some mold or rock, some vine or tree, may now 
 Conceal the mausoleum by the throes 
 Of nature wrought, then arched and leveled, smoothed 
 And polished, carved with cunning skill, inlaid 
 With precious gems, and hung in drapery. 
 And there, as in the ^tory told, composed 
 By hands divine, in simple state now lies 
 The mighty slumberer; embalmed with more 
 Than human art, imperishable, fixed 
 As his tomb, imaged in fulness of life. 
 He rests in peace. Draw near that matchless form 
 And view the close-shut eye, firm lip, and massive brow. 
 And as the living to the living, speak. 
 Oh! but for magic power to bring that form 
 To life! Now dropping cerement and shroud, 
 Could he the spirit of liberty but breathe 
 Upon the unnumbered millions, them infuse 
 With his own daring courage, how might then 
 That tree, torn, buried, and lost, bloom yet again. 
 
 Upon that rock o'erlooking Palestine 
 He stood — his hour had come, his work was done. 
 
CHAPTER ONE 15 
 
 Was it the past or future that he saw? 
 
 The Asiatic skies, the Nile, or wastes 
 
 Of sand? Did he forget the cradle, court, 
 
 Or priest? Ease, wealth, or fame? The mystic lore, 
 
 The gods, the dead, and immortality? 
 
 Plaint, music, love? The culture, toil. 
 
 And song of ages? Cunning hand that cut 
 
 The tabled stone? The art that graved the words 
 
 To speak as from the grave? The image, wrought 
 
 To life — in dust to sleep, to wake again? 
 
 The strength that called the Sphinx to hide and watch 
 
 The centuries? That mined the rock to build 
 
 The Pyramids which stand as monuments 
 
 In gloomy majesty when empire passed 
 
 Away? Was there one throb of pity, one 
 
 Touch of regret, or one pang of remorse? 
 
 Did he see Egypt, dying or to die? 
 
 One signal of distress, one tear, farewell? 
 
 Was there a pillar of cloud or of fire, 
 
 A presage of gloom or decay, a light 
 
 In darkness or a harbinger of hope? 
 
 Or did he see himself and Israel 
 
 In flight and in the wilderness? The sky 
 
 That darkened or the beacon light? The sea 
 
 And mountain, mist and flame? The storm, the plain, 
 
 And burning bush? The cloud around the peak, 
 
 The broken Tablets, Egypt's calf of gold? 
 
 Or hear the Voice in summons and command. 
 
 As he heard it in years long gone, to cheer, 
 
 Direct, and guide? Or was it Israel now 
 
 Tamed, disciplined, prepared? Or was it law? 
 
 Or did he see beyond the grave, his eye 
 
 Dim to the past? Or did he see, in vision 
 
 Prophetic, rise and fall of his race? To them 
 
 Time gave a chance; then doomed and exiled them; 
 
 Lands and inheritance to strangers gave. 
 
 His birth, his glory, was in the east; he learned 
 
 Her arts and letters; he looked to her skies; 
 
 Knelt to her shrines; he toiled for her and left 
 
 To her his laws; he gave her truth, in part, 
 
 For on the script of Egypt was one God, 
 
i6 THE COSMOS 
 
 The Trinity, and immortality. 
 
 He lived in an age, he sifted it, and breathed 
 
 In it the spirit of one God to pass 
 
 From East to West, and live in higher form 
 
 In his and other races — this is fame! 
 
 His race, his time, were his; on them his mark 
 Is. Ages, too, are his; across them speak 
 The words that then he spoke. The Hebrew hears 
 In them the voice of God and waits a King; 
 But others take the law, the prophets, too, 
 And promise — give for them a stone for bread. 
 The world they take, take, too, eternal life. 
 And spurn the hand that brought the gift. 
 They weigh themselves in grace and doom the Jew. 
 The skies they take and leave a bed of woe. 
 Is error death .^ Hath wrong no mitigation.^ 
 One frail hour, then justice, inexorable, 
 Forever.^ Faith, itself, may live when reason 
 Dies; self recoil at judgment bar; the light 
 It sees may darkness be — its own the beam. 
 But not the mote. The hand that plucked the brand 
 May not be the one that writes the book of fate. 
 Man's clock has but one turn — that tells the day. 
 Before it, the world was; and after it 
 Will be, to write its own scroll. Creed, that burns 
 The man, it burns; the foibles, follies, crimes 
 It turns to ashes. Weird in darkness, cold. 
 It locks itself in death. Above, the scales 
 Of justice hang to weigh completed work 
 The Infinite Hand that wrought it gave it time to do. 
 A tinge was on the horizon of time, and far 
 Away the gleam of civilization. 
 The husbandman plied, heeded even less 
 Than now; the architect drew many a plan 
 Of want and fancy born; the skilled hand dredged 
 The moat and reared the wall; the humble cot. 
 By poverty built, stood outward and around 
 In many a line for the ignobly born; 
 There princely palaces of stone were built 
 With many a pillared front for Salem's sons, 
 In splendor rivaling Persia's magnificence. 
 
CHAPTER ONE 17 
 
 Prosperity woke dreams of power till 
 
 Rome sent her legions for the coveted prize, 
 
 And piled in common ruin man, wall, shrine 
 
 And temple, poverty and wealth, innocence 
 
 And crime — unfailing prophecy of doom — 
 
 This did he see? And one far nobler than 
 
 Judea saw, within himself unfolding 
 
 Higher truths of moral power to give 
 
 A purer faith to finite man, as He spoke 
 
 In gentler accents thoughts sublime, and poured 
 
 That touching wail o'er dying and ingrate 
 
 Jerusalem? Of Him a sacrifice was made, 
 
 And from the cross a beam of light has glowed 
 
 In purity while ages pass away. 
 
 That softer, gentler light that hung around 
 
 Judea's fated hour did fail to break 
 
 The thrall of night. She sleeps as if it were 
 
 Enough that man was cradled first upon 
 
 Her shores to sing in weird, prophetic strains 
 
 On that long, primal day — no deeds of fame 
 
 By moral or by martial heroes done. 
 
 No vision of the past nor glory of 
 
 To-day can lift the gloomy pall and wake 
 
 Her into life. No! there she is. And there 
 
 Must she remain? The idle luxury 
 
 Of ignoble existence, softer dreams. 
 
 And half barbaric thoughts have builded her 
 
 A monumental pile around which she 
 
 Has gathered, shrinking from the brighter beams 
 
 Reflected from the west. What she was seems 
 
 Not to have been for her; her strength, her light. 
 
 Her life, were given for one star-lit day; 
 
 And then, half sunk in sleep as if life were 
 
 Not worth the while, she floated down the stream 
 
 Of time, more pleased with childish thought, with toy 
 
 And tinsel, than with worth from nature wrung. 
 
 How oft the dream that rest were bliss, and life 
 
 A filmy existence. Content to breathe. 
 
 Content to rest when eminence your sires 
 
 Had won to strangers passed — sleep on, and shades 
 
 Of mighty ones may watch your slumbers — yours 
 
1 8 THE COSMOS 
 
 Is not the long spell of eternity. 
 
 A time of waking comes; upon the morn 
 
 Is light to play 'neath your illusive couch, 
 
 And you shall wake; may be mid scenes too dark 
 
 To pencil here; may be on morn too bright 
 
 For fancy's dyes; yet you will wake again. 
 
 There, too, is Africa; her sands will drift 
 And burn; her rivers flush; her children live 
 And die. Their skin is dark; they had an hour — 
 It passed; they had a state uplifted high; 
 Laws given by gods to touch the interests 
 Of life and death; an art to build; 
 A science in the ages woven; a creed 
 Original or borrowed — part, at least. 
 By others taken — fixed in centuries. 
 Was fate unkind to grow them from the unknown, 
 Pass them to rest beneath the dust of years 
 To be dug to life again by stranger hands. ^ 
 Why make a race just fit to live, kill it 
 And bury it, then pluck it from the tomb, 
 A skeleton, the wonder now, how low 
 Or high.^ They typified themselves in the Sphinx 
 To hush mysterious chant of time and lock 
 It in the ages, speaking but as stones 
 E'er speak. To live, to die, is nature's law. 
 The dead, in memory, may give to us 
 Contention; oblivion conceals all seams. 
 All scars; the victims sink from sight, and leave 
 A waste; the corse may speak us well — but then.'* 
 No tongue has forgetfulness — on it sleeps 
 In peace. We ask whence we have come and why; 
 A thousand answers may be given, but who 
 Can tell if one is right .^ The Hand unseen 
 That placed us in the trend moves us the way 
 We go; unasked, we came; we are used against 
 Or with our will. Our service done we drop 
 Away; the part we played is little known. 
 A mite we are in measure of a world. 
 And next to nothing in the universe. 
 In sun and shadow life and death may meet. 
 A year, less or more, on our scroll may count 
 
CHAPTER ONE 19 
 
 But little. It may be grief or song and lost 
 In flood of time; above it one or two 
 May ride to see the ages pass, to fill 
 The gap wherein they go and sink to sleep. 
 
 To Egypt gods were good but once — the Nile 
 They gave, but hid its secrets; fair skies were 
 Once their own; wealth their millions had, and fame. 
 They built in art; they wrote on stones; they graved 
 Their God in rock; they morals wrote; the soul 
 They gave a wandering life to wait the grave 
 To open, victory and fate to blend 
 In common weal. As men they died to live 
 Beyond the clouds with gods, if not as gods 
 Themselves. From night they came and sunk beneath 
 The sands to wait an alien race and wake. 
 
 Is there an hour of fate a barbarous race 
 May have.'^ Is theirs a future fair to grow 
 In fame, or are they cumberers to live 
 Close to the earth and go to sleep by blow 
 Of the aggressor's hand.^ Their lands, their work. 
 All, all they were and are, the price they pay 
 For life and death .^ To be forgot, is this 
 Enough.'* Their simple day, perhaps, did fill 
 Their needs: their ills were few; their dream and song 
 But scarce above the earth; themselves so close 
 To nature and content; the laws, the spell 
 Of magic, and the skies so near, complete 
 The measure of their lives. To give them more, 
 Were it a loss or gain.^ Ambition sings 
 Of glory, restless as the wind; and gold. 
 In tireless energy, compels the way 
 To visionary castles few can build. 
 The glint is on the many, a reflex 
 Of hope or envy that will warm or chill 
 The blood, to end in gall. The rock may ask 
 To be the soil to grow the plant; the grass 
 To be the tree; the tree to be a type 
 Of moving life — or each might ask to change 
 The place by nature fixed and be as men. 
 And men to be as gods. Each is assigned 
 By law to fill a niche the world has need. 
 
20 THE COSMOS 
 
 And yet the rock has ground to dust to grow 
 
 The plant with possibilities of change 
 
 That is within and part of that unseen, 
 
 Unmeasured Power that moves all matter, mind. 
 
 The activities of nature are unlike, 
 
 'Tis written in every element; unrest 
 
 Of it is part; to build, to break in waste. 
 
 Decay— without the atom, then no world 
 
 Would be. If life were not, what were the worth .^ 
 
 The myriad forms have mold in which to work. 
 
 No two in value are alike; unlike 
 
 In form they spend their force; their walk, untrue. 
 
 Their smile, ungracious, still they reach the end 
 
 Assigned, with those who move their way direct. 
 
 We think of life's uncertainties; to-day 
 
 We live, to-morrow die; the pleasure, sun; 
 
 The grief, cloud; each its time, excess, and loss. 
 
 We never weigh in juster balance, fix 
 
 The days and bonds in even poise, to give 
 
 To us the scale's incline, that we may know 
 
 If life be good or ill. We ask why life. 
 
 Why matter, force .^ If one, or interchanged.^ 
 
 Why they, and not a blank. ^ Are they a dream. ^ 
 
 Then must the dreamer be — a blank is naught. 
 
 Why then should nothing be.'^ In cycles thus 
 
 We are; as we began, we turn and end. 
 
 On that wild was an Arab and his horse. 
 A checkered life of thought, of fancy, mirth. 
 Of gloom, and hope they led; of want they had 
 Enough; sometimes their store was full; their sky 
 Was rife with heat, with dust and storm — mirage 
 It gave in beauty; dark with clouds it hung; 
 The whirlwind crossed; when beckoned by the one. 
 The other startled them. The rein the Arab pressed, 
 A talismanic word he spoke, and prone 
 In dust, by instinct told, they lie. The storm 
 Passed on, the landscape of the sky dissolved, 
 Hope vanished; all was waste and desolate. 
 Theirs was a common bond, in years of trust. 
 Aifection tied them. One was proud and high 
 Of mettle, intractable save to voice 
 
CHAPTER ONE 21 
 
 Or touch his master gave; the other firm, 
 
 Agile, daring, with less than usual faults 
 
 Of his race; cool, reflective, studious, 
 
 Above his tribe; he took from nature gifts; 
 
 From legend, history, science, much to mix 
 
 In dreams and thoughts of time. One hour, unguarded, 
 
 Wooed his fancy his real picture to take- — 
 
 Himself just cast to live a moment, then 
 
 To die. And is this life.^ he asked himself; 
 
 Hopes, dreams and visions, all — the world itself, 
 
 But a figment of the brain .^ You grasp 
 
 For substance, it is gone; with rapture look 
 
 On beauty and it vanishes; you doubt 
 
 Of life, think it of fancies but a few, 
 
 And tossed by chance, a bundle mixed to play 
 
 An hour and pass away; then strangely, too. 
 
 There comes at times the thought that life is more. 
 
 Far more than fancy dreams or wisdom hopes 
 
 To fathom. Deep in entity it lies. 
 
 Inscrutable to reason; though unfathomed. 
 
 It has the possibilities, unlike. 
 
 Mysterious, that bind and move and guide 
 
 The world; reveals, as they, existence formed 
 
 In matter, moving to its end by law 
 
 It cannot break; yet what means existence, 
 
 Force, life.^ Why not a blank. ^ or why that blank 
 
 Itself.^ Life, death, worlds, atoms large or small, 
 
 In essence now beyond the grasp of mind — 
 
 We feel they are to us inscrutable. 
 
 Above the sands I live; I have not much; 
 
 More would I have — sometimes I envy those 
 
 Who lived before, who sleep beneath; the years 
 
 Have piled in numbers time stops not to count 
 
 O'er them; embalmed in semblance of themselves 
 
 They rest; their art in darkness lies; long since 
 
 Is set their sun. Perchance ours too will set 
 
 Without as much of memory as they have left. 
 
 On European scenes a glow betrayed 
 The hand that grouped, the art that finished them 
 And hung them o'er with something nameless that_stirs 
 The soul to its profoundest depths; with more 
 
22 THE COSMOS 
 
 Than mortal power framed a mystic ground 
 
 Of beauty so inwrought with energy 
 
 It seemed a type of living essence there 
 
 Transcribed — a painting with the elements 
 
 Of motion intricate in play, suffused 
 
 Then with a presence colored and sustained, 
 
 And moving on to music full and sweet 
 
 As symphony of spheres. Across the field 
 
 There comes a ray of borrowed light, that shines 
 
 With beauty all its own, and as the air 
 
 Does spread to tinge, enrich, and fill it all, 
 
 Seemed to impart a radiance from the skies. 
 
 The Alps, imperial, the Appenines 
 
 In firmest poise, the Danube and the Seine, 
 
 The Arno and the Tiber, blended all 
 
 In softer tints of classic fame; the crash 
 
 Of avalanche in whirl of snow, the peal 
 
 Reverberating in the cavern's depths. 
 
 Were but the stronger voice that nature speaks. 
 
 The measured, wondrous flow of the glacier. 
 
 Whose birth-place is the storm-cloud wrapped around 
 
 The mountain peak — a frozen torrent held 
 
 With sides and bed of rock, then pouring down 
 
 An Alpine slope, now marking, as in climes 
 
 More genial, the historic tracery 
 
 That ground to dust the granite base; and then 
 
 The offering that genius brought to gild 
 
 In beauty hill and plain in outline clear, 
 
 Yet delicate, a halo wreathed, but born 
 
 Of inspiration that lies deeper than 
 
 The thought, comes welling up in fancy's world, 
 
 A beam to gladden and adorn; there too 
 
 The hamlet, city, church, cathedral, wrought 
 
 By art and rivaling nature's matchless skill; 
 
 The temple of fame, modest, yet sublime. 
 
 With statuary and canvas, eloquence. 
 
 And state, unlike and immortal. 
 
 The Isle 
 Far-famed is in the distance — wondrous gem. 
 Sea-girt, and but a speck; it wards the tide. 
 Brooks not control; it built at home; it built 
 
CHAPTER ONE 23 
 
 For the wave; it built around the world! In clouds 
 
 Of night it lived; no sun was in the east 
 
 To shine for it, no vision in its sky, 
 
 Naught but the tinsel glittering away 
 
 The ages for its time to come. The storm 
 
 Woke it; the battle lighted fires to burn 
 
 The weft of its decay; an alien hand 
 
 It beckoned; it wooed an alien tongue; it placed 
 
 On ruins of a shrine an altar then 
 
 For a newer faith. There feudal castles grew 
 
 With church and state. It turned to liberty; 
 
 It broke a hierarchy — broke the chains 
 
 Of tyranny; in conscience to the skies 
 
 It turned and wrote in living characters 
 
 The chart of freedom. Men were then to art 
 
 And science schooled; they lived for self, they lived 
 
 For fame; they lived for the skies; they built 
 
 A home; they sailed the wave; they built around 
 
 The world; they built a type e'er to itself 
 
 Persistent, to live and take, to share and mold 
 
 That world; unequaled, not inerrant, they 
 
 Led step by step through chartered rights, threefold 
 
 In form, to constitutional government. 
 
 Protected in commission of the seas, 
 
 And still urged on by fate, they worked afar 
 
 To build an empire. Fancy touched in rhythm 
 
 Sublimer concepts; science turned the thought 
 
 To practice; and philosophy the world. 
 
 The Cosmos, scanned to unify it all. 
 
 A dream the world has always had, it lies 
 Beyond — in distance dies the past and dim 
 It fades, a halo scarce seen in the light 
 Of promise, this we wait, it calls to us. 
 If it comes, 'tis unlike our thought and lures us on. 
 We ask, it seems enough; we grow away 
 And ask for more; that comes, it is too small. 
 We seek in restless days to image earth 
 And sky; the one we touch, we little know; 
 Beyond our ken the other is; we fault 
 To day, we fault to-morrow; ourselves 
 Unchanged, we fix the blame on nature. It 
 
24 THE COSMOS 
 
 Is easier so, for her adjustments work 
 A thousand ways; now here, now there we see 
 The drift unerring take its course the dross 
 To drop aside, while waste in us, perchance. 
 Will disappear; the whole a coloring 
 Then may have, seen again by better eyes. 
 The old is lost in the new, but the old 
 Is not gone, only turned to crystal gems 
 Reflecting living and unliving whole. 
 The night of ages was not a night, it was 
 A morning of the world to test and work 
 The troubled elements that grow the noon 
 Of life; that noon is not to-day — we touch 
 The morn not far away — not in sight is 
 The noon — maybe its herald is afar. 
 Unloosed to speed the time fixed by the sun 
 That lights the west beyond the wave we see. 
 The ages wooed it from the deep, spread it 
 With their wealth, covered and locked it away. 
 
 The world is wide, the ocean deep, the lands 
 Are many. One spot fixes love and links 
 The soul; in it is life. Plains flow in lines 
 Of softer beauty, the hills run in curves 
 Of classic mold, brooks sing in sweeter song. 
 And rivers deepen the melody. Above, 
 The mountains peer in rugged grandeur — earth 
 And sky but seem to meet; the air plays its 
 Drama; the clouds have richer tints that give 
 A varied meaning; the lightning speaks to the eye. 
 And thunder voices roll; each is of earth, 
 Undimmed by tears, unstained by lapse; the sun 
 Lights it in beauty — self and nature meet. 
 We list to no plaint; darkness hides it not. 
 The day, in colors set, weaves the mystery 
 Of its spell; for the moment shadows fall 
 In vain — the faults have sunk away; the cold, 
 The fitful, disappear. Here life begins; 
 Here youth drinks its springs of wealth and of fame. 
 Of patriotism dreams, and wistful, is 
 Wooed on; it urges to maturity. 
 Decay, and death — it does not die. We see 
 
CHAPTER ONE 25 
 
 Its children pass, we see It change, but it 
 
 Remains. It weaves a silken cord to tie 
 
 Us, only to break that tie and offer us the skies. 
 
 All we have it holds, gives for it an hour 
 
 To live and die. We know this, yet we cling 
 
 To it, and as it sinks from us, it glows 
 
 In vision — we part with a tear and go! 
 
 With depths inviting, merciless, sublime, 
 The sea beneath me lies; it sleeps in peace. 
 Across it rolls a wave that deftly turns. 
 Reversed by mystic force, to poise the shade 
 Of night and day and slack the pace of time 
 And guage it to a shrinking world, while thought, 
 Life, and death are alike to thee — nothing! 
 The lightning rends the oak, but thou wilt open 
 To receive it and no mark remains; in calm 
 Or storm, there is none like thee; earth could thee 
 Not spare; space hast thou to fill, work thou hast 
 To do; for wert thou gone and where thou art 
 A blank, in nature is no agent could 
 E'er fill thy pl^ce. On thee I look in wonder 
 And admire; a charm thy surface mirrors from 
 Thy billowy crest, is weaving round me that 
 Resistless spell, a witchery weird and strange. 
 Concealed in fathoms deep, ice cold and clear. 
 That charm can lure and break the chain of life. 
 For thine is not the living, but the dead. 
 Myriad forms there are in thine embrace, 
 But castings of a life that's gone — perhaps 
 That life is o'er thee and looks down upon 
 Thy workings as thou rollest deep in wrath 
 Of tempest, but the world will hold thee now. 
 Born in the throes of a calcined planet, thou 
 Hast known convulsions that the hurricane 
 Were calm beside. A day of quiet rest 
 Is justly thine. Long ages have flown since 
 Our mother earth was rounded into form, 
 And time has marked her with serenity. 
 As a co-laborer a crown should rest 
 Upon thy brow- — it may not last, for that 
 Same energy that flung a world in space. 
 
26 THE COSMOS 
 
 Now silently is working on, to cast 
 Thee in a flame whose fervent heat will break 
 Thee into elements as light as air, 
 And scatter thee, as in mere wantonness. 
 Thou lovest to scatter wide the works of man. 
 The world below, a mist, the sky, a tinge. 
 And space was fathomless. The storm 
 And calm, the earth and ocean, light and life, 
 Darkness and death, commingled, blended, wrought 
 Mysteriously in the woof of time. 
 Transcended thought; but eloquent in their 
 Inscrutableness, and sublime in their 
 Beauty, well could they speak to the soul in tones 
 Of thrilling, awe inspiring power; fires 
 Within were but a flash, the tempest but 
 A ripple in the air; and weight, but naught 
 In energies of nature; track and trace 
 Were not. The globe itself seemed out in depths 
 Unreal, fathomless, and held upon 
 Its way as in a mighty void; distance. 
 Velocity, and time, as sprung from naught. 
 In chaos tumbled, and then turned to wreck 
 In the imagination; thought was lost 
 And overwhelmed in the scene; while alone, like 
 A beacon light in a profounder waste, 
 Was feeling, drinking the sublimity 
 Of nature, nourished by invisible 
 Presence, and held away on border land 
 In ecstacies of spiritual life! 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 A day and night just on the edge of space 
 I hung, but near enough to earth to see 
 And watch its form, and call its history 
 To mind, while on my sight its glories flashed. 
 Without revealing darker spots that stain 
 The shores of time; perhaps I felt them specks 
 Too dim, in golden sunlight varying 
 The twinkle only just enough to note 
 That they were there. The land, in vision, seems 
 A fairy castle — glowed the world beyond. 
 
 The earth, the home of the living — not the dead — 
 It was beyond my reach, and distance, change. 
 Had cast o'er it the glamour of the grave, while I, 
 Across the chasm — above, the dead, below. 
 The living — saw entranced, and felt that they 
 Were one, in life together, in death apart. 
 To link eternity and time anew. 
 
 The world sped on, and I could only lisp 
 The sad, sad word, farewell. By me the air 
 Swept as a tempest, and though moaning, seemed 
 To bid me hope, but not adieu. A tear 
 Would I have dropped in sad remembrance — to weep 
 Is not for shades. And now afloat on time. 
 Afloat in space, without a world to hide 
 The dread abyss, without material 
 Substance to shelter or sustain^indeed, 
 Such were solitude, almost beyond 
 Endurance, only twinkle of star dust 
 Now and again from cosmic depths, breaking 
 In irregular impulses on the soul 
 In sense, that something was and is. 
 
 Back, back 
 To primal man it has been thought to weave 
 Or link tradition, that from larger realms 
 Of nothing a Creative Spirit spoke. 
 As by omnific power, elements 
 Of matter, and from chaos set the stars 
 To stud the sky; so felt I, in the void, 
 
 27 
 
28 THE COSMOS 
 
 And stirring in its depths, a moving niass 
 
 Just sprung to being, and amid the wild 
 
 Commotion rounded, into a little world 
 
 Condensed, for a messenger in space adorned 
 
 And fitted. A halo, like the atmosphere. 
 
 In tints subdued of early morning light 
 
 Was round it, seeming for a shield, and then 
 
 'Twas wafted through the trackless and unknown, 
 
 As by the spirit of intelligence 
 
 Endowed with energy in gifts of flight. 
 
 The miniature clouds were in the air — 
 
 The mists of white, the gray just edged in tints 
 
 Of sunsets' glow, the black that comes in storms, 
 
 And marked with streams of fire. The surface seemed 
 
 As if real, embossed in green, and adorned 
 
 With flowers; as on their native heath, plant, shrub, 
 
 And tree their fresh, green foliage spread^and then 
 
 The waters trickled from the hills, and ran 
 
 Away across the plain to form in pools. 
 
 In lakes, and bogs, and ever strained to reach 
 
 The grander amplitude that makes the sea. 
 
 Then stretched away the plains till lost in hills 
 
 With forests clothed. The nooks that nestled near 
 
 The shade crept in and wider grew; beyond 
 
 Them there, in dimness gray, the uplands lift. 
 
 The long black lines of mountain ranges girt 
 
 That little globe around. The peaks of fire; 
 
 The summits capped with snow; bold crests with crags 
 
 And rocks, defiles and canons deep, with edge 
 
 Abrupt and jutting, pejering down the dread 
 
 Abyss; the seams that crossed; the caverns deep 
 
 That slept the night of ages — each had form 
 
 In crystal beauty nature set. The frosts 
 
 To rival, up among the clouds, the fern. 
 
 The grass, the lily and the rose, the vine 
 
 With tendrils twining, shrubs and trees, on slope 
 
 And dell in shadows hid the moss-clad glen; 
 
 The mists, with colors of the bow, were hung 
 
 In darkness o'er against the sky, while life 
 
 In thousand forms accented mystery 
 
 Of being, birth, and dirge. 
 
CHAPTER TWO 29 
 
 The surface, thus 
 Folded and mottled like the earth, seemed firm 
 And of substantial form, much like the one 
 I left, a pleasing refuge from the void 
 And stillness of the Inter-stellar depths. 
 Where night was lost in darkness, thought recoiled 
 Upon itself, and feeling in a waste 
 Dissolved. It moved — in thickest darkness rolled — 
 Reflecting from its halo softer light. 
 Like that which comes In dreams. It shot across 
 The way where once the sun had shone, gathering 
 And transmitting his beams revealed within 
 A world of brilliance, like the palace built 
 By fabled genii In far away 
 Enchanted days. The waters, clear as from 
 Their native spring, like drops of pearls did shine. 
 While crystals, varied in their countless forms, 
 And penciled with the hues of light, a web 
 Of glistening beauty wove. Their long, gray shades 
 The mountains and the forests cast, like clouds 
 Of mists, In sheen of diamond, emerald. 
 And pearl, of amber, ruby, topaz, gold. 
 There rose the peaks with rugged sides in fringe 
 Of green or blue. The marble base was set 
 In sparkling gems — each turn a wave, in shade 
 And form unlike and changeful, till the heights. 
 In tremor of a flame, were all aglow. 
 
 That nascent globe was life to me. It came, 
 I dared to think, from nothing! From the void 
 And blank. In being rose a perfect world. 
 A moment, then it drew me near; and once 
 Within that fairy realm, a home it was — 
 A native land it might have been — enwrapt 
 With all the rosy bloom that steals and paints 
 The hours when turns the eye to peer within 
 Love's sacred bowers. 
 
 The day, the night, the stars, 
 The deep, the earth like the moon, tenfold with its 
 Attendant speck, now dropping fast away, 
 I could but ask, "Is this a world, a land 
 Of substance, solid. ^ or is It a dream 
 
30 THE COSMOS 
 
 In colors of kaleidoscope now dipped — 
 
 A momentary charm, from mystic deep 
 
 Just flashing, then to fade away?" It were 
 
 Too light, intangible for real, and like 
 
 Alyself in texture, form of matter, but 
 
 Without its properties. The mind could then 
 
 Assume it something, reason as though it were, 
 
 Perhaps, then think the mystery solved, till some 
 
 Stray gleam in the imagination breaks. 
 
 And leaves the fabric— nothing! 'Twere not good. 
 
 At times, to feel that thought has limits, is bound 
 
 Within — to scale them were presumption, e'en 
 
 To think a worse than folly's dream; yet so 
 
 It is, with range so wide, when with the germ 
 
 Of early dawn compared, to the dizzy verge 
 
 Approaching — but naught when measured 'tis with all 
 
 That lies beyond. 
 
 This beauty world of mine. 
 Encircled with all that pleases life, with all 
 That quickens, all that varies thought, was yet 
 Less than one half a score of cubits through, 
 But large enough for me. It was a craft 
 Of sky, and chartered for the full, the long 
 Passage of space, and laughed as sweeping on 
 It left the pulsations of light, and rode 
 Triumphantly the ripples gravity made! 
 Its hull was forged in eternity. 
 But shaped beneath the vault of heaven. 
 The sails were cut from time, and flung to the breeze 
 That wafted along creation's form — thus on 
 It sped while pointing to the magnet far. 
 Unseen, that lies beyond the universe 
 And holds it on its way. Adown, across 
 The sun's bright, fiery disc we rode — the mass 
 Of flame, the jets of gas, while here and there 
 Were spots, the residue of burning matter 
 From clouds above, and waves a world might bear, 
 Or hide the crests that seemed to touch the sky; 
 The hiss and roar, beyond the human ken, 
 A light to blind, a heat the atom breaks 
 To drive in space — and then to lift beyond 
 
CHAPTER TWO 31 
 
 Himself, to magnitude and grandeur of 
 A universe. A moment seemed the all. 
 The zenith had no distance; space was scarce 
 Beyond. The burning elements, the air 
 A flame, the energies at play, the voice 
 So deep that spoke it now — that was enough. 
 Existence centered here in giant form 
 And glow to see and feel the Infinite! 
 
 I felt a dizzy dread when peering down — 
 A feeling that as wanderers, some clash 
 Of matter or dissolving force might leave 
 Us wrecked, alone, and comet like, to feel 
 Controlling power of some central orb. 
 To move, a less than satellite, in wild, 
 Eccentric course. Suns bind revolving worlds 
 By subtile energy, and they, too, seem 
 In certain courses bound, as driven by fates; 
 But we — my world and I — were cast by hands 
 Not bound alone by laws within the list 
 Of human ken, and free were from the pull 
 That matter e'er exerts in stellar form. 
 Insensible alike to heat and cold. 
 To darkness and to light. 
 
 Once more on space 
 Embarked assurance full we had that chance 
 Nor accident could break or bar our way. 
 Our flight to check or harm. To our left we saw 
 The little planet Mercury, last born, 
 Now nestling near the parent fold, all light 
 And radiant, as in a youthful dream; 
 And Venus floated to the right away, 
 As beautiful as when she's trailing down. 
 And peering out from sunset's shade, she hails 
 The hour of rest; still veering to the east, 
 The redder light of Mars appears, with poles 
 Of glistening frosts and oceans' broader plain — 
 The warmer zone, where life, where even such 
 As give to earth its value now, might be. 
 Beyond, the asteroids, but babes of the sky, 
 Were now careering in orbits interlaced. 
 Wild, gleeful, restless, and turned loose upon 
 
32 THE COSMOS 
 
 The amplest space! Yet are they but a brood 
 Instead of worlds? It may be they were flung 
 As dross away, the elements that would, 
 If present, vitiate the worlds as yet 
 Unborn, and leave them barren wastes instead 
 Of teeming life ! Whatever they may be. 
 They're here and will remain, duration long 
 To measure that belongs to worlds; as specks 
 I saw them, and in azure one by one 
 Were lost. Next came imperial Jupiter, 
 Belted and crowned, his diadem of blue 
 Set with revolving gems; in sky a king. 
 And grand enough to be a sun — that day 
 Of glory had forever passed away. 
 And slowly, surely, he was moving down 
 The scale of time until upon his brow 
 Life's imprint will be stamped. 
 
 But for the name, 
 Saturn might sit in state and rule a queen, 
 Her coronet of pearls with triple bands 
 Of gold — and none with purer luster shines 
 Beneath the vault of heaven. Brighter dreams 
 Of fancy, reflex glory, might mark it 
 A Paradise where softer hours of life 
 Would float along, existence steal away 
 And stamp the future with perennial 
 Now — here are built the grandest works of nature, 
 Clustered alone, as by the highest art 
 Unfolded in creative act in full, 
 The measure glory metes. 
 
 Then Uranus, 
 For ages the last gem of the sky, uncrowned, 
 Undimmed, through years on years of time will pass. 
 As if no thought nor glass had narrowed now 
 The way to fix another place. 
 
 Beyond 
 Rides Neptune, a lone sentinel to guard 
 Our system, circling in remotest line. 
 There was he long before the others were. 
 And there for ages faithfully has trod 
 His beat; cold, bitter cold, has frosted his 
 
CHAPTER TWO 33 
 
 Warm coat of mail, yet no plaint has he made; 
 
 No weary hour has slacked his pace, and no 
 
 Erratic wanderer from the darkness has 
 
 E'er paled his cheek. On where no milestones mark 
 
 The way, and on through countless ages till 
 
 The dial tells the final hour of time, 
 
 He needs must go. Unknown, unnamed, unprized, 
 
 Till science watched and scanned and told his place, 
 
 Yet proudly has he stood by primal right, 
 
 For at his birth was genesis of time. 
 
 We passed on and on. There were no comets 
 In our way, aerolites had disappeared. 
 The long blank depths of inter-stellar space 
 We rode; and darkness was abroad upon 
 That deep; the stars were all around and shone 
 With lurid light, but dots in outer sky; 
 Then one by one they sunk from sight; before. 
 They gleamed in ever brightening luster, shone 
 As constellations sending forth their light 
 And heat as burning suns. But strange! a beam 
 Of light I saw; it passed; I saw its drift. 
 It left no mark nor track. Whence was it then.^ 
 Where gone.^ Came it from nothing and returned 
 To nothing.^ 
 
 In the dead of night when half 
 The faculties of mind are lost in sleep, 
 Without the sterner voice of reason, forms 
 In phantasy burst and for a blissful hour 
 Of spirit life blend with the soul; so I 
 But dreamed of fairyland and drank from depths 
 The draught immortals drink. No longer then 
 Were stars around nor sky above, but space 
 Immeasurable, vast, with floating islands 
 Irregular and spiral, annular. 
 Elongated and oval, islands that 
 Did rest upon a deep that's bounded by 
 Eternity; these islands, whitish gray. 
 Did shine, dim lights, in darkness more profound, 
 And heightened into wondrous grandeur that 
 Expanse. A closer view revealed that they 
 Were nebulae, and shining with the light; 
 
34 THE COSMOS 
 
 That from a million suns was blended — specks 
 
 Of red, of green, of blue and yellow were 
 
 They, when their mottled surfaces, like gems 
 
 In coronals and softened by distance. 
 
 Broke into a thousand separate entities. 
 
 I looked again, and they were stars — suns wrought 
 
 In systems with revolving worlds and each 
 
 A center, while that center was a point 
 
 That e'er was moving on in an ellipse 
 
 To mark without a trace a mystic way 
 
 That it again would never pass. Our sun 
 
 Was but a type; Orion, Pleaides, 
 
 Cassiopea, and Andromeda, 
 
 And Ursa Major were but circling round 
 
 An ever varying point from which, in lapse 
 
 Of time, they slightly swerved, as answering 
 
 Sublimer central force; in system they 
 
 In inner lines did move along the grand 
 
 Procession of the Milky Way — this was 
 
 A universe, around its center held. 
 
 And turning in an endless cycle through 
 
 Long ages, again and again. Our stars. 
 
 Thus clustered in a universe, were made 
 
 In systems intricate, involved; they moved 
 
 And shone as guided by a law and force, 
 
 By distance undiminished and common 
 
 To all. One universe was not the bound 
 
 Creation held. A star is but a speck. 
 
 Among millions, but one; so even less 
 
 Is our universe in the myriads 
 
 Omnipotent Power flung out In space 
 
 And bound together by an impulse silent, 
 
 Far-reaching, and searching out depths appalling 
 
 In magnitude with its resistless force. 
 
 The power that moves, sustains a world was but 
 
 A touch from grander energy that cast 
 
 All matter in immeasurable forms. 
 
 Though scattered, bound in universal whole. 
 
 Each world, each star, each universe has its 
 
 Multiple motions, in complexity 
 
 Now woven, while pulsations from the center 
 
CHAPTER TWO 35 
 
 Of space are felt by all as in majestic 
 
 Revolution they circle. Unspeakably 
 
 Grand were the glories hung by the Unseen 
 
 Around in fields of space! Inscrutable, 
 
 The workings of that marvelous something, hidden 
 
 So deeply in its essence from the eager 
 
 Eye of human intelligence! Then, too, 
 
 Passing sublimity is the amplitude 
 
 That wondrous scale involves! But yet. Is this 
 
 All? Matter, motion, force, and — naught beyond? 
 
 Beyond the earth, beyond the sun, beyond 
 
 The stars, far out in the depths of space there Is 
 
 A point, the center of all creation, where 
 
 The lines of force converge and cross, and send 
 
 Imponderable energies away 
 
 To every particle of matter, speck. 
 
 Or star, and holding all in unerring 
 
 Certainty, binds them all in one grand, one 
 
 Immeasurable revolution! Mind, 
 
 With fires of genius burning, gleams of thought 
 
 Can cast athwart the boundary lines that bar 
 
 The sight of grosser mold, and see and know 
 
 Of nature's workings In the flower, plant. 
 
 Or crystal, trace up from the atom laws 
 
 Of wider application, both revealing 
 
 And merged In the grand harmonies that come 
 
 In on us from the vastness not unlike 
 
 The strains of melody that make the soul 
 
 Of poesy. Is this the echo of time. 
 
 Or voice of eternity? The line to bar, 
 
 Or cross, to end In thought or dream, life, death? 
 
 The stars that shone unclouded, speaking thus. 
 With silent eloquence to crown the night 
 In softer light, oft watched the sufl^ering; 
 A balm of radiance poured around the tomb. 
 As to illume the way that none return; 
 A halo gave to bridal days; they looked 
 On acts that shun the day, or wooed the mind 
 To lofty thoughts or deeper adoration. 
 These groupings in the visible skies have awed 
 The childish hours of human kind, and lent 
 
36 THE COSMOS 
 
 A charm to fitful years till science broke 
 
 The spell, revealing nature's laws that give 
 
 Them beauty, grandeur, and significance, 
 
 Like glories of a transfiguration! 
 
 And this is but part of that mighty whole! 
 
 What were this when measured with the full, deep, 
 
 And awe inspiring grandeur, where all space 
 
 Was luminous with the irradiance 
 
 Of light, when the eye swept it as it sweeps 
 
 Its own accustomed range? How beautiful 
 
 Those orbs ! How grandly grouped ! How wondrously 
 
 Arranged! Above all, how surpassing mind's 
 
 Far-reaching power, that all were evolved 
 
 In systems moving with such different 
 
 Velocities in orbits time alone 
 
 Were adequate to measure but the lapse 
 
 Of e'en a single revolution! How 
 
 Simple, and yet how complicated their 
 
 Motion! All, all are touched with a central spring, 
 
 And turn, revolving in a delicate 
 
 Poise, as instinct with pure intelligence! 
 
 The center of creation, where converge 
 The glories space unfolds, was not the place 
 Where we could rest, our journey done; for light 
 We rose and shot away, remotest realms 
 Now crossing till to the confines of time 
 And of eternity we were lifted, whence 
 I looked and counted the long ages time 
 Had been, and saw the furrows he had plowed 
 In space, the striking monuments he reared. 
 The trophies gathered, all, all in reflex 
 Splendor of the last hours of duration. 
 
 I gazed on fullness of creation; time 
 And space and matter mirrored now in that 
 One pregnant hour, realities as bright 
 As if playing in the beams of eternity. 
 So clearly saw I them and seemed their full 
 Extent to compass. On the mystery 
 Of all achievement I reflected, then 
 With a boldness of presumption born, I turned 
 And on eternity dared look — within 
 
CHAPTER TWO 37 
 
 I thought to peer, and with conception linked 
 
 To finite measure, stretch the line across 
 
 Infinity! Athwart my sight was hung 
 
 A veil of darkness; o'er me drooped a pall 
 
 Of dusky hue; below there seemed a long. 
 
 Frail carpeting on which I stepped that night, 
 
 A resting place where mortal foot e'er this 
 
 Had never been. My world from sight did melt, 
 
 And dreary darkness pressed me all around. 
 
 I felt its weight and thought in chill despair; 
 
 But self will nerved me, and a daring thought 
 
 Did steady, as if mortal power such depths 
 
 Vast, measureless, profound, could fathom; I 
 
 Intent did look, as though creation were 
 
 A stepping stone and without value while 
 
 So much my grasp eluded, and I was 
 
 On its threshold, yet from entrance barred. Repulse 
 
 My spirit clouded — and was that verge my 
 
 All.^ No! I had ambition, solace sad. 
 
 To hold me there between the stern, the dread. 
 
 Inflexible realities that closed 
 
 Me round that hour — such were a dream, a dream 
 
 That leaves a sting behind! 
 
 A voice I heard. 
 But sweeter far than speaks through human lips,, 
 And clear and soft it permeated depths. 
 Vibrating with a melody like that 
 The fancy hears beyond the grave. I looked. 
 Did I but dream.? Another world, or this 
 Where spirits dwell.'* Or was intelligence 
 Here living ever, birth and death unknown.? 
 I was beyond my depth, but yearning still 
 For glimpse of coming radiance that I ^'. 
 
 Would shrink to look upon — the mysteries. 
 The secrets nature's Author veiled from man. 
 
 "This is time — not eternity." So true 
 It was that I creation for what lies 
 Beyond forgot, reached only through the change 
 Called death. A scroll I asked to lift just once 
 To read the secret how we live again. 
 If we saw, would we know.? The eye can see 
 
38 THE COSMOS 
 
 The tints the sunbeam pencils, but where, where 
 
 The hand to trace and blend the delicate 
 
 And liquid coloring that e'en a drop 
 
 Of water gives? So were the task beyond 
 
 The skill of human pen to draw the lines; 
 
 Such were the gift of higher intelligence. 
 
 Did I but look upon and converse hold 
 With spirit of the dead, or was It nobler boon. 
 Just dropping down the scale of life, and clothed 
 In human form to touch with kindred glow 
 A lesser sympathy, and waken it 
 To visions higher than unaided mind can go? 
 My mind had felt oppressive darkness — felt 
 The loneliness that steals through being when 
 Expectant purposes of life are foiled; 
 But now the fitful mood did lift, and give 
 An hour it were beyond my skill to paint; 
 But e'en the dream, If such It were, doth call 
 To memory the picture, constraining words 
 To drop upon the page and image scenes 
 An angel might not scorn to draw. 
 
 Around 
 Me was the cast of nature; and the light, 
 Not such as stars their brightness gives, but that 
 Immortals know; its colors, soft and warm 
 And blending, beautiful as dreams of heaven. 
 Not pouring floods of dazzling waves the forms 
 Material illuming, in its splendor 
 Fitful; but an ocean, a deep, of that 
 Immensity on which time is a waif. 
 And space a niche for grosser elements. 
 No eye could see it; ear could not detect 
 The faintest ripple; but one feels it like 
 The consciousness of space, an intuition 
 Of being that we trust, eluding e'er 
 The formula of reason. Distance drew 
 Itself into a scroll, and magnitudes 
 Did dwindle down till all creation seemed 
 A measurable point in fathomless 
 Eternity, a wisp revealed, a crest 
 Of foam, and sparkling on the wave that heaves 
 
CHAPTER TWO 39 
 
 In dread unknown! From that Impenetrable 
 
 Profound me-thought the voice did come that spoke 
 
 Me well, and as celestial light did bathe 
 
 All nature, In Impersonation wisdom, 
 
 Beauty blended there and in human form 
 
 Transfigured, standing with a background of 
 
 Eternity; a gracious look o'er space 
 
 She cast, and sweeter spell It wore, as though 
 
 In it were dropped a ray of Infinite Love. 
 
 In azure drapery arrayed, a lone. 
 
 Star-lit gem was on her bosom; her brow. 
 
 Uncovered, pure. Imperial in Its 
 
 Intelligence; locks royal In profusion 
 
 Fell back upon her robes; her eyes were full. 
 
 And clear In liquid depths; her mouth, expressive 
 
 Of Infinite tenderness; and round, her form, 
 
 In lines of delicate completeness curved; 
 
 Her bearing, regal; every motion, free 
 
 And gentle as embodied grace; she walked 
 
 On space as though she ruled It, and all that 
 
 It held were hers; she smiled, as proud of her 
 
 Domain, but naturally and sweetly, as 
 
 If gathered In herself were the extremes 
 
 Of life; her face wore the expression given 
 
 By limners to the divine. And as I looked 
 
 I could but think, that as in man the stern. 
 
 Severer qualities exalted, give 
 
 To him the ruling place In earth and sky, 
 
 So here was woman's gifted counterpart — 
 
 The feminine of Increate — high, pure, 
 
 Coequal, shedding upon nature her 
 
 Own loveliness, unfolding In her own 
 
 Matchless Image a form of life that Is 
 
 Of beauty the highest expression seen 
 
 In creative act. Vanish I thought she might. 
 
 And prostrate fell; her robe I caught to hold 
 
 Her near me, and away from realms I could 
 
 Not traverse; then she stooped, my hand she took 
 
 To loose It from the fold as gently as 
 
 The mother takes the Infant hand and from 
 
 The drapery parts it, saying as she did 
 
40 THE COSMOS 
 
 It: "Wayward, wilful child, within the scope 
 
 That nature gave thee not content; and with 
 
 The universe to mind conditioned, you 
 
 Seek to invade what is not for you now 
 
 To know. Of folly, much, of wisdom there 
 
 Is little, seemingly, in life — you need 
 
 Not fear, I shall not go. As a relief 
 
 From the oppressive night that is, I came. 
 
 And that from lips of supernatural 
 
 Mold you might know of things invisible 
 
 To human eye, and taste realities 
 
 In full, this side the world to come — think not 
 
 'Tis hard to be denied; but rather, since 
 
 So much is now within your reach, place give 
 
 To gladness, and let it console you that 
 
 Eternity will come, with added powers 
 
 To know what lies outside the range of thought. 
 
 Within the limits there assigned, across 
 
 The soul will flit the shades of grief— so cold 
 
 And dark the little lives do seem — the song. 
 
 The glee, and sunshine gone, all gone; to weep, 
 
 A pleasure, tears, the penalty nature wrings 
 
 From those who tempt her frowns, reminders thus 
 
 Of wayward steps, and ever ringing alarms 
 
 To drive us back; but heeding not the tongue 
 
 That speaks a language childish years have failed 
 
 To learn, the race still reaps the woes in long 
 
 And lineal descent, till lost in light 
 
 Supernal that the future gives; and since 
 
 Its natal day, your race hath trod the years 
 
 Along, and step by step hath groped the way, 
 
 Till dawning light reveals the unity 
 
 So grand that binds creation as a whole! 
 
 A speck, a star, a breath, and energy 
 
 That moves a world, and matter, life, and thought 
 
 Are woven through by threads of nature bound 
 
 With more than nerves of steel, so delicate 
 
 They feel the slightest touch, and through the depths 
 
 Of creation their undulations play." 
 
 I said:"Nature I know; I've seen it all. 
 Give me one glimpse, but one, of eternity 
 
CHAPTER TWO 41 
 
 That I may know it is; bring it within 
 
 The power of conscious thought that I may have 
 
 To carry back with me in my own mind 
 
 An image of what it is; since I have seen 
 
 So much, it were but little more to ask. 
 
 To grant it were not much — to me a boon, 
 
 And priceless, to be of my race the first 
 
 Who, living, the unseen has seen, and thought, 
 
 With finite thought, the Infinite." 
 
 "A boon 
 You have," then with a searching glance she said. 
 "Perhaps it is ambition that has turned 
 Your brain and makes you ask to be a god!" 
 "Ambition, arrogance," I murmured, "such 
 It is; but I have heard so many say 
 That God is this, is that, and then He is 
 The other thing — why, if they know so much, 
 I thought it not presumptuous to ask 
 To see, not God, but the eternity 
 He fills. I might as well content myself 
 Within the limits nature has assigned. 
 Her walls are high, impregnable, and set 
 To tower above the creature God has made. 
 A pebble, could it ask to think the thought 
 A man thinks, it would have to take within 
 Itself, by act creative, mind innate 
 And equal being; then a pebble it 
 Were not — itself but changed, though not in form. 
 Perhaps, yet in its essence, to the high, 
 Ennobling qualities of man. Of this 
 I wonder I thought not, for then a blind 
 Presumption had not led me to the brink 
 To taste of folly's draught." Now with this look 
 Within myself I was so little pleased, 
 A furtive glance I stole, as steals the child 
 Of mischief from behind his own, his long 
 Neglected book, half drooping and half shy, 
 A guilty look, as if uncertain what 
 The hour might bring. A frown, a scathing word. 
 Might well have been mine — so sure a guilty thought 
 Such feeling conjures, giving all around 
 
42 THE COSMOS 
 
 The gloomy coloring that stains its way. 
 Here a mistake I made; in that wondrous 
 Presence those little ripples that so move 
 The passions and disturb the world, ne'er come. 
 I looked upon that face, serene and pure; 
 The warning smile that flitted o'er it gave 
 To nature the ineffable loveliness 
 That keeps beyond the meanness and mistakes 
 Of man — not even taking note of their 
 Existence; then how wide we are of truth 
 When we ourselves exalt; in fanciful 
 And wild exaggeration dare to think 
 We're ruling principle of the universe! 
 Such dream did vanish, carrying in its 
 Dissolving wake the notion that I was 
 More than a link in being, in its narrow 
 Bound encompassed, while far on either hand 
 Stretched out the line — Infinity! I felt 
 As if the deep of time and space did move, 
 A trembling, as if had come the shock of nature 
 Which presages beginning of the end. 
 When flesh will scroll, and forests blaze, 
 The ocean bubble, boil, and foam to mist. 
 The mountains fuse and run upon the plain, 
 And all the elements break loose in war 
 Upon each other, then from stern repulse 
 Rush forth to outer bounds, as far and wide 
 As extends creation, when she who made it 
 Did look at me, and pointed o'er the deep; 
 The universe opened before me; down 
 Down, spirally, each world to its central sun 
 Was running and then dropping one by one 
 Into their fiery masses, while they 
 Tenfold did flame and glow; in magnitude 
 Tenfold expanding, shot a burning star 
 Adown the sky, till star to star did run, 
 And system into system fall and fuse; 
 Then nebulae to nebulae did go, 
 And fold in fiery embrace, till space was filled 
 With that transcendent conflagration — time 
 Was done; and matter, in its fitful clash, 
 
CHAPTER TWO 43 
 
 Down to its death had gone, while space did sound 
 
 A requiem and turn to those co-equal, 
 
 Co-lasting, and expiring entities, 
 
 Then followed to the bourn where nothing is! 
 
 All was a blank! I thought to see — there was 
 
 No light and darkness was too real to be. 
 
 To speak I tried, but sound was not, and e'en 
 
 The organs of speech did move in mockery — 
 
 As something that was vainly trying to act 
 
 On nothing; forth I reached my hand to grasp 
 
 That blank — for of my senses that alone 
 
 Remained to me — that could not be; though it 
 
 Existence had, and by necessity 
 
 Of being, form of something delicate 
 
 In texture, not of it but answering 
 
 To it by law. The senses that reveal 
 
 The outer world were closed; for nature had 
 
 No longer now to tell of harmonies 
 
 Innumerable, because she has sent through 
 
 And given so large a measure of our being 
 
 Both closed and seaied, by bounds cut off from life 
 
 That thought makes real; so buried in myself, 
 
 And e'en that self with no power to assert 
 
 Or give assurance now, nothing seemed left 
 
 Except to close the record of my life 
 
 And pass the way all else before had gone. 
 
 To rid myself of this I could not then. 
 
 For being was, is, and asserts itself 
 
 When palpable forms disappear, and thought 
 
 Material loses and falls back upon 
 
 The simplest impress. Vaguely did I feel 
 
 I was and must be — a misty consciousness 
 
 Aspiring not to thought, original 
 
 Impressions separate, in impulse lone. 
 
 Not woven in material that we 
 
 Call knowledge. With me, too, were the unwoven 
 
 Impresses of an Infinite from whom 
 
 Come real and distinct pulsations through 
 
 The dark deep of the Cosmos swept with death; 
 
 And though it seemed that naught else now remained, 
 
 5till voices came from a profounder deep 
 
44 THE COSMOS 
 
 Than that, asserting Being strong as my 
 
 Own feeling that I was. My nature was 
 
 So made as to attest, but not to explain 
 
 What they were. I had gone to simplest form 
 
 Of life; down where the faculties receive 
 
 And answer but to simple impressions — 
 
 A consciousness of self and consciousness 
 
 Of the existence of the Absolute, 
 
 And indestructibility of both. 
 
 Contented here I rested — happily 
 
 I trusted in the evidence they gave. 
 
 I did not reason; 'neath the eye there were 
 
 No parts to scan, no qualities to see. 
 
 They did not ask its aid; supreme in their 
 
 Own field, transcending reason, they themselves 
 
 Asserted with fidelty more fixed 
 
 Than thought itself — of such were life that was. 
 
 She whom I thought so far superior 
 To nature, who conjointly with the hands 
 Invisible controlled it, moved upon 
 The infinite blank and revealed that deep, 
 Tireless, and hidden energy of force 
 Now welling up from great and primal source. 
 Upon that wave did time come, with a light 
 And youthful air, as fresh as morn's first blush; 
 With it came space, in amplitude complete. 
 The mighty theater where time did touch 
 The nascent form of matter that starts from 
 The unknown, filmy light and spreads as wide 
 As space. Again the wondrous four were born; 
 Again were linked upon that natal day. 
 And fast were bound in the embrace of ages; 
 Of same exalted parentage; in warp 
 And woof but one; down in their ultimate. 
 Essential natures, may be, correlates. 
 And measured in a form of sensible 
 Expression, speaking to intelligent 
 Mind like different entities unfolding 
 In bloom and radiance that tinged and lighted 
 Creation's morn. They came from whom.^^ From whence.^ 
 They came with the imprint of the first hour, 
 
CHAPTER TWO 45 
 
 So glorious, bright, with gracious smile, with step 
 
 Elastic, of the future pregnant, replete 
 
 With all the wondrous possibilities 
 
 Of power, beauty, and variety. 
 
 Across duration flung by Infinite Hand! 
 
 They came from the same Parent Stem; and they 
 
 Were nourished by the living fountain whose 
 
 Clear, liquid current flowed e'er time was; flowed 
 
 Far wider than space is; and flowed within 
 
 The glistening banks of the mighty deep upon 
 
 Whose bosom matter rests. Their budding forms. 
 
 Their gems, were each of kindred worth — were linked 
 
 By stern necessity, and yielded fruit 
 
 And flower, rich as harvest of light and time. 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
 
 The wealth of life again to know, to live 
 Within the narrow theater that bounds 
 Us here, were sweet, indeed, compared to lone 
 And dull, monotonous existence where 
 Upon the verge I lay. The thrills of joy 
 Ran through my being. Angels may have sung 
 In gladness when by God's almighty power 
 New forms were cast. His scales held balanced gems 
 That flashed like stars and ran their course, attuned 
 To music that the ear divine alone 
 Might hear and know. How infinite the step 
 From nothing to a speck, from naught to life, 
 And to the universe! How grand were life 
 That flings its tendrils round a flower, or can 
 The laws of being trace and rise, as though 
 By inspiration, in the majesty 
 Of thought to play with magnitudes sublime. 
 And distance cross with measure accurate; 
 Then note, as it were, in the reel of fate, 
 An immaterial line to remain 
 A memorial of human genius, etched 
 On time while time shall last! How sweet it were 
 To list to more than human voice, to see 
 That form — albeit divine — almost to quaff 
 At springs where heavenly lips have drank; at least 
 In fancy, feel a breath of air from deep 
 Eternity! How much of life can press 
 Within one moment, wealth to give 'twere worth 
 An age to have! 
 
 "You, I have led to the brink 
 That bounds the verge of mortal life, that you 
 May know the limits that do bar the mind 
 From further penetration, limits fixed, 
 Constrained by the necessities imposed 
 On finite being; mind you feel in its 
 First imprint, conscious of itself, and conscious 
 Of something more besides — that consciousness 
 Is the working of elements of your 
 
 46 
 
CHAPTER THREE 47 
 
 Own being, the simple, the truthful voice 
 
 Of nature answering in primitive 
 
 And single impulses, asserting with 
 
 The power and authority of that 
 
 Elastic, living entity. 'Tis given life 
 
 And stamped with inherent imprint 
 
 Of Infinite Intelligence to mark 
 
 And know with certainty that is 
 
 Unerring and received implicitly 
 
 As breath of heaven; these simple native tones 
 
 In essence lie far deeper than the mind 
 
 Can pierce; they lie in depths inscrutable 
 
 Where lies the ultimate of nature, so 
 
 Removed from mind of man, that of it even 
 
 A shadow, outlined in the dim obscure. 
 
 Does never stray across his darkened field 
 
 Of vision. Would you ask a stone to speak. ^ 
 
 Would dreamy wildness dare assert it sees. 
 
 Or hears, or feels, or knows.'' As well might stone 
 
 The attributes of conscious being assume. 
 
 As for the mind of man to step beyond 
 
 The close, unyielding limits now assigned 
 
 And by creative power fixed to bar 
 
 The way. Would you expect that it could know 
 
 The world above it with its beauty, life. 
 
 Intelligence.^ Could realize its true 
 
 Position, or by reason trace out its 
 
 Relations in infinitude of being.^ 
 
 Its purpose, such were not; and till it is 
 
 By Hand creative wakened into life. 
 
 It will, in innocence of world of thought. 
 
 Unconscious, slumber where it rests. The mind 
 
 Of man has no creative power, but it 
 
 Has faculties that answer well to what 
 
 Is such in certain and specific realms. 
 
 In their first action there is but the note 
 
 Of simplest song from elements that have 
 
 Sprung into life, all glowing with the fire 
 
 That may not die — 'tis such that gives to mind 
 
 The concept of itself, of matter, time, 
 
 Of immortality, eternity. 
 
48 THE COSMOS 
 
 And God; the concept that they are, but yet 
 
 Not what they are, received with trust the more 
 
 Abiding, never doubted till the eye 
 
 Of reason attempts to penetrate to their 
 
 Essences, fails, is lost as in a myth. 
 
 Then thinks all that Is but a dream. The mind 
 
 Has faculties by nature, its primal 
 
 Constituent parts, which when they are all 
 
 Together woven are the base of life. 
 
 They all have an inherent, positive. 
 
 Persistent action that can never be 
 
 Suppressed, diverted, nor destroyed. Here then 
 
 Are the first elements of conscious life. 
 
 Of being with ability to feel. 
 
 To know, to will, to think, and to adore. 
 
 These elements and their associated 
 
 Expression were given at creation, were 
 
 In their existence blended, placed beyond 
 
 Control of volition, beyond the power. 
 
 Beyond the accident of thought, and stamped 
 
 With the imprint of personality. 
 
 To them is lone and last appeal — their voice 
 
 Is but the uttering of wisdom which 
 
 Must be received; for were it questioned you 
 
 Would drop from all safe mooring, and away 
 
 From the very essence of life — dispute 
 
 But once the primitive voice, then will woof 
 
 Of being disappear and with it carry 
 
 Every trace of personality. 
 
 That you exist will be a myth; that aught 
 
 Else, will be less than a dream, for that then 
 
 Does more imply, a something whence it came. 
 
 Here then for man is placed the foundation 
 
 Of those realities, himself and his 
 
 Surroundings; and here must he go to seek 
 
 For knowledge of all existence; Should then 
 
 He rightly ask, he'll find the answer that 
 
 They are, and that their correspondence is, 
 
 In the ultimate, the essence of the subject 
 
 And object, harmonizing deepest in 
 
 Their intonations welling up to speak 
 
CHAPTER THREE 49 
 
 In consciousness just short of thought. Here then 
 
 Is found the answer, time is, space is; weave 
 
 Them as you will, they are beyond your grasp — 
 
 No structure can you build; to you they are 
 
 The simplest elements, without a form 
 
 Of likeness or of difference that mind 
 
 Can build up in the processes of thought. 
 
 Unformulated they remain; a fact 
 
 It is, they are, mysterious as it 
 
 May seem; yet more mysterious still, what. 
 
 As something, may their natures be; as such 
 
 They must be left, as entities beyond 
 
 The formulating power of human mind. 
 
 This is not all; there are intuitions 
 
 Of being and reality that lie 
 
 Deep as the seat of life, and link the soul. 
 
 In measure fixed to it, in endless whole. 
 
 They touch, as with the chord electric. Him 
 
 Who is the Parent of all! Then there are 
 
 Those intuitions of appearances 
 
 That come like jets of light, and flashing up. 
 
 They burn as lesser lamps in human life — 
 
 Impressions true, impressions wild that lift 
 
 Themselves in fancy, playing like the tints 
 
 Of sunbeams — these the reason takes and holds 
 
 In mental vision, turns them round and round, 
 
 Compares, and separates the true, and calls 
 
 Them data; one by one they're builded up 
 
 In forms called thought, and interwoven by laws 
 
 Of mind to a consistent whole to make 
 
 Up the phenomenal and structural 
 
 View man calls knowledge; and though not complete 
 
 Nor as unerring as the primitive 
 
 Impulses welling up in exquisite tones 
 
 From the foundations of being, yet along 
 
 Life's way, it unfolds in form and coloring 
 
 That are as variable and numerous 
 
 As the capacities of finite minds 
 
 That do attempt the edifice to build. 
 
 The true and untrue thus will find the way ' 
 
 Out on the field of man, because he is 
 
50 THE COSMOS 
 
 Not set to register all delicate lights 
 
 And shades of nature, nor to comprehend 
 
 All fullness and all grandeur that are found 
 
 In extent of creation; much less trace 
 
 All law that governs matter, life, that binds 
 
 Them, manifold in their complexity. 
 
 And ever answers them without mistake. 
 
 Man lies immeasurably down the scale 
 
 Of being from the Infinite; a link 
 
 In endless chain whose round he never can 
 
 Compass; a little way from atom, turned 
 
 And moving to the Absolute; though he 
 
 May traverse the way with the speed of light 
 
 While ages come and go, the distance he 
 
 Will pass will be but as a point upon 
 
 The infinite extent. The past can be 
 
 No measure of the future; the short staff, 
 
 His step does steady, will be but a guage 
 
 Of distance he has gone. Upon the car 
 
 Of life once mounted and hedged in all around 
 
 With laws immutable, no devious paths 
 
 Can he explore, no wreck can make; his charts 
 
 Are given; but a limited choice is set 
 
 Upon his way, though now and then a stop, 
 
 Or jar, or verge erratic marks his course. 
 
 Man is conditioned in his being, born 
 
 In time, allied to matter, to a future 
 
 Destined as bright as coronal the sky 
 
 Of an eternity illumes. Man oft 
 
 Will dream how high he is, how much he knows, 
 
 Forgetful that it is not from below. 
 
 But from above, that lines stretch in extent 
 
 Immeasurable; think himself quite near 
 
 To the Supreme or, may be, now and then 
 
 His qualities exalt, expanding them 
 
 To infinitude of being; dare to say 
 
 That such exaggeration of himself 
 
 Is fullness of the Parent of all; while yet 
 
 Imagination other attributes 
 
 Can never paint, and thought must ever fail 
 
 To compass anything that lies beyond 
 
CHAPTER THREE 51 
 
 Its bounds; for could he but lift the veil that now 
 
 The finite view shuts off, and more, to him 
 
 Be fixed the attributes of all beyond. 
 
 Then could he see himself as next to nothing 
 
 And realize how vain the picture were 
 
 Of Infinite by finite drawn! And how 
 
 O'erwhelming are the glories that do fill 
 
 Expanse immeasurable! As the mind 
 
 Falls short of infinite, so does it fail 
 
 To grasp creative act; and every 
 
 Attempt by thought to fathom mystery 
 
 Of entity or being ends in — blank! 
 
 Far down upon the human side the line 
 
 Is drawn, and as the eye those depths ne'er pierces, 
 
 Imagination stops, while thought must leave 
 
 To Increate the unfathomed sea beyond!" 
 
 Around me darkness was, impenetrable. 
 Profound — far, far out in extent and thick 
 As night; drear, gloomy, palpable, and down 
 Like distance closing, fearful as the sight 
 Of death! But that was stayed — serene and calm 
 That form divine did stand, and shone a sun. 
 Bright as the star that lighteth eternity! 
 She touched that nascent Cosmos as with hand 
 Alaternal, and out of that darkness up 
 Into relief all elements did spring. 
 When they to being were spoken, or perchance. 
 To my consciousness, they in order rolled on, on 
 Like volumes vast, commingled, huge, in one 
 Gigantic, circular whole that turned around. 
 Revolving on its central axis, but 
 Obedient to energy that gave 
 It birth. Her light went through it, golden like 
 The tinge of morn; it penetrated depths 
 Of matter, and revealed the richness that 
 Unfolds from primitive creation; forms 
 Light, airy, shining like the gems of night. 
 With power inherent, weave their strange 
 And complicated harmonies, build the rock, 
 The crystal piles, or forge the worlds. And life 
 Was there, minute and indestructible. 
 
52 THE COSMOS 
 
 With power and with potency to work 
 
 The varied structures myriads of forms 
 
 Require; there, too, was mind, a pearl whose light 
 
 Reflected from surrounding elements 
 
 Did give to them a coloring like that 
 
 Of Its immortal self in Its workings 
 
 So silent. Entombed for ages. It has its 
 
 Own destiny to fill, linked as it is 
 
 To cosmic matter through the dawn of time, 
 
 Amid conflicting throes of genesis 
 
 Of worlds. 
 
 Now shining in impersonation, 
 Bright as the star of hope, she trailed the deep 
 With living presence, shed her sweetness, light. 
 And beauty over time to give a charm 
 To nature, weave its varied coloring, 
 And stamp it with the Imprint that betrays 
 Its Author; then, too, she breathed into It 
 The softening lines that twine around the hard. 
 Inexorable laws whose energies 
 Work on, thus brightening it with promise full 
 As glory the far future will reveal. 
 Aifection, sympathy she In the deepest 
 Mine had planted and dropped a tear from out 
 The fountain of her life to water them. 
 And nourish with immortal bloom; a tree 
 She set, unfolding, fragrant like the flower. 
 With its roots feeding from that deep, to bear, 
 In Its foliage nestling, wisdom, love. 
 The crowning elements of soul when comes 
 The bright, glad day of its appearance on 
 That heritage where it the mother earth 
 Will kiss, though yearning for the skies. 
 
 All was 
 Anew; and wondrous this incipient hour 
 When that maternal smile did light the world 
 Of matter, pregnant with the life entwined 
 Forever in a softer radiance 
 That comes In waves from shores afar, as pure 
 And clear as ripples from the fount of all 
 The coming time, which was In promise, now 
 
CHAPTER THREE 53 
 
 Awaiting the cycle of original bloom, 
 
 To unfold in universal motherhood. 
 
 This was the gift she gave, and giving it, 
 
 She broke the solitude of nature; filled 
 
 It with the melody that flows from lips 
 
 Sweet as the voices of humanity. 
 
 Life dual then became — and multiple — 
 
 To weave the mystic ties of love, and send 
 
 Its springs down through innumerable rills, 
 
 In sunshine play an hour and pass away. 
 
 Transfigured there she stood, and gazing on 
 
 The glories she had given to time, her face 
 
 Lit up with glow ineffable that fixed 
 
 Imperishable coloring on all 
 
 Around. From world of matter was reflected 
 
 The image of herself, mirrored as in depths 
 
 Of ocean like twin sisters standing, one 
 
 In time and in eternity one, bound 
 
 By kindred ties and pledged to remain when 
 
 Shall pass the scroll to vanish like a cloud. 
 
 Again she looked upon the work of time — 
 Across it pointed; "That," she said, "is star 
 Of hope; I've set it in the sky, the sad 
 To cheer, give to the weary rest, the sick 
 Sustain, and fill the cup of joy; high it 
 Is set; its light is dim and soft and full. 
 To penetrate the deep of nature, warm 
 And color it till it shall brightly glow 
 In promise of the skies. There it is set 
 And will remain. Humanity at birth 
 Shall see it, and beneath its influence 
 Will turn with lighter step to cross the stream 
 Of time. The myriads to come will feel 
 It, glad that it still shines for them, and though 
 Forgetful, will unconsciously bless the hand 
 That placed it there. I have set it to speak 
 Of me; its voice is real, and in sad 
 And loneliest hours, it will breathe the notes 
 Of sweetest song that touch the springs of life. 
 I've set it as symbol of my presence. 
 And while it shines, the worlds may know that I 
 
54 
 
 THE COSMOS 
 
 Am immanent in creation; its light 
 
 Is visible reflection of myself. 
 
 No cloud shall cross it; nor in darkness shall 
 
 It ever set; its birth day is on that 
 
 Of time, and brooding over seeming void, 
 
 But waking into chaos, it will warm 
 
 The secret energies of life till breaks 
 
 On them a light before whose coloring 
 
 The beauties nature works shall pale as pales 
 
 A star in brightness of the day- — this gift 
 
 Of mine is to humanity a boon; 
 
 Its fount is inexhaustible — man may 
 
 Upon it draw, and deeply draw, for it 
 
 Is near the well-spring of his being, it 
 
 Is kindred to the purer worship he 
 
 Shall offer at the shrine where he must bend. 
 
 The Invisible to adore. 
 
 "With a glow 
 Not its own, the darkness of immensity 
 Is lighted, and the wondrous beauty that 
 Shines through it opens to your sight the secret 
 Plays of nature, revealing the delicate 
 And complicated workings of that grand 
 And hidden Power that lies deeper far 
 Than thought and deeper than remotest depths. 
 Welling up and unfolding invisible 
 Forms held within itself and in that way 
 Inexorable floating on. Repulsed 
 Or lured, tossing or leaping, elements 
 Shine in the light of their invisible 
 Author, and are instinct with response to that 
 Unseen, imperishable force that works 
 Around and through them, binding or moving them 
 At need; on each a seal is set that stamps 
 It with immutable law; they'll glow, but only 
 In borrowed light; they will build, but the law 
 I give shall govern; magnitudes will pile 
 In forms majestic, garnished in bright robes 
 Of living beauty-^mine the breath that gives 
 The life — mine the unfolding bloom — and mine, 
 The signet fixed, full of the promise that 
 
CHAPTER THREE 55 
 
 The future shall fulfil. The nascent forms 
 
 You see, and impulses that weirdly toss 
 
 Them in their mystic play, are but the points 
 
 Of nature at her birth — that little lies 
 
 So far down and away, to nothing next. 
 
 Yet pregnant with the potency to build 
 
 The arch of time whose march it will sustain. 
 
 But then molder, crumble, and disappear 
 
 When time expires; but each one has its own 
 
 Appointed place, unlike, unequal, dim 
 
 As shadows to the human vision — not dark 
 
 As nothing, and not cold and blank as death, 
 
 But instinct with mineral activity. 
 
 With vegetable and with animal 
 
 Life, weird with music whose deep diapason 
 
 All space shall fill, all nature feel as throbs 
 
 Of time and foretaste of eternity! 
 
 Beginning is a moment, but duration 
 
 Shall be long. Matter must build — law presides. 
 
 Together they are woven, playful in 
 
 The atom, fragrant in the flower, apt 
 
 In life, grand in worlds, but wondrously linked 
 
 Around the Cosmos till the hour that strikes 
 
 The final roll! But few and simple are 
 
 The elements of matter, yet spread as wide 
 
 As the bounds of space; and few the forces that 
 
 Through nature act, yet all you can see or feel. 
 
 Attenuated as matter is, within 
 
 It planted are the varied glories that 
 
 Will deck the sky. The heavens will brightly shine, 
 
 And conscious intelligence drink the draught 
 
 Dame Nature proffers with her lavish hand, 
 
 And day by day will pluck from deeps the pearls 
 
 Of truth and set them in the clusters that 
 
 May garland brows richest in living thought. 
 
 "To you is given the power, dignity, 
 And worth of man. Before you nature has 
 Unfolded; she is given to you and yours — 
 Rich the bequest. A cloud is on the fair 
 Domain, but it will disappear as mind 
 Grows; yet this is not enough; your being I 
 
56 THE COSMOS 
 
 Have wrought a link between the Infinite 
 And Finite — born in one; its crowning gift 
 In light of the other glows as planets do 
 In radiance of the sun. This hour is passed, 
 First numbered on the scroll of Time — that was 
 Mine; the hours to come are yours, use them 
 Well — ^Time has them for his marks; as one by one 
 They live, they note the trials nature makes; 
 They note the song; her treasures are in deeps 
 You see, but fixed to fleeting vision — only 
 Vanishing from the dial plate that tells 
 When hours in eras pass as ages go." 
 
 That voice then softened away to reawake 
 In music of the spheres, and variable 
 And sweet, around the hours of time did linger. 
 An inspiration for us to breathe as breath 
 Of life we draw — and she was gone, gone like 
 The mists in light of the sun. Herself to leave 
 In nature, interpenetrating it 
 With beauty, giving to the world of form 
 And mind, that nameless charm that gives to hours 
 Their zest, and feeds the life with nectar, kin 
 To heaven's own ambrosial draught — but she 
 Was gone, gone as a living light that beamed 
 From eyes cast in humanity's mold, that fresh 
 And sweetening light of the soul that lives 
 With it all, all along the years that roll 
 Away! Again was I alone — alone. 
 The only breathing form that watched the deep 
 Before me spread, unmeasured and unknown, 
 But working into shape upon itself 
 To stamp a record that may never pass 
 Away! Alone, did I say.^ To forget, 
 How quick! The living Presence, active, full. 
 And clear, and immanent, that for one moment 
 Had lifted from immeasurable depths, 
 A shining image in incarnate bloom! 
 
 The light that brooded over matter now 
 Withdrew the dazzling glories from the skies. 
 And left to Time his mighty work, to build 
 The Cosmos and to run his course; but one 
 
CHAPTER THREE 57 
 
 Exceptional ray, rich in luster, bright 
 As in its native deep, remained; it shone 
 Through space, like twilight hour, and did reveal 
 Remotest depths, seeming to smile that now 
 It shone for me. 
 
 Beneath me space — above 
 Eternity! How near, and yet how far! 
 The one with glories in Its startling depths. 
 The other ever veiled from human sight! 
 Yet what is there? The one Is told in years, 
 The other has no span! The one, the home 
 Of man, the other, dwelling place of God! 
 Eternity! Eternity! Beyond 
 
 The sight, beyond the reach of thought; and yet 
 Its wondrous power, touching primal depths 
 Of soul, forecasts the treasured wealth that death 
 Qnvells to human view! Time! Time! 
 Eternity! Eternity! One flung 
 Into a measured being. In itself 
 Folding the life it fosters, ripening It 
 And it then bearing to the other as 
 An offering for full supernal bloom. 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 I looked again; all space was full; It sung, 
 But only in the echoes from afar. 
 Within it all did move; around, beneath. 
 Across the whole, the silent, silken pulse 
 Did throb, as though it might be conscious of 
 The grandeur that its workings might reveal. 
 The mighty mass now all revolved, instinct 
 With that transcendent power born, maybe, 
 When first it felt the touch Creative Hand 
 Did give to start it into being, set 
 It on its way, illuming ages with 
 The splendor it is destined to evolve 
 And strew in starry clusters on the scale 
 Of grandeur that the Cosmos makes. 
 
 It turned 
 Its round and lightly lay in space, a cloud 
 Of fleecy substance rolling on and on, 
 And scrolling the first furrows on the brow 
 Of Time, a mighty record, telling in 
 Long ages numbering but one for each 
 Majestic revolution. Solemn hour 
 It were, to stand alone and see the deep 
 And thrilling mysteries of creation; 
 To be exalted far beyond the measure 
 Of man, and almost dream 'twere given to grasp 
 The helm of Fate, and turn the wondrous works 
 Of Time, as if the laws of nature felt 
 The firm, inexorable hand that gives 
 Them permanence and power; almost to feel 
 The veil that darkens on Eternity 
 Should rend; and yet, to know the littleness 
 Of self, and feel the drifting on of that 
 Relentless wave whose echo is mockery 
 And e'en the sweep, oblivion! How strange. 
 And yet how sweet, mid fame or wreck of man, 
 That holy calm of love that comes within 
 The life, so gently softening away 
 The harsher tones, and reawakening 
 
 58 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 59 
 
 The music in the soul our Father speaks 
 To us! 
 
 There was room for that little world 
 That came across my wandering path, and more 
 Enchanted than Al Borak, skimmed a deep 
 More wildly real, without an angel guide 
 To point the way. It asked no fabled voice 
 Of intercession, no promised Paradise 
 To tame its fiery spirit and turn its steps 
 Along the trackless way. 'Twas built by laws 
 Its own and sailed by charts that nature gave. 
 No shoals could strand, no stormy billows wreck — 
 And only 'mid dissolving elements 
 Passed it away. It came again to me 
 In royal beauty, and like Araby's bird 
 Of fame, from smoldering embers winged for flight. 
 I stepped upon it like a craft of state, 
 And climbed its mountain heights to turn and watch 
 Its varied, crystal coloring and breathe 
 The balmy air, as one on native hills 
 Where childish hearts have beat in life's first hours. 
 The babe may nestle in its mother's arms. 
 The maid may drink the joys of bridal day. 
 The patriot soldier wrap him In the flag 
 His country bears, but be it mine, though dream 
 It were, to snap the vital link and fling 
 The dross away; to mount a car not built 
 By mortal hands, and trail a hidden deep 
 'Twould gladden angels to explore; to stand 
 Beyond the Cosmos, stand where mind can pierce 
 The whole till law shall run It down, a mass 
 In molten flame, but carved and set In suns 
 Innumerable in the skies — 'tis then 
 The soul forgets Itself, and breathing life 
 Anew Is lifted to the harmonies 
 Of nature, stealing through and blending with 
 It till the voice of one rolls on like waves 
 Of music, and the universe, as in 
 The presence of Its Maker, speaks. 
 
 A grove 
 Of evergreens was on the side, with leaves 
 
6o THE COSMOS 
 
 To kiss the breeze, their branches cHnging round 
 
 A jutting crag that arched an entrance now 
 
 Concealed. A Uttle trail I turned my steps 
 
 Along, to seek its cooling shade, and spy 
 
 The freaks that wantonness had scattered there. 
 
 The crispness 'neath my feet and rustling leaves, 
 
 But told the tale that every truant knows, 
 
 When nymphs have woven subtle web and flung 
 
 It o'er the trees while archly peering from 
 
 The parting shrubs that hide their crouching forms 
 
 As hearts within, are singing silently ^ 
 
 The song whose melody allures the wight 
 
 To sip the nectar rosy lips distil. 
 
 No sylvan glen, the work of fairy hand, 
 
 With glories hung, could vie with this, and true 
 
 To nature, link its charms, as fancy paints 
 
 The castle, weft of dream, above the sky ^ 
 
 In sleep and brightening only when the dim. 
 
 Or dark, shall steal the senses o'er and look 
 
 Without the world of waking hours. I strolled 
 
 Along, and careless of the hour that now 
 
 The twilight's blush revealed, I plucked and strewed 
 
 The stem and flower, prodigal of wealth 
 
 No ruthless hand should touch — they did not die! 
 
 But fresh and fragrant grew a floral path 
 
 In colors set my listless steps to mark 
 
 And tell the winding way a shade had gone. 
 
 The air was full of change; the wondrous forms 
 That nature opens to our senses lost 
 Supremacy, and in delicious whirl 
 Did drop away, while new creations came 
 Like rosy brightness of the morning hour. 
 And told of treasures deep entombed below, 
 Awaiting only coming dawn to play 
 Their part and pale before a higher role. 
 
 A cave embossed in floral wreaths, in moss 
 And vine, an opening in the mountain side. 
 Now held the elfin sprite who broke the line 
 Between his realm and mine and waked to me 
 The spectral world. Within the entrance hung 
 And floating on his wings, by his looks he seemed 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 6i 
 
 To say, "In merry wantonness to you 
 
 This glimpse I gave, and mine the glee to watch 
 
 You out among the specters wandering." 
 
 The cupid pictured by mythology 
 
 Was not so arch, nor did he send the shaft 
 
 With surer aim to startle into life 
 
 The happy dream that all were bliss below. 
 
 The beckoning hand of time that paints the bloom 
 Of youth in evanescent coloring. 
 And tears the structure as it builds, was stretched 
 Above in ghastly grandeur, pointing to 
 The ominous word, Change, brightly enwrit 
 In characters of fire! It dimmed and scrolled. 
 It crisped and disappeared; again fed were 
 Its embers; then at last it passed away! 
 Thus e'er in ceaseless round it came and went. 
 At once of life and death an image like 
 A startling drama that in quick succession 
 Doth tell the happy hours, or chills the blood 
 When death's approach doth take beyond the stream, 
 Across whose waters no return is made. 
 Immensity was full; but where, where is 
 There something to defy the fatal type. 
 And shine, a thing of permanence, at the hour 
 Of birth .^ Not here; for one by one the shades 
 That please the eye are made to fade and pass 
 Away; both dust and marble, earth and sky. 
 Are sinking, night and day, in depths whose waves 
 Shall clasp and bury in forgetfulness. 
 That hand, with trophies hung, upon the scroll 
 Did darken, and e'en the skeleton that would 
 Be proof against Itself did waste. 
 Though slowly, in the grasp of hidden power 
 That gave It lease of life and marked It for 
 The grave! Its sheen of triumph was ablaze 
 Like noon-day sun, and forms that sunk beneath 
 The crushing weight, in death glow kindling, beckoned 
 The conqueror to a common burial place. 
 
 The elfin, Dor, that came upon my world, 
 A merry sprite of daring, mischief, fun, 
 Would press the fatal brink to pluck the fruit 
 
62 THE COSMOS 
 
 Or plume that taste or fancy yearned, and mock 
 
 At danger, kin, or sage as either chanced 
 
 To cross his way. In solemn tones the words 
 
 Of warning he'd repeat, like priestly chant 
 
 Of benediction; and reproof within 
 
 His sparkling nature take and stir as in 
 
 A crucible, then fling it off in jest, 
 
 Retort, and glee, till all around would ring 
 
 In merriment his wit provoked — he meant 
 
 No harm; and wrong, if wrong he did, was but 
 
 A flash or bubble lifted to the crest 
 
 In playfulness — the luring part while it 
 
 Remained. Do not mistake; this lightness was 
 
 Not all. Beneath was solid worth from which 
 
 The sparkle came, that give to it the tint 
 
 Betraying wealth the foam obscured but could 
 
 Not hide. He won me by a look; he told 
 
 His artless tale, and linked me to him like 
 
 A brother. Waif was I astray; he, too. 
 
 Had stepped beyond his bound — an accident 
 
 Threw us together. Though unlike, unequal 
 
 Also, in a sense, in way of life, 
 
 A spark there was to kindle us as one. 
 
 He said, "Your world I saw — too tempting was 
 
 The venture. Heedless what it was or where 
 
 It led, in sudden exaltation the spring 
 
 Forbidden my linger touched and here I stand. 
 
 Where of my race none dared to step; for laws 
 
 That governed we accepted; forces given 
 
 To us we used; tradition limits fixed 
 
 And us it bound with all the weight it gave 
 
 Though ages; penalties incurred were such 
 
 A dream might spurn — beyond all thought, it were 
 
 A crime indulgent nature could not brook. 
 
 Despite the threat a shrine we sought to tell 
 
 The way, the dread unknown to penetrate. 
 
 Though conscience spoke it wrong — that conscience schooled 
 
 By time to speak the perfect now; yet something 
 
 Seemed to say, it might be thing of error wrought. 
 
 To take and hold what's true or false approved 
 
 By judgment, facts one-half or more unknown. 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 63 
 
 Our fathers' steps, were they in lawful paths 
 
 E'er kept? Did they like us forget, or step 
 
 Without the way? Were all alike, the mold 
 
 Of one for all a fit? To heed the words 
 
 They spoke, I thought it right; but why the voice 
 
 That tempts to seek what lies beyond? Or must 
 
 We plead at judgment bar? To the past I cling. 
 
 But ask the future, too! Forbid is that; 
 
 Then were it wrong to think the story told 
 
 Were half a myth that dawned and slowly grew 
 
 Within the mind by morbid faith, a creed 
 
 To seal and set for the long night of time? 
 
 Of this I know not what will come, or what 
 
 The future has for me; nor would recall 
 
 This wanton step. There is a dread — not here! 
 
 In nature's smile there is no trace of that 
 
 Stern Nemesis to execute a dire, 
 
 Prophetic woe. Of life, me-thinks it worth 
 
 The more for this, to us, a larger view. 
 
 Our universe is little of the whole. 
 
 We know beyond our circle lies a deep 
 
 To which we tend by fixed, unchanging laws. 
 
 To stop is not in us. We close our eyes 
 
 In sleep and pass beyond our ken; in dreams 
 
 New vistas to our vision open — gems 
 
 Of light that flash upon us the untold, 
 
 The star-lit glories ages will not fade. 
 
 "Your home is far away; with you I can 
 Not go; nor longer must I stay to drink 
 Of waters we may never quaff again. 
 With me to go, it were not safe; that home 
 To give, that harvest reap — in dreams, perchance. 
 Beguile an hour and that were all. We pluck 
 The flowers, but they wilt and die; we grieve 
 At fading beauty; fondly yet we feed 
 On sweetness that remains — such is our life! 
 And now we part. This seal I give you; keep 
 It, a memento and a pledge to bind 
 Us 'mid the changing flight of years; wear it, 
 A charm whose presence we shall feel, if fate 
 Our steps shall cross; this bud I'll take; 'tis clasped 
 
64 THE COSMOS 
 
 In green, but open in perpetual bloom — 
 To wither only when we meet again." 
 
 I took the proffered gem, round, lusterless. 
 And smooth, a stone with poles of diamond points 
 That gleamed like sparks of fire struck from the forge 
 Where worlds are made. It held me chained; a globe 
 It was of wondrous power; it fixed my sight 
 And drove away remembrance of the giver. 
 He stayed to watch me with the toy; but pleased 
 And thrilled I held it up, and turned it round 
 And round; then with my thumb and finger pressed 
 The poles — a light came flooding in on us. 
 The deeps of the universe were stirred and I, 
 Like feather tossed, doomed, hapless, only asked 
 To fling the bauble down the abyss where night 
 Does reign. Of light so little do we know. 
 Or law, when first it comes; so little heed 
 A truth, if new, though set in pearls whose glint 
 May never fade. We think the light but drear, 
 A semblance in the darkness robed; the truth 
 But a device to lure the backward way. 
 The glories God hath given the Cosmos come 
 But slowly to our way — we see them then. 
 
 That gem, a magnet, touched the secret forces 
 Of nature, and translucent in the light 
 Evoked, revealed the characters beyond 
 My skill to read; but on the antipodes 
 From pole to pole was written, "Dor," and its 
 Peculiar image lingers with me still, 
 A sweet remembrance, though long years have passed 
 Away. As simple means have yoked the spark 
 Electric and given it tongue to speak 
 Beyond the former ken of man, so this 
 Did give me view of world of spirits that live 
 Around us in that wider space we know. 
 A sad mishap it was; they saw me there 
 In their domain, a stranger — fixed to me 
 Putative attributes of deity, 
 And for the moment did recoil in awe 
 Of a presence powerless for good or harm. 
 An instant — Dor came and the gem he seized, 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 65 
 
 Then broke the harmony, which closed to us 
 
 The startHng view. A moment did we stand 
 
 In that portentous silence — a prelude 
 
 To the coming storm. My hand he grasped and said, 
 
 "Now farewell; my doom in this hour has been; 
 
 My change approaches; I shall pass above!" 
 
 There was about him the serenity 
 And poise of firm conviction; yet, me-thought, 
 A gleam of hope I saw, that olden time 
 Might come again; he vanished; but the gem 
 Was dropped; a moment broke the tie that held 
 Us — he to go, I knew not where, and I 
 My way to seek. Anxiety to know 
 The mystery portended by his words, 
 To carry with me certainty if weal 
 Or woe in shady realms did him betide, 
 Made me again the talismanic stone 
 Take up and try its power to lift the veil 
 Of darkness hanging round in sable folds. 
 I touched with cautious hand the nether pole. 
 That I the dimly flitting shades might see 
 In dread obscure; I pressed again and saw 
 Them there — but me they could not see. To reason. 
 To justice lost they seemed, impelled to a deed 
 They may in time repent, but not recall! 
 
 Before the highest court Dor was arraigned 
 To answer at its bar for deed as charged. 
 A simple act, a simple thought, construed 
 As crime, was all his fault; to merit that 
 In sufferance, narrow ken forbid; and they. 
 Not deeming it unkind in thongs to bind 
 His tender limbs, his name did brand and fix 
 In memory sin, that no other might commit. 
 A faith he had — not in the old — the new; 
 Though still the darkness wooed, light came and fear 
 Dispelled. Unmoved he stood to face a world 
 Malign, and test its power to work him wrong — 
 A gift not always near to us we think 
 Beyond the limit that our time hath fixed. 
 We care to-day for life, for fame; we ask 
 In full the meed we think is ours, no hand 
 
66 THE COSMOS 
 
 To stay or press aside — that hour we fail. 
 
 A few there are who break the current's drift 
 
 And die, or live to see the world their gift 
 
 Accept, and live to-day as others live. 
 
 The morrow comes — a morrow they but dreamed. 
 
 The hour in stillness rests; no hand to grasp 
 His own; no eye with look to cheer; no voice 
 To speak him well — alone to live, to die! 
 The dread to-day — the future, worse; a link 
 Once broken, and forever; peace and love 
 And charity succeed in sad refrain. 
 
 The court awaits — the accuser tells his tale 
 Of law transgressed; and then for justice asks! 
 "Most noble judges, ours is duty; called 
 To it by your decree, we must obey. 
 We under law must do the work the law 
 Commands, for it is not our law in truth. 
 By our hands made, but mandate of a Power, 
 Given to our fathers, and on us enjoined. , 
 
 Commended thus, it we accept and yield 
 To it ourselves; it is but meet we then 
 Exact of others like obedience. 
 The deed is done; the why we cannot see. 
 The weight on him, on us doth fall; we share 
 The guilt. No one can break a law and not 
 His race involve. To pardon is alike 
 To answer for and to assume the sin. 
 For, as he is of us, we are in him; 
 Thus what is done by him, in part at least, 
 Is done by us, and while executing 
 The law we must in penitence seek out 
 The way to cleanse ourselves, the penalty 
 Escape, and find once more both peace and sky. 
 The sin to us, if it were all, we might 
 Forgive; but that against the law Most High 
 Leaves us no choice; in wisdom it He gave; 
 The reason why we may not ask; He fixed 
 The penalty; we find the sin — no more 
 Is asked of us. Deplore the law.^ It is 
 Above, beyond us; but we may deplore 
 The act — yet pity, never; that is not 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 67 
 
 For us to give where deeds do pass the line 
 
 That makes us sin in part, and blights our fair 
 
 Inheritance, to loss of our estate. 
 
 The first — we hope the last — great trespass made, 
 
 Wherein we may not think to plead thy youth 
 
 In mercy once, where life in balance hangs; 
 
 For this exceeds the rights we have to stay 
 
 In execution of the law this Hand 
 
 Most High. A casket, if it hath a gem 
 
 That has a flaw, shall we then keep to our 
 
 Condemnation, or fling the jewel out? 
 
 For us, we taste the bitter cup and ask 
 
 For mercy — hope we have, the dregs we may 
 
 Not drink in ruin of ourselves and state. 
 
 The law we ask, and sentence of the court." 
 
 "The court, in kindness, grants you time to speak. '^ 
 Thus spoke the Judge, the while Dor sweetly smiled 
 As infants smile, while looking at the court 
 And throng; in manner, artless as a child; 
 In speech, clear, plaintive, firm — it was himself. 
 In native innocence unfolding like 
 A parchment roll that all might see a heart 
 Untainted yet by guile and fresh as youth. 
 
 He said: "I'd not detain you for myself 
 One moment — nothing ask I; hope, light, life 
 For me are not here. The stream on which you float 
 I now have turned, and it will never run 
 Again with untroubled current, on its bosom 
 Bearing day-dreams to pass away; its depths 
 Are stirred; the tumult of its waters around 
 Us is at once the requiem of the old 
 And hymn of the new! The shroud is for the dead — 
 You would give it to all! For the living. 
 The garland; I plucked it from nature's breast, 
 An evergreen, and twined it for you; take 
 It till I am gone; deck with it the brow 
 Of him who first shall emulate the deed 
 That I have done. Upon your altar here 
 I lay it; stranger hands shall touch it not; 
 'Twill rest, of truth and purity a shrine; 
 Of hope, an emblem; to emit their light 
 
68 THE COSMOS 
 
 In night of tempest, to relume the sky 
 
 With brightness ages cannot dim. I lived 
 
 In darkness till that beam was brought, and now 
 
 My life goes out. I see beyond this hour. 
 
 These walls shall echo to a mighty tread. 
 
 And all around will crumble in decay! 
 
 The folly that would tear that wreath shall flee, 
 
 And in its last look will behold a brow 
 
 Bared for it, as in prophetic vision — 
 
 Then shall you take the garland; you will know 
 
 The hour is come; you will remember me!" 
 
 "Dor," the judge said, "It is no common crime 
 We meet to punish. You, of noble birth, 
 Stood high in our esteem, and we could scarce 
 Believe our senses that you could so far 
 Your birth forget, our laws, and laws divine. 
 To bring upon yourself and us this day 
 Of trial; that pride you could take in acts 
 All must condemn, and to us speak, not as 
 A penitent, defying home, the laws 
 Your country made, and heaven's high decree. 
 Time to sorrow for sin we'd spare you now; 
 But that you will not ask or take to-day. 
 To-morrow you will not see; what might be 
 Of service will not answer then; the hour 
 We have is the one avails; we use it well, 
 Who act to prove its worth while yet we live. 
 No pride, no dream nor vision, takes its place. 
 Was it that turned you from us — thought to be 
 More than yourself, of us more.^ This that lead 
 You to the step, no help will e'er retrace .^^ 
 Vain it is you seek it, and vain the hope! 
 You, wiser than those whose age wisdom gives .^ 
 What value age, if youth above it is.^ 
 'Tis years that school a head to wear a crown. 
 By toil that makes us strive to see the work 
 Of nature, find our way to her, and learn 
 To live — to this we add the words the seers 
 To our fathers spoke, to hang in weal the guide 
 That leads the way that's made for us to go. 
 That faith which binds us all, you thought it ill, 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 69 
 
 And turned away — no counsel sought of those 
 Chosen and trained to help the errant child, 
 Of youth or years, who needs must have a guide. 
 Mistake it was you made — lost! lost to us! 
 We grieve, no memory keep to plead for you. 
 
 "The Book hath written in it, authorized 
 By Hand Divine — it then we cannot change — 
 Go thou, go out in night! There is no hope. 
 No blessing^ — dreary, desolate, forlorn, 
 A brand is on thy name; thy friends may speak 
 It not in confidence, nor relatives 
 In fondness cherish it — your place is blank!" 
 
 Away I turned with feelings mingled — ^joy 
 That Dor the dread ordeal now had passed, 
 No stain upon his mantle, and with that 
 Demeanor lifting him above his race 
 And time; and indignation that they dared 
 To harm him or to stain his name and hide 
 It in forgetfulness. A plaintive cry 
 I heard; a mother spurned the brand and breathed, 
 "My child! My child!" Then clasping to her bosom 
 A son she could not save, she gave her all, 
 A blessing and a tear, and whispered, God! 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 An age had passed; and into being dropped 
 The Cosmos, dark, sublime, and cold, to mark 
 In mystic depths the measured throbs of Time. 
 No torch was in that night; no hand did mold 
 In shape artistic that majestic pile; 
 Yet workmen were in myriads, hard, cold, 
 And silent, tireless, indestructible; 
 Too small for eye to see, too delicate 
 For touch; in structure marvelous, but made 
 To answer waves mysterious that roll 
 Through the infinitude of space — a world 
 In miniature, a type of suns to be. 
 To burn and glow, to warm and feed the life 
 Prophetic, ages on ages away! 
 And each, from kindred orbs afar, a path 
 Unbeaten seeks out in circles proximate 
 And unerring, to link those like, but not the same. 
 
 The atoms vibrate and revolve, attract. 
 Repel, approaching each to each to form 
 The tiny worlds, complex or simple; weave 
 In clusters bright creations new; themselves 
 Are lost; from glassy depths reflected they move 
 Or whirl in motion intricate or new. 
 Their day goes on; unconscious that it wanes. 
 They toil; they build, but know it not; around 
 Them were the mighty, the imponderable. 
 The transforming forces that broke their rest. 
 Constrained their way, and made them in the light 
 To tremble, and whose coming splendor will 
 Robe them in brilliance, latent in its beams. 
 The hand of destiny is there and drives 
 Them on, a stern, a cold, relentless fate. 
 
 All nature pliant is as yet; her night. 
 Though dark, has prescience of a day to come. 
 Vast is her prison house; her task like throes 
 That gave her birth. She cannot stop; the hand 
 That holds her now, no backward way will point; 
 But forceful, stern, relentless, e'er exacts 
 
 70 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 71 
 
 In full its measure meted to the skies. 
 
 Across that mass of living energy 
 A spirit swept, by infinite Power impelled, 
 To touch with mineral life the atoms, pile 
 Them, varied In their forms, to work anew. 
 Cosmical chemistry in the mass was 
 Working to bind and to unbind, a weird 
 And matchless agent, deft, unknown, till skill. 
 Through works of delicacy and grandeur. 
 Revealed It In light to the universe. 
 
 Alone In space had rolled the mighty orb, 
 A solitary occupant of that 
 Domain. It asked no sun to give it light. 
 No dial-plate to number ages that 
 Were passing by. Its birth-right was divine! 
 And poised in place by Infinite Hand, it spun 
 The threads of Time. It built no monuments; 
 It traced no scroll; the retreating sky, Its age; 
 The history, its laws; for In Itself 
 It carried life and treasures of creation. 
 A sacred trust It held them, but the life 
 Was not its own, nor did It break the link 
 From whence It came, for 'cross the realm It left 
 An element, an ether sensitive 
 To bear the messages of Eternity 
 To Time, and speak across from star to star 
 The language of the Cosmos, as ages pass 
 In myriads, while matter history writes. 
 Time smiled at their flight and their work, while he 
 Presided at the birth of suns and worlds. 
 
 Through all that mass a thrill did run as though 
 Within Itself the forces were disturbed; 
 Then particles forgot their parent orb 
 And sundered ties of ages in duration. 
 While kindred atoms hastened on to link 
 In flight, to meet In clusters, blend to each 
 In common fold eccentric to the mass 
 That gave them being, and toward a point 
 In center fell; but devious from lines 
 Direct from center to circumference 
 That radial fall. Created not at rest, 
 
72 THE COSMOS 
 
 But swift in central motion, dropped in curves 
 
 Of spiral course, a cosmic shower, down 
 
 Concentric, cumulating magnitude 
 
 And force, and meeting indirect in paths 
 
 That curvilinear cross, they mingle, fuse, 
 
 Unite, imparting motion, each its own 
 
 Before it felt the chemic force; with weight 
 
 Into velocity then multiplied. 
 
 As with accelerated force they speed 
 
 And fall, in curves inclined to radial 
 
 Lines of the nascent orb in varying 
 
 Degrees, from naught at poles till the extreme 
 
 Is reached in largest circles compassing 
 
 The parent mass; thus a revolving globe 
 
 Was formed within, and like its antitype 
 
 In clash of atoms heating, generates 
 
 Repulsive energy to drive it forth 
 
 In fullness of its magnitude, a world 
 
 Of secondary causes, first in line 
 
 Of that descent whose last shall be the one 
 
 That shines a central sun in space and time. 
 
 Beyond the center formed a rolling mass 
 
 Of currents blended, driven by the fall 
 
 Eccentric, passing then across the line 
 
 To center leading, making its way in flow 
 
 Revolving of the parent matter, pushed 
 
 With more and more repulsive energy 
 
 Away from line direct, yielding to powers 
 
 Transverse, combined exclusion and repulsion 
 
 And gravity; then from the surface leaps 
 
 With nearly balanced forces to revolve, 
 
 A nebulae, in long ellipse around 
 
 The mass from which it sprung. Thus first was heat 
 
 And light ushered into the new domain, 
 
 And trailed a pathway where till now the heavens, 
 
 To human nerve and human eye, were robed 
 
 In coldest, darkest night. Upon that deep 
 
 Were rays that like a new creation shone — 
 
 Not as flash the gleams from myriad suns. 
 
 But soft as the last lingering twilight that 
 
 Hangs on the closing day. Creation had 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 73 
 
 New meaning; the new age had come; its day 
 
 Was flecked with changing hues, and marked the deep 
 
 With God's own penciHngs traced in the tints 
 
 That brighter grow in the long lapse of time. 
 
 He spoke when nature came, and yet he speaks 
 
 In the unchanging laws of the universe. 
 
 The rhythms that wax and wane in notes of Cosmos, 
 
 To His voice answering back, Him proclaim! 
 
 The mighty work went on; all nature bent 
 To her task as no written law could tell. 
 Invisible hands had clothed her, and her robes 
 Were but the visible glories trailed in beams 
 Of light — the colors of that deeper law 
 Whose energy divine upon its task 
 Was pressing, undevious as fate itself — 
 And silence now was broken; an element 
 That once did spread through all creation lost 
 Its oneness, broke into multiple forms. 
 And tossed in varied action; its career 
 Began by generating in its depths 
 And flinging of itself a duplicate 
 Against the sky, to vie in lesser scale 
 With wondrous glories that attend its way. 
 
 Again did the original mass resume 
 Its energies, condense, precipitate. 
 Then form and cast upon surrounding space 
 Another image of itself to track 
 In quicker flight a lesser orbit, but 
 Its own. Creations secondary were 
 Repeated till innumerable orbs, 
 Discerped, were describing each its own 
 Ellipse concentric, playing role assigned 
 In amplitude of space; thus one by one 
 They floated on the sky, a nebulae. 
 Till matter cosmical separated. 
 Condensed, and parent mass in magnitude 
 Did shrink to equal measure with the rest; 
 From them 'twas then untold but by position 
 And smaller orbit it describes in space. 
 
 From Cause the First existence came with stamp 
 Inexorable and nature gave the law 
 
74 THE COSMOS 
 
 To build from simple things on ascending scale, 
 By secondary causes; though bound in line, 
 'Twas to unfold in possibilities 
 Whose germ was latent in the first, and passed 
 As active to the second, from the birth 
 Of time its lineage tracing in chain 
 Unbroken, and cast its way, transmitting 
 The future, stainless crown that upon her brow 
 Will rest, and decorated with the gems 
 Resplendent giving promise of a wealth 
 We may see only in a dream of day. 
 
 The Cosmos yet is incomplete. Its work, 
 Accomplished on the most stupendous scale, 
 Displays an energy next to divine. 
 By art commensurate with dignity 
 Of its inception is nature built, and sustained 
 By far-reaching power, it is to all 
 Demands of its creation adequate. 
 And matter here is grouped anew, but yet 
 Related; now in aspect grand and near 
 Its origin, dispersed, but not astray. 
 The voice that through it spoke it heard; the law 
 Within it felt; and to the force that sweeps 
 Across it answers. Bound in system vast 
 As space, our numbers fail the myriads 
 To tell that, linked, symmetrical, and poised 
 In equal balance, gliding three fold swift 
 In revolution, answer to a point 
 As though it were instinct, allied to life. 
 Above, beyond, the Infinite Spirit 
 Is wrapped in mystery and veiled from sight. 
 A shade hath dropped around the origin 
 Of matter, space, and time, and hid from mind 
 Of finite scope the final elements 
 Of being — vain the thought to enter there! 
 
 Gleamed now the nebulae in space like pale. 
 Phosphoric light; and they might roam for aye 
 As specters of the sky, the paths to tread 
 No foot could print, and noiseless as the dead 
 Awakened, sheeted for a night-walk; hung 
 Upon the heavens with no resting place 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 75 
 
 That eye may see, but in the iron clasp 
 Of law, were doomed to run the course of time; 
 To bloom, invisibly held, then droop and die — 
 And like the dead, perchance, to life return. 
 
 Again an age had passed and worked out each 
 Fulfilment of its time — inheritance 
 Of primal law — to bring the stars and set 
 Them in the constellations; mighty suns 
 To build their systems of the worlds; and worlds 
 To give us moons, — the Cosmos thus complete. 
 Worlds, suns, and systems were evolved from first 
 And simple element by primal force. 
 Directly moved upon and by a law. 
 Governed, coequal in its energies. 
 The end of its creation to fulfil. 
 
 Four-fold in nature, force, space, time, and matter. 
 Dividing their activities, e'er as 
 Co-laborers work out variety 
 
 In great and small, from suns to worlds and moons. 
 Aerolites and comets down to mites, 
 To molecules, atoms, fragments; the large 
 Were built of lesser forms; the meteors. 
 The hail-stones of the skies, are, comet like, 
 The waifs of space; frail, swift, some drop to find 
 A resting place; still others form the rings 
 Of Saturn, issuing from his bosom one 
 By one, but held in narrow circuit, each 
 A separate, distinct entity, itself 
 A miniature moon, a point among 
 The millions, blending with shining worlds afar 
 To indicate the way the forces work. 
 And showing how a universe is made. 
 
 Upon the linear scale of man, the toil 
 Of nature is not measured, and her duration 
 Is told by ages only — magnitude 
 And grandeur here have their appropriate 
 Domain, and their expression gives a sense 
 Of vastness we might dream were next in kin 
 To infinite. The beauty, harmony. 
 Variety implanted and the law 
 That governs their sublimer movements, may 
 
76 THE COSMOS 
 
 Be but reflex across dividing line, 
 
 Thus imaging to mind the unformed things 
 
 It were, in time, inadequate to read. 
 
 There is no resting place in nature; day 
 And night the same in ceaseless flight of years. 
 Still witness changes. From the simple dawn, 
 Creation had unfolded in one vast 
 And complex system, marking epoch grand 
 As time shall ever bring to view; but the hour 
 Had come when worlds were to begin their work; 
 They, planting in the skies their satellites, 
 Exhausted planetary energies 
 In burning masses; shrank while radiating 
 Their light and heat till crisp and dark they hung 
 Against the firmament like suns extinct, 
 Surrounded by an atmosphere as yet 
 In elementary condition, left 
 A surplus; and from matter condensing. 
 Infolding orbs, within themselves did fold 
 An agency to mold the surfaces 
 And make them fit for habitation. Black 
 They hung upon the sky, like one vast cloud 
 Inwreathing, hot and turbulent, and filled 
 With smoke from quenching fires of an extinct 
 Sun, while the ocean, with its bed unformed. 
 Was held suspended in its elements, 
 Awaiting the conditions when they should 
 Clasp and precipitate upon the crisp 
 And friable, yet glowing surface; thus 
 They rent the earth and rose in steam to give 
 To space its warmth; a rain cloud form that drenched 
 The world in floods^ — as water nature seemed; 
 Her elements she loosed and rocked the earth 
 Till fires within were stayed. The crust was worn 
 By liquid fires and torn without by storms. 
 The fires the waters drank; in elements 
 The war went on; nights lurid were with jets 
 Of fire; the days were darkened — the sun himself 
 Was hid; the earthquake shook from pole to pole; 
 Cyclones awoke in troubled hours to sing 
 The song of desolating woe; but grim 
 
CHAPTER FIVE -j^ 
 
 And torn earth held her way; the fires she clasped 
 
 In her embrace and soothed them to repose; 
 
 She smiled at tempests, to her hand they tamed; 
 
 The sun broke through the clouds; light came to cheer, 
 
 In colors to pencil that historic ground; 
 
 The rocks In crystals set; she held an iron 
 
 Pen, dipped in ink of liquid fire, to write 
 
 On stone the first pages in the Book of Time, 
 
 A treasure scrolled and imperishable 
 
 As the globe itself; the words her own; the key, 
 
 Chained to the rock, though veiled, was there to turn 
 
 The lock and open, mysteries to reveal. 
 
 The earth had shone a star in depths of space, 
 A brilliant in the coronal of the sun, 
 Illuming for its day a distance time 
 May never tell. That hour is gone; but black 
 As desolating fires could leave her, seen 
 In borrowed light, she passes on her way 
 Of change in the slow processes of years. 
 The storms without, the fires within, are her 
 Agents; the waters play between the earth 
 And sky; the crust then yields and sinks to form 
 The ocean's bed, above the land appears. 
 The tide is stayed. The rock is crude and black 
 And friable; the rains fall and it wastes; 
 The tides roll and it crumbles; storms cross it 
 And it passes away; for wind and wave 
 Have chartered earth and sea to break and build; 
 Fragments they carry in the ebb and strew 
 In milder hours; slowly the rough debris 
 Accumulates in one broad layer, long 
 As the reflowing tide; thus nature works. 
 Destructive storms her agents are; the wrecks. 
 Materials to shape in structures time 
 Alone their foundations can break and strew. 
 
 The world's a mirror skies reflecting, stars 
 And planets imaged in a burnished gleam, 
 The miniature painting of space, that far 
 To border of infinitude extends. 
 Its back ground is immensity that shades 
 Its depths with a reality, wierd, strange, 
 
78 THE COSMOS 
 
 That fascinates the sense and seems to beckon 
 And fade to the untold bourn where we drop 
 The fetters of to-day, and list the voice, 
 To live, to fill the promise nature makes. 
 
 The earth was made by law — no choice she had. 
 The sterner fiat was pronounced — she came 
 With limitations of her being, force. 
 And power; she came, material in form. 
 And rocked by invisible elements. 
 But brought from her remotest origin 
 The possibilities of life. Now warm 
 With central fires, both lighted by the sun 
 And warmed, the waters were a fitting place 
 For germs of life, the cradle that rocked them 
 In infancy, and cared for their earliest wants, 
 Sustaining, nurturing by day or night. 
 While roll and roar were as a mother's voice, 
 A mother's dalliance — earth, ocean, each 
 A parent, fruitful and indulgent then. 
 
 Whence that mysterious force, invisible. 
 That brooded o'er the birth of time.^ What Power 
 Gave to it origin and life, unchained 
 It in the Infinite, and gave to it 
 Dominion of the Cosmos.^ Whence the form 
 And substance matter takes, and what the link 
 That ties it to the subtile force to make 
 The one involve the other .^ Are they forms 
 Assumed by nature for the day of time, 
 The shadows of realities that speak 
 To senses, sparkling, but illusive as 
 A dream. ^ Who penetrates their essences. 
 Tells what they are.^ Who can draw back the veil 
 And paint them on the field of vision, unlike 
 Or like — perchance but forms or symbols, one 
 In entity.^ How rich the treasures which 
 That Hand hath planted there, brought from beyond 
 The ken of man, and penciled in real forms 
 And coloring upon the canvas, art 
 And nature blended, as in grander type 
 A living picture that would speak and act 
 In evolution as the Cosmos builds! 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 79 
 
 Amid the closing elements, amid 
 Advance and change, amid the types and forms 
 Then lifting into shape, were conditions 
 Of life, ethereal and mystic, but 
 Not stranger than the subtile principles 
 That harden in material as worlds 
 Of matter, silent in their ultimate 
 Natures, but wondrous entities that hold 
 Invisible secrets, challenging both 
 The scrutiny and admiration of 
 The mind; and as material natures speak 
 And build, their notes and forms are heard and seen; 
 And thus the life, true to diviner gifts, 
 Upsprings from the invisible with its 
 Birth-rights, attentive to the call of law. 
 It is in nature mysterious, profound. 
 No pen can trace its call, no picture can 
 Its elements produce, no chemistry 
 Dissolve it. Planted in the Cosmos, it 
 Is ruled by laws of its inheritance. 
 Unlike surrounding matter and the great 
 And primal forces, it stands distinct and clear; 
 Though hung in veil of mystery, it is 
 Itself not sufficient; 'tis not a thing 
 Sublimely independent, to be fed. 
 Sustained, as unrelated to the grand 
 Co-laborers that build the universe; 
 But born with them, e'er in their work of time 
 Associated, linked to them by laws 
 As deep, mysterious as themselves, each must 
 Feel and answer to the other while the tie 
 Of correlation shall remain; though they 
 Speak diiferently to the human mind, 
 Refusing secrets to disclose, yet they 
 Have unity of purpose in the long 
 Succession and finality of events. 
 
 How deep and tense the thought to grasp all laws 
 And formulate the universe in them! 
 How deeper yet their essences to pierce 
 And bring to light the final cause! and then 
 Reveal the purpose and the end of all! 
 
8o THE COSMOS 
 
 The sun would be as darkness on that day 
 When Infinite reveals Itself to man! 
 
 Begun in womb of time the life unseen, 
 Unconscious, as light, heat, and gravity 
 Gave matter energy and form; it worked 
 In grosser elements to build itself 
 A habitation, only simplest garb 
 Assuming; from co-workers broke, a speck 
 It was, and filmy, in the Cosmos; then 
 Materials gathering, the choicest 
 In time, and grouping them, it made with skill 
 Unique an outward form, a germ to break 
 As matter broke in the grand processes 
 That systems build, thus scattering the seeds 
 In orbs of space; e'er present in the world 
 Of matter as an all-controlling power, 
 It fixed the atoms each to each to live; 
 And artist-like, in simple faith it laid 
 The foundations of both the animal 
 And vegetable kingdoms in a bed 
 Of waters; matter forged and wrought to make 
 A lowly covering, a garb to fit 
 The soft or hard the storms to battle wild. 
 In thousand forms to live, to multiply. 
 To vary, to die; thus passing order, form. 
 Condition through all possibilities 
 That nature did require. The simple way 
 It lived, the simple garb it wore was all 
 It needed then to work its day, to work 
 Above to forms complex and large that vied 
 In beauty and variety the world 
 To crown. Without a conscious will they did 
 The work that their essential natures told. 
 They did it well. The dust and rock and germ, 
 The air, the mountain, sea, in flexible 
 Mold, are each but the types of myriad 
 Forms now compounded by insensate force; 
 So life, to one expression now not held, 
 To new conditions e'er itself adapts. 
 It feeds and builds; new elements it takes; 
 The structures by gradations vary; new 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 8i 
 
 Types have their foundations laid, are destined 
 Almost to infinite diversity; 
 Related in their origin they have 
 A common, permanent inheritance 
 That reveals their earliest unity. 
 
 That life as it began unconscious, could 
 We but see as it was, how strange would be 
 Prophetic power the change to tell, as age 
 On age did pass in toil to human life. 
 How wild the dream that it should grow to mind, 
 To re-read backward to its birth the long 
 History, paint events as passing now 
 In air, in wave, or written on cold blocks 
 Of stone! A hymn of fate the future chants 
 As chants the past in lisp of mystic ken. 
 
 In its first form, the ocean was of life 
 The primal home; and there elaborated 
 Material with subtile chemistry. 
 The plastic substance broke in fragments, each 
 A center subject to conditions new; 
 And while retaining the imprint of birth, 
 With perfect allotropic nature drank 
 As from another fountain to grow anew. 
 In size and shape diverse, till cast in cells 
 That were of forms progressive, but in types 
 Unfolding in successive series more 
 And more complex, thus threading up the way 
 From elemental state, below the sight. 
 Beyond the microscope, where reason alone 
 Must go to penetrate the conditions 
 Required the whole Cosmos to unify. 
 Her laws there nature wrote, and forged her own 
 Materials, while play of forces scored 
 And scored again on time a mark, until 
 Another change demands that mighty pen 
 To write indelibly the acts in grand. 
 Progressive steps the elements must take. 
 
 The foundations of nature deep were laid 
 By Infinite Mind; the elements were few; 
 The laws that governed, simple; back of all, 
 Creative Power; before, unknown; afar. 
 
82 THE COSMOS 
 
 Indefinite, inviting future; while 
 
 Through all, the energies intense and grand 
 
 And full as purpose of their Author. Low 
 
 And high the span of that new world began 
 
 But to unfold in structures marvelous 
 
 That were for successive ages fitted. Great 
 
 As nature was, and simple and sublime 
 
 Her birth, she brought with her from origin 
 
 The possibilities of infinite 
 
 Variety, and strewed on all her worlds 
 
 The works of cunning skill, though starting her 
 
 Beginning lower even than the monad. 
 
 Endued with the instinctive power, began 
 
 Those processes to end in every form 
 
 Of conscious and unconscious life. That germ 
 
 She broke and scattered far and wide in her 
 
 Vast elemental wars, fed them in each 
 
 Domain with the food most appropriate 
 
 To rear a race fitted to run its course. 
 
 Some drank in scanty depths and mites were formed 
 
 With indefinable characteristics 
 
 On border land between the vegetable 
 
 And animal worlds; living creatures that 
 
 Each way point, claiming kindred with those above 
 
 But linked below, the nondescripts that were 
 
 By nature flung in early dawn to tread 
 
 The primal seas. Born for a day, they played 
 
 At life; they fed, they multiplied, and died; 
 
 But from oblivion nature's kindly hand 
 
 Has rescued them, and they themselves have reared 
 
 A monument that long as oceans roll 
 
 Or mountains stand will last; the skeleton 
 
 Each dropped down in the common pile, a stony 
 
 Fragment only, a death mite, record, grave! 
 
 The coral reefs! Who shall count tombstones, date, 
 
 And name.^ Each cell, once the depository 
 
 Of life, is dead but speaks around the globe; 
 
 Their voices echo from the Cumbrian, 
 
 From sand-stone. Lias, and the Oolite 
 
 Till myriads join the chorus from the wave. 
 
 The valley, and the mound, prolonging birth 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 83 
 
 And death song, touching the extremes of life. 
 
 The work of life began; materials 
 Abundant were, methods unlimited. 
 The upward way had touched the cell and stamped 
 It with the innate characteristics 
 That fix degrees of permanence and change. 
 It rode the storms with smiles; without an eye, 
 An ear, or tongue, it moved with certain step, 
 And listed to the harmonies that speak 
 Again the voice that nature knows; it drank 
 To grow; it fed but to divide, in calm 
 Or storm the same; in rest or motion it 
 Fulfilled its purpose; it was near when first 
 The earthquake came, and faced the tempest that 
 Did shake the world. While working in lower planes, 
 The microscopic realms, the tiny forms. 
 In countless myriads and sparkling like 
 The colors of the rainbow, wove their cells 
 And knit them in tissues, the starting points 
 Of quaint and striking forms, emerging e'er 
 By slow gradations toward the crowning top. 
 
 Not yet was earth in peace. The lightning oft 
 Trellised the sky; the voice of thunder broke 
 In deep intonations; the waters ran wild. 
 For the winds were abroad; but firm and staunch 
 The granite rocks were laid in casing round 
 The world; the elementary substances, 
 In the alembic of nature broken, quartz. 
 Feldspar, and mica, dropped in crystalized 
 Confusion, set in masonry nature's own 
 Great Architect alone could build; in this 
 Is a strange fact of nature- — she e'er breaks 
 To build! Her choicest works, in color rich. 
 And wrought with taste and skill, alike with those 
 Frail and unstable, are barely cast till come 
 The ruthless solvents, stealing like the fell 
 Sprites of destruction, and spoil all the works 
 To fabricate again. Her crystal, plant. 
 And life, the world — the very elements — 
 Feel the intensive touch and pass along 
 In transformation. In the wreck there are 
 
84 THE COSMOS 
 
 The living; fragments wrested from decay 
 Are fixed again; each act but nature's art; 
 She leaves a transcript and steps on again. 
 
 The rock first formed and floating on a wave 
 Of fire tossed on its burning bed to wax 
 And wane till cold of cosmic depths, exchanged 
 With fiery heat, cemented floating slag 
 To plastic crust, dark, porous, uninviting, 
 While day by day was added to its base 
 The cooling matter, as above the storms 
 And waters wasted; clouds the sun veiled; dark 
 As night, the deep; and rain then fitful fell 
 To mark with fingers of decay; the heat 
 Compressed wrought but uneasily in that 
 Close, narrow home; now and then shot forth streams 
 Of fire in columns that seemed to touch the sky. 
 Support the arch, emblazon with lurid cast; 
 Then start, in mists of gray, the mystic shapes 
 To twirl, fantastic, stalk like specters grim. 
 Point boneless fingers from the unreal. 
 Dissolve then as they came, harmless as air. 
 
 The elements worked on — the hand of fate 
 Their course directed. From the turmoil grew 
 Severer aspect; rocks were ground and spread 
 And piled; unequal action poise of earth 
 And sea disturbed; the crust depressed in long 
 Lines, then the hills arose, convolved on beds 
 Of liquid fire; the seas hissed as on their 
 Retreating lines the burning lava fell. 
 But then returned again in clouds to drench 
 And redissolve the earth that dared to lift 
 Itself above the waves own curling crest 
 And smile at reflux breaking on the shores 
 In foam and spray. Again the processes 
 Repeated till the simple structures were 
 Involved; the primitive crust, curious 
 In complications, torn above, beneath 
 By sea, then thickened, lifting plains from out 
 The ocean, built on slate and lime and sand. 
 The plant fixed here its root. The germ first formed, 
 Allied to a more favored kingdom, turned 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 85 
 
 Its course away to climb a long ascent. 
 
 It grew, a weed, upon the deep; it touched 
 
 The rock and then became a moss; it found 
 
 The earth and dropped its tendrils deep to cling 
 
 And feed; the sun warmed and it grew; in vine 
 
 It spun a lengthened form of tender, light. 
 
 Luxuriant growth; 'twas sheltered, hardened,Uoo, 
 
 By the hills; the summit to crown it scaled, 
 
 And like a stranger grew; away it was 
 
 From its original home, far from the wave 
 
 On which it drank; its mobile elements 
 
 Did blend in foreign lands to make it pass 
 
 By easy gradations, in varying 
 
 Clime and soil, where it strewed the earth with its 
 
 First covering of green. The weed, the moss. 
 
 The plant, and grass, unlike as they appear, 
 
 Were but the varied structures of one germ 
 
 Whose elements to other elements 
 
 Had linked, unequal in proportion, as 
 
 The skillful artist wrests from nature's breast 
 
 Her choicest offerings, and with them blends 
 
 A pictured view — each was a step above. 
 
 The earth had risen; hills alone were formed; 
 Here and there on the gentle slope of plain. 
 An unpretending peak with sunlight flecked, 
 And flinging back the morning gleam penciled 
 In silver and in gold; down from their sides 
 The streams had trickled, coalescing as 
 They ran, wearing their channels to the sea. 
 Repeating nature's grander rhythm whose long. 
 Clear monotones the tomes shall tell from which 
 We trace the history in fold on fold 
 As time has laid them there embalmed to mark 
 Her onward flight and work of years record. 
 
 To mind, the passing hour is brief; the span 
 Of years that's gone is short; we've snatched from fate 
 A broken stick to measure birth and end 
 Of time; we take the distance in finite terms. 
 Ourselves the unit to stretch across, and crop 
 The first and last, then claim our line complete. 
 The narrow concept has dissolved — beyond 
 
86 THE COSMOS 
 
 The broken vision, what? The lengthened range 
 
 Of reason has caught a gUmpse of that profound, 
 
 And shrinks from sounding its depths; the line is short, 
 
 The numbers yet untold that fix the bound 
 
 Which as it dips, like the horizon, recedes 
 
 To clearer sight, and tires the straining eye. 
 
 Ours is a dream that lures and measures — looks 
 
 And looks far, far away, and then awakes. 
 
 The little we have may suffice to gild 
 
 An hour; and though it is so much to us. 
 
 We cannot drive away the thought, it is 
 
 Not all. Away beyond our ken there is 
 
 Immensity of space and time; they come 
 
 To us as glimpse of the unreal, unbidden, 
 
 Untouched, unseen; and ours to-day the voice 
 
 That nature speaks across the distance, years 
 
 Along, clear, but intangible, ideal. 
 
 Till consciousness doth waver in itself 
 
 To count the ages geologic time 
 
 Hath graven on the solid rocks to brink 
 
 Of eras arched by Infinite Hand to link 
 
 In thought the years that came to pass away. 
 
 Or drop in tide that flows on to the verge 
 
 Whose edges in eternity doth merge. 
 
 To haste, the world had then no need. It marked 
 In countless numbers on its dial, each 
 To tell a revolution. Through parting clouds 
 The sun did shine to speak the promised day. 
 The sea was restless, swept by clouds as dark 
 And lurid as night; the tempest came; the curling 
 Wave, nor the light of sun nor star did fleck; 
 It broke where land appeared, in turmoil winds 
 And waters shook the earth; the liquid bed 
 Of fire uneasy grew, and the crust moaned. 
 Rocked, shrank, and folded in the ocean's clasp 
 Till by the land 'twas stayed, whose outlines more 
 Complete and corrugated grew; head-lands 
 And craggy sides from waters uplifted 
 To check the tides, reverse the energy. 
 And give us on the earth a longer day. 
 
 The plants lived; nature wrought; her life again 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 87 
 
 Was new; in changed conditions it she fed 
 
 And fostered; skies were murky; older things 
 
 Their elements had fixed, but others then 
 
 Released, relations formed to make 
 
 Or modify conditions of the world. 
 
 All did conform to order new; plants breathed 
 
 Life giving air; the sun in colors touched 
 
 Them, thus they climbed the steeps to feed and grow, 
 
 And swaying to the music of the winds. 
 
 Unfolded in the higher forms like fern, 
 
 Like Zamia and Cycas; durable 
 
 In structure and of life tenacious, they 
 
 Intruded in the rocks and left in type 
 
 Their life-like images, the silent but 
 
 Unimpeachable history of their race. 
 
 The ocean chafed the rocks in ceaseless roll 
 Uncurbed; its depth and volume measured work 
 It did; the sun Its waters drank; they filled 
 The air to fall and sap and mine; they came 
 In storm, in tempest, and in fire; then spoke 
 The thunder, but it was unheard; the flash 
 Of lightning was unseen; in desolation 
 The noise and darkness o'er that scene did brood. 
 
 The plants were sturdy workers; when they heard 
 The ocean come they hastened from its way; 
 From crumbling soil they fled to climb the hill; 
 Every nook they sought, to live and grow 
 In kind unlike, as from the virgin soil 
 They drank the nectar nature now distilled. 
 Each cell its little world enlarged, molding 
 The stranger elements In rain or sun 
 Or wind; and plastic to necessities 
 Of place and time, began recast of types. 
 Accumulating varieties until 
 The root and trunk, the texture, bud and leaf 
 And branch assumed persistent forms; thus then 
 Arose great families to perpetuate 
 Themselves by rootlet, slip, or seed; to hedge 
 And fence in harder toll, and fight to live. 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 An aspect of terrific grandeur, forge 
 Of nature wore; with space commensurate 
 Were its foundations; basic elements 
 Of matter leaped responsive to unseen 
 And silent forces; in that crucible 
 Was the majesty of the universe. 
 The skillful hand of destiny, invoked 
 By cosmic law, was building it as builds 
 The genius of construction; for the world 
 Materials were adequate, and as 
 Necessity required new forms assumed, 
 The forces interchanged in constant play, 
 To give conditions needed by events. 
 Each act was for its time; a step it was 
 In that succession, one in nature's scale; 
 Intense the darkness was that hung around 
 The first grand revolutions, disappearing 
 In light of stars, of millions yet untold. 
 Here, as in the alembic, principles 
 Were to combine as though Divinity 
 Was immanent in every process, end 
 Had shaped by fiat, in its origin 
 Put impress on the elemental state 
 That spoke in each new act, as from the womb 
 There sprung a blazing world to cool and dim, 
 And blend constituents of the sea in whose 
 Deep waters came the forming elements 
 Of life; and here in the formative mass 
 It was they answered to the Eternal; 
 For from the fragments in the varied states 
 Began the cell structures which were to grow 
 And day by day were to adapt themselves. 
 While nature fitted their abodes; uncouth 
 And strange though they might seem, and small, within 
 Was locked the priceless germ that, tried in fires. 
 Remained in simple purity. It scorned 
 Not budding vestures, changed from age to age 
 And linked by vital spark whose purpose lay 
 
CHAPTER SIX 89 
 
 Hid in the distant future none could see. 
 
 Back it was in that early hour when all 
 In nature held closest relationship, 
 The flora and the fauna dropped in germs 
 From parent stem and took the kindred tie 
 Whose characteristics may never be 
 Effaced. Their striking similitudes were 
 As cold links in the chain of logic whose 
 True steel-like glitter lights down in the dim, 
 Uncertain history whose oracles 
 The world's departed days recalled in quick 
 Succession, and by special acts did bring 
 From nothing bolder features of the globe. 
 But nature had her microcosm to play 
 Her curious freaks in the invisible world; 
 For she created the bacteria whose 
 Short subtle life, indefinite and quick 
 In multiplication, was destined to 
 Become the mighty agent, vying with 
 A greater power, to mar and break the fair 
 And strong and revel in destruction; light 
 As air and swift as wind, insidious 
 Beyond compare, they flourish on organic 
 Tissue and fluids, and a habitat build 
 Amid the ruins of the highest life. 
 
 The inorganic chemistry worked long 
 And well, in its domain a specialist. 
 The foundations to lay whereon was placed 
 The higher order; to readjust to new 
 Conditions; there seek out materials 
 From lifeless elements and by the force 
 Organic mold and change them from the germs 
 Initial; then from their birth place push them 
 Out on the deep, with relentless fate to care 
 For them, to kill and grind them, to refine 
 In processes for turning off the more 
 Complex and varied entities that seek 
 The different ways and means of life. There were 
 No sinecures. To live, to propagate, 
 To die — no easy task it was! Escape 
 Impossible! Flung into the wild, vast. 
 
90 THE COSMOS 
 
 And endless turmoil, hedged by fate in cold, 
 
 Inexorable laws, with every wave 
 
 A buffet, every kind of life a foe! 
 
 Continual struggle was their heritage; 
 
 Resources of their natures they utilized. 
 
 With feelers pointed every way to grasp 
 
 An atom, or to find a newer path 
 
 To richer fields; they accumulated power 
 
 From by-gone days with tireless energy. 
 
 The wide world and the future beckoning. 
 
 Each nature varied music felt, that comes 
 
 From Cosmos, echoing through finite space. 
 
 Awakening to sunshine and to song! 
 
 Like spirit of the light the instinct of 
 
 The world arose to chase away the gloom 
 
 That had dropped down around; it gave a tinge 
 
 Of weird and magic coloring, and swept 
 
 With silent, ceaseless march around the earth. 
 
 It asked the choicest fruits; it sought to take 
 
 Of every element; it turned away 
 
 From rude beginnings to accumulate 
 
 And to adapt and grow a wondrous crop. 
 
 Stone-lilies, star-fishes, and sea-urchins 
 
 Were early grown with forms complex and strange. 
 
 As things of beauty delving in the sea. 
 
 But others made themselves a shell within 
 
 To live and play their part; in this a pride 
 
 They seemed to have, and shaped, by pattern, molds 
 
 Like images of mind, beneath the stern 
 
 Necessities that time had brought; they built 
 
 The Cardium, the Barnacle, and Mya too. 
 
 And hinged them for convenience; the Mytilus 
 
 They turned, the Pholas, Scolup, Spiral; wrought 
 
 The Argonaut, taught it to sail the seas, 
 
 In case of danger then its sails to reef 
 
 And sink, protected, in the colder wave; 
 
 There like some goddess in the wild unknown 
 
 Was plucked from nature's hand the Cyprea, 
 
 With highest polish and the brightest tint, 
 
 A skillful architecture, reared and then 
 
 Abandoned but to build again; the Shield 
 
CHAPTER SIX 91 
 
 And Column on the other forms arose; 
 While Conus, Trochus, and the Nerlta 
 Awoke, not like a fabled Dea on 
 Some shadowy land, but entities of rare, 
 Delicate bloom on veritable shores. 
 
 Years of preparation were the early 
 Years of nature; in activity she schooled 
 Sublimer chemistry to stay her forge 
 With its intensive flame, to touch a realm 
 Where light was brighter than reflex of pearl. 
 With lesser she had started higher forms 
 Of her organic life; as fragments from 
 Prolific germ, with native art it made 
 Of personal being its machinery grand. 
 In elements of that first cell how deep 
 The wonder! Strange material it was, 
 The cosmic voice to answer, and to build. 
 Though not at once complete as centuries 
 Have built, still slowly, steadily evolving, 
 Selecting, changing, and adapting till 
 Conditions as required could then be met; 
 Adding new features, forms incipient. 
 To types of varied being, used to perfect. 
 But drifting on an endless way to work 
 Out promise for the future as the past 
 Had wrought the changes that had brought their day! 
 Thus was it Fish and Flesh and Fowl began 
 In womb of time — began from something held 
 By nature, primal to the Eozoon 
 And antecedent to the sarcode, that 
 Gave it consistency; endued it with 
 That individual instinct to draw 
 Within the pulpy mass its food, supply 
 Its scanty needs, and then the work begin 
 Of excavating the incipient. 
 Organic channels; to divide, enlarge. 
 And modify, but subject to the wants 
 Of the first families now ushered on 
 The primitive world, unconscious of the strange 
 Transitions that the long series will make. 
 Could then the line be scanned by progeny 
 
92 THE COSMOS 
 
 And parent — both the last and first in time — 
 
 Whose cheek would flush at kindred ties? And who 
 
 Disclaim index of nature's way? Might not 
 
 The off-spring, wondering, pale at the cold words 
 
 Of disinheritance across the grave 
 
 Of ages spoken? Yearning, might they not ask 
 
 Parental recognition, and be spurned 
 
 As children spurn the distant parent whose 
 
 Fidelity hath given them existence? 
 
 Could they unroll the future, as the past, 
 
 In the long strides of quickened evolution. 
 
 And lineal descendents stand revealed. 
 
 Uncouth, perchance, though dim in receding view 
 
 As shadows are, dare we dream they would us 
 
 Reject as we our fathers sometimes spurn? 
 
 The sea hath music; lightly ripples dance 
 In sunshine to the summer's breeze; the soft 
 Refrain in nature's welcome breaks to play 
 Upon the shores in her caresses sweet; 
 The cliff she kisses — left from her liquid 
 Lips glisten pearly drops like rare jewels 
 Asleep on many a craggy brow; no woods 
 To answer, grandeur of the lofty peak. 
 Expanse of ocean, restless tidal wave. 
 Have voice and echo, a blending note that drops 
 From the inanimate — expression calm 
 Of nature's satisfaction. Fitting hour! 
 The living come! Where meet the wave and glen, 
 There nature planted germs for land and sea 
 To grow diversely, but ne'er lose the signs 
 Surely betraying lowly origin. 
 To reptiles and to fishes nature gave 
 An elemental form of being; warmth 
 Stirred them to life; a genial sympathy 
 Favored their infant state; the shore and sea — 
 A border land, disputed realm — was place 
 Of a nativity that strewed with life 
 The sea without regard to size almost. 
 Or shape; the waters merry were where lived 
 The minnows and the monsters, asking not 
 A lineal seal or a title bond. 
 
CHAPTER SIX 93 
 
 The tortoise and the lizard, siredon, whale, 
 
 On sea and shore did swim or crawl and breathe 
 
 From gill external; Mosasaurus huge. 
 
 Unique, an ancient serpent of the sea, 
 
 Then plowed the waters, trailing length from wave 
 
 To wave, and undulating as It swept 
 
 Along; Ichthyosaurus, stout of form. 
 
 With jaws extended, sought on land and sea 
 
 An easy prey; Pleslosaurus came 
 
 In those prolific days, a nondescript. 
 
 And paddled underneath the surface; Its 
 
 Extended, swan-like neck was capped with a head 
 
 That, llzard-like, was stuck with crocodile 
 
 Teeth; active, vigilant and brave. It fought. 
 
 Perhaps, for food, for life; the winged fish. 
 
 Horned, plated, sculled Its body lithe among 
 
 The terrible monsters holding carnival. 
 
 Above them, poised on cumbrous wing, or dark 
 In flocks the sun obscuring, sailed or skimmed 
 The pterodactyl, compound of earth, air, 
 And sea, that walked or flew or swam, a link 
 Three fold of fowl, of fish, and flesh; a toy, 
 A curiosity that nature there 
 First dallied with, then slew; but It In rocks 
 She left. Its fame to after times to tell. 
 
 Renowned no less, the plain and hill and mount; 
 Redeemed from waters, firm, a favored place, 
 The land a purpose high had to fulfil. 
 Inviting, gentle, calm, It gave Its all. 
 If worm It was, or gnat or fly or bug 
 Or snake, she nurtured each; toyed with the living; 
 Made graves for the dead; she wooed and won, unlike 
 The sea; by slow degrees her progeny 
 She changed, here varying as food required. 
 Or safety, there, as climate waxed or waned. 
 Selecting and acquiring, struggling, urged 
 To endless warfare over fields, though fair 
 Or foul, the generations came and went, 
 Still moving slowly up the ascending scale 
 Of complicated being, keeping pace 
 With earth as geologic time unrolled 
 
94 THE COSMOS 
 
 Its eras. Nature had no pity; she trod 
 
 Her beat in weird and solemn march — the same 
 
 Long step was measured at the birth and death. 
 
 She smiled if a race was born— extinct, she smiled. 
 
 She worked to build — she worked on to destroy. 
 
 Though kind in nature, killed without remorse. 
 
 With one hand gifts she brought; a scythe to slay. 
 
 The other bore; her moods, apparently 
 
 But fitful, had the seal of destiny. 
 
 She gave the living days and then embalmed 
 
 The dead; with elemental pens she wrote. 
 
 As mindful of the past, and ground the rocks 
 
 To dust her pages; cruel she was not. 
 
 In flood and ebb she left the wrecks — there was 
 
 No pleasure in the ruins; if she heard 
 
 The woe it was not music in her ears; 
 
 They were but incident to her way — flung 
 
 Beneath the step that proudly passed along. 
 
 The morning star was in the sky — was set 
 
 For her approach — the line, direct; in that 
 
 E'er brightening light, at moments opportune 
 
 The forms and shades, the living and the dead, 
 
 But flitted on the scene; to themselves, much; 
 
 To nature, a trifle, but to be dropped 
 
 Unwilling, scarcely missed in their decay. 
 
 The changes were inevitable; sky 
 And earth were not a monumental marble 
 Commemorating time, whose wasting was 
 Oblivion. Just on the threshold where 
 Life's interests awakened, nature broke 
 Her rest — the sea rolled back — its millions fled 
 In wild dismay; the earth had shrunk; in folds 
 Were piled the primitive beds, hills on hills. 
 Till mountains rose; the craters opened; skies 
 Looked down on burning flames and crimson shone. 
 The living saw it as an omen; land 
 Did quake beneath their feet; portents above, 
 A trembling earth below — uncertainty 
 Filled every breast; confusion, terror, spoke 
 From every face; no haunt was safe, for from 
 The lair the falling rock the inmates drove. 
 
CHAPTER SIX 95 
 
 Some shrieked, engulfed in burning lava dread; 
 Some Into chasms fell; some were ground between 
 The rocks; some burled were In drifting sands; 
 And some, affrighted, died. The heavens may 
 Threaten and tempests come, yet there Is hope; 
 But when foundations of the earth are loosed. 
 The stoutest quail, and nature Is Instinct 
 With dread — home It Is not when footing falls. 
 
 Destruction was wide spread; heath, plain, and hill 
 Had changed, a somber garb they wore; above 
 The mountains towered, cloud topped, cold, and grim — 
 Imperial, though rough and bare — a forge 
 Within to light and stain the sky; It shook 
 The earth and drove the sea to deeper bed. 
 The thunders echoed, deluge mocked, earthquake 
 Was checked — and then the face of earth was new. 
 
 The plant had lived — a remnant of Itself 
 Was, In the sunlight, like a stranger born 
 To build, renew, migrate, and build again. 
 The cheery music was gone; songs that filled 
 The air had died, like moanlngs of the sea. 
 Away; for nature burled an age and earth 
 Was Its tomb; but no evergreen entwined; 
 For monument, there was Its skeleton. 
 Grim speaker, stern as jagged rocks fast fixed 
 Whole fathoms down, yet treasured there to lift 
 Its voice In curious accents, notes that come 
 Rippling up from the grave for us to hear. 
 The world, too young to mourn, did garner more. 
 Here were the seeds and roots of life; here, too. 
 The solid structure, full of elements 
 Now quickening to give the earth new forms 
 More fair with which to deck herself anew. 
 From her breast native grasses crept across 
 Her fields to grow and fight for every spot 
 As hallowed ground. Each plant, each shrub then threw 
 Its tendrils at the feet of time to join 
 In battle for a common weal, to press 
 And gain a lost Inheritance; but lo! 
 Their loins dropped, unpercelved, unrecked, a new 
 And varying type, clustering among 
 
96 THE COSMOS 
 
 Them, unobtrusive, modest, till it grew 
 
 Above, and arching out as with its arms 
 
 To shield, they withered, died. Thus step by step 
 
 New species grew, diverging more and more. 
 
 They hardened in the favored spots; their forms 
 
 To soil and clime were linked; above the wreck 
 
 Or ruin they rose, themselves to assert; 
 
 They ever forward pressed, cultured 
 
 Into preeminence. In nature's book 
 
 The leaves were scrolled; the pages glow with old 
 
 And young, the lowly and the great; each had 
 
 Its own, but it was not content; it looked 
 
 Beyond its simple garb, desiring robes 
 
 For vestures, regal, many patterned like 
 
 The fern, anonymous, round, latticed, toothed. 
 
 Embroidered. The Stigmaria, large, grand. 
 
 And frescoed, with the Lepidodendron, 
 
 Both scaly and scarred, stately and unique, 
 
 Added their own peculiar charm to old. 
 
 Primeval forests with dense foliage 
 
 So strangely rich in contrast with the small 
 
 And simple leaves adorning, modestly. 
 
 Such lofty trunks, towering so far above 
 
 Their frugal cousins trailing on the ground. 
 
 Monarchs then trees began to be, that, firm 
 
 And fixed, the noxious air of swamps defied. 
 
 Or crowned the hills. They braved the strongest winds 
 
 And turned away the sun. A gloom there was 
 
 In jungles, solemn as the night — like calm 
 
 Of sea — a stillness in which moans are heard. 
 
 Low, soft, and sad, as if nature grieved; an awe 
 
 That steals o'er forests, deepening like shades 
 
 That come from monuments of dead. In prime. 
 
 How many fell.? How many stood to last 
 
 The centuries that mossed with age, still firm 
 
 In heart, defiant, looking down the long. 
 
 Bright vista, confident to ward away 
 
 The hand that laid all of its kindred low,? 
 
 To gather in their branches years begot 
 
 Of time, and stand, unfolding them, scarce less 
 
 Secure than earth itself, then to be shorn 
 
CHAPTER SIX 97 
 
 Of pride and strength, and yield at last, laid low 
 E'en as the frail are laid, and crumbling as 
 They crumble, into dust mingling with dust? 
 
 The fauna inspiration equal drank. 
 They had their heritage; the moss grown rock, 
 The velvet hills, the wood and glen, each was 
 A dwelling place by nature kindly brought 
 In ceaseless toil above the wave; then wrought 
 And shaped and strewn, thus fitting it for life. 
 That life, whose first flash measured not the force, 
 Was but a spark struck from a seeming void. 
 Whose culminating intensity bespoke 
 The glories of the Invisible, as leaps 
 From the sky the lightning to speak of power 
 That hidden lies, then comes in burning track; 
 Apart, a living force, intangible. 
 When once within the world, its roots sank deep 
 And drew from space till nature loved it, garbed 
 And fruited it as she well can — a child 
 To manor born, whose offspring, foaled or fledged, 
 Might people earth or sky in lapse of time. 
 
 One world did not exhaust the skill that lies 
 Within Creative Power; neither does life, 
 Enwrapt in simple forms, forget its art 
 Amid the general progress, nor proclaim 
 Its work is done. Divine fiat the inert 
 Clay hears and, restless, molds itself again, — 
 One with exalted purpose of creation. 
 Nor is each hill or dale made in the one 
 Unchangeable pattern, turned to size and mold, 
 But the self-same agents speak through them in clear, 
 Plain symbols that will stand for matter, coined 
 Like words for mind; much less will energies, 
 Self-acting, conscious of a personal. 
 Exclusive entity, inseparable 
 
 Though from its fountain, stand like statue forged 
 Of old, and an endless progeny produce. 
 Exact in type; for nature wrote in each 
 Organic and self-moving structure yet 
 A higher law, that it must cling to its 
 Initial form with stern tenacity. 
 
98 THE COSMOS 
 
 Thus at the exit of the ages it 
 
 Stands a memorial, antique, unchanged. 
 
 Unscathed, as on the grander Cosmos moves. 
 
 It is no fault of nature she began 
 With atom, fragment, mite, and to her laws 
 No derogation; they were woven threads 
 Of simplest being. Methods are her own. 
 She counts the lapse of time; results are hers; 
 For them she answers, and question none may. 
 Each age hath dropped, in common store, the pearls 
 From which she carves the whole. In her last years 
 She holds a completed work, not judged by mind 
 Of finite scope, but, quickening away 
 On confines of eternity, itself 
 It oifers to the Infinite who then 
 Shal] judge it good or bad as one alone 
 Or as a part of the whole system placed. 
 
 Recorded nature has her book of facts 
 In link together to reveal her laws 
 By which the universe is ruled, but mute 
 As to the why the one or all are made 
 Just as they are — presumption them to fault, 
 Or question wisdom's course — a narrow ken 
 To think that we are heeded not enough 
 And only used in common mass, as motes. 
 But what is good or bad.^^ The very slime 
 Of nature has its use; the organism. 
 When in its structure broken down, mouldering 
 With fumes offensive — a wreck of what was once 
 A living form of beauty, thought of life 
 The seat — links yet again to life unknown 
 And grows, in other forms, as fresh and fair 
 As an ideal flashed from the land of dreams. 
 No refuse nature has, no surplus; made 
 And fitted for her work, no cull is dropped. 
 No flower is plucked from other realms to fill 
 An empty niche — her Author knew His act. 
 She did not ask a law; all, all were His. 
 She pleads for no crown, speaks for no time; He 
 Gave her what she has; on in her destined 
 Course she moves, to fulfil for Him her end. 
 
CHAPTER SIX 99 
 
 She could not ask, she will not give; but she 
 Accepted from His store and as His child, 
 Grateful, she clings for very life to Him. 
 
 The diamond is the same in whatever 
 Bed it is found; accretions may mar its 
 External beauty, or conceal the gem — 
 A diamond still it is. Each kind of life 
 Is the same, and no law binds to the like 
 Expression through filtratlons of various 
 Forms. Clay or loam or rock may coat or hide 
 The diamond, but brush them away, it glows 
 In native purity, unsullied e'en 
 By years of burial. The life, down, down 
 In casements lowly, has the seed to plant 
 And grow immortal vestures, and uncouth. 
 Unkempt garbs may hide and protect, but can 
 Not taint it; we might not have put it there. 
 Thinking it worth a home In higher scale. 
 Ourselves, we think, deserve a better state. 
 For what we are ungrateful, on our days 
 As freighted woe we look, to be spent in plaint. 
 And mourn a golden era forfeited. 
 Uncertain If existence tend to a bourn 
 We would be glad to trust or to explore. 
 
 The atoms of life broke their mooring when 
 In warmth they felt the hand of time; unlike 
 The rock, firm poised, sedate, they, quickening 
 As workers, restive under promise, took 
 Whate'er was nigh. Hills smiled and forests cool. 
 Refreshing, sheltered. Small demands were made 
 For animal life; quivering elements 
 In rich profusion everywhere were felt. 
 And with solicitude almost maternal. 
 They on the world their choice of place obtruded. 
 It was no wonder they grew, not unlike 
 The way plants grow, and with all things at hand. 
 By easy transition enlarged and took 
 Upon themselves forms lithe, simple or complex; 
 Remarkable In activity, they prowled 
 Or climbed, they fled or chased in bog or wood. 
 On plain or mount, as sun or shadow crossed 
 
loo THE COSMOS 
 
 Their paths. All did not live alike; some quaffed 
 
 Of rivers, and some tasted from the floods; 
 
 For here was spread the promised banquet, broad 
 
 As the habitable land. The young and small 
 
 Were not alone at the board; for years did bring 
 
 Fresh viands, and new guests appeared; the sly 
 
 Partook by stealth; the slothful, as if it were 
 
 A burden to eat; a motley crowd was there; 
 
 It was the feast of an age. The bat, the bug, 
 
 The bird and worm, the spider and the fly. 
 
 The snake and toad, antique, illustrious. 
 
 The representatives of their race, proud. 
 
 Fitful, and ornate, may have thought, if thought 
 
 They had, that creation no bound beyond 
 
 Could have — themselves the highest creative skill 
 
 Might fashion. What if in that infant world 
 
 Some seer with magic rod had touched for once 
 
 The primal brain with power to pierce the years 
 
 With intellectual vision to light the world. 
 
 Would each eye droop at origin low, rude, 
 
 To speak the grief of being, animate.^ 
 
 Hope, too, might speak — to-day the morrow found 
 
 Revealing what within lies folded there. 
 
 Then, Eohippus might have felt in weird 
 
 Throbs through the five long links or more, his life 
 
 Connecting intermediate with the horse. 
 
 The fiery mettle of his pride, and e'en 
 
 Like music of the telephone, his neigh 
 
 Pass in successive epochs, gladdening 
 
 In echoes from the rocks as older, they 
 
 Fling back the song to day. The step and look. 
 
 The pride of being that gives zest to life, 
 
 And rosy coloring, may picture self 
 
 In attributes perfected, guided, crowned 
 
 Perchance with kinship now beyond the skies. 
 
 That pleasing, illusive refrain finds way 
 
 To every breast, and the sweet thought doth wake 
 
 A melody that each alone can tell. 
 
 May be in each of lowly forms bright sparks 
 Are kindled in glory of its being 
 To give a consciousness of self above 
 
CHAPTER SIX loi 
 
 The living of preceding times, that wakes 
 
 A pride to stand on crest of waning years 
 
 And backward cast the glance to see the way 
 
 They came all strewn with wrecks that grade below. 
 
 In words it cannot be told them, but flits 
 
 In blended coloring, rich as illusion, 
 
 But constant as the instinct of a race. 
 
 Maybe there's more — the thought of destined being. 
 
 Once clouded in the mists of primal worlds, 
 
 May break at times through darkness, in the thrills 
 
 Of aspirations that would reach beyond 
 
 The earth, though lost in that immensity. 
 
 In lease of time each age had its own, but it 
 Was doomed; it counts in a long list its years. 
 And they soon pass away; no two are alike; 
 They sink in distance with their mantle rent. 
 Revealing in decay infolding shroud — 
 A birth robe of an infant age, changing 
 To bridal sheets an era to entwine— 
 The living from the dead, as children, come 
 In promise, with the hope that flatters them. 
 But to recede in far away to list 
 To call of succeeding ages; o'er them 
 Will pass the summons only heard to die. 
 
 The living of the Cosmos tread no path 
 Of flowers with thorns untouched; the work it does 
 Is the price paid by existence^ — the cup 
 It takes with nectar and the dregs; smiles, tears 
 Each other chase in contrast fitful; song 
 And sorrow, into softness blended, wake 
 Extremes of being by a wider range 
 Of terse experiences broadening life. 
 Familiarizing it with grander march 
 Of time to which, a factor linked, 'tis bound 
 In narrow line, but no revolution 
 Completes. Its ken is short in a special form; 
 It is on an unbroken circuit; dips 
 In the horizon of the past, and hails 
 The future whose strange inequalities 
 We tread for a day, and upon the whole 
 Pronounce as though we had surveyed it all. 
 
I02 THE COSMOS 
 
 The world was wrought both within and without. 
 Her robes were garnished, flinging brilHance on 
 The sky; yet in that day no Hving form 
 Was seen; e'en when it turned a blackened mass 
 And must light borrow from the sun, not one 
 Could breathe its air; it was with vapors filled 
 No organ ever could withstand, until 
 Its noxious atoms, taken one by one. 
 Were locked to kindred and then stored away; 
 The cold in blood might live; but only when 
 The forests had come, dense and stately, grand 
 As the hills they crowned, to feed as naught else 
 Might feed, and then to sink, a remnant charred, 
 Within the crust of earth; then only could 
 The blood turn warm and to the living give 
 The energies that higher forms require; 
 Life then a new turn took. Earth's coloring 
 Was changed; the tints were seen in other light; 
 The look of space was transformed in the air; 
 Dark, murky shades gave way to gray, and they 
 In turn did soften into blue with its 
 Bright, cheerful aspect — fitting ground in which 
 To set the suns, like lamps, around the skies. 
 
 Why should not lower forms of nature feel 
 A pride of being.^ Have happy thought that 
 In the scale of life they are ranked high in use? 
 That lofty consciousness that images 
 Them from a perfect form.^ Why not look beyond 
 The ground on which they stand and drink of that 
 Immensity in which they live.'* They're here 
 In the Cosmos, bound to it by subtile cords 
 They cannot break; they see, they feel, they hear — 
 Its glories, are they in darkness veiled to them,^ 
 The throbs that cross it, must they pass unknown.'' 
 The music, playing in the sunbeams through 
 The fields of space, must that, too, fall on them 
 As on a blank. ^ Why should they have so much, 
 And nothing more.^ So large a taste of life 
 Without a hope or aspiration that. 
 Even as an illusion beguiling, 
 Might please though it should vanish with the dream ,^ 
 
CHAPTER SIX 103 
 
 The world were not a world without them; they 
 Make something of Its use and beauty, take 
 And give In general Interchange the needs 
 Required by all; they change the very face 
 Of nature; verdure, forests, soils have felt 
 Their presence; suns have risen and set on wastes 
 That they have made, yet have the grass and tree 
 And fruit returned to deck the land with wealth 
 That could not be were they, in work, unknown. 
 Are they a link In nature, only forged 
 For a fleeting purpose, through which the stream 
 Of life may pass, a necessity, but dropped, 
 When a certain hour of time Is struck, to fill 
 A nameless grave? It may be so. If that 
 Stern fate that needs and uses them, when done 
 Shall leave them dead, who can complain and who 
 Dare ask reverse of that decree for fault .^ 
 Our fancy Is not fact; Its flashes may 
 Be pleasing; its ideal shapes, perhaps. 
 Are possible, but more than likely they 
 Are but crude blendlngs of realities 
 Imperfectly recorded in frame work 
 Of mind, and standing like the actual. 
 When for the moment faith o'ershadows reason. 
 To wish and have are not the same; the fleck 
 Is not the wave; the tints the flora takes 
 Are borrowed for the hour, but they are not 
 The light; we dream In sleep, but who fulfils.'* 
 The half of life were gone, were there no gleam. 
 We know unreal, turning around the fixed 
 Groundwork of the Cosmos, as on the crag, 
 Resplendent in its borrowed robes, hang mists. 
 
 The Cosmos has Its laws. Back in the depth 
 Of time, by irreversible decree. 
 The Imprint was made, and the visible 
 Creation touches the glowing pages, like 
 The cast of thought, to give expression in 
 The world of matter-^one by one are made 
 The transcripts, living and Inert, that speak. 
 But incompletely, the Great Original! 
 The work begun by Hand that wields the knife, 
 
104 THE COSMOS 
 
 So deft and tireless, chiseling through long 
 Procession of the ages shapes that mar 
 Their beauty, as the waves have cut away 
 The contours bold, of land, to build again. 
 The day was when the mountain and the sea 
 Were each Impossible. The fiat was 
 As yet unspoken; the unwritten law 
 Had no Imperishable rock for Its 
 Inscription; but unvoiced In audible 
 Accents, was tracing on the skies beginnings, 
 To minds uncultured, crude, but yet the real 
 And primal alphabet with which to write 
 Indelibly the records of departing time. 
 But why did nature thus unroll the script 
 Of her own history.^ Why write with pen 
 Dipped in alembic of the ages.? Would 
 It not have been far better to have called 
 At once the stars with worlds attending, than 
 To wait the slow process of tlme.'^ She does 
 Not work for a day; what is an hour or age 
 To her.? If she work quick or slow what good 
 Or wrong Is done.? Across the bounds of time 
 Her acts must be, or else completed when 
 His course but half Is run. If matter comes 
 With speed of light and trails the sky with fire, 
 Its blaze will be as meteors and die 
 Away; it will go down in fleeting hours 
 And then a blank alone will there remain. 
 The wisdom of nature was too deeply laid 
 To question — that is not on trial; no skill 
 Of finite mold has right to trespass there. 
 Its origin, design. Its work and laws. 
 While shadowed on the field of time, are full 
 Of vast significance, and mind can skirt 
 The border only, though it yearns to pierce 
 The depths beyond that e'er must be unknown. 
 
 Each is not its own; for it drew from all 
 Preceding time; it pays for that by work 
 That meets Its wants, and then prepares for time 
 To come; in succession, each came to pass 
 Away; its form was for its time, but Its 
 
CHAPTER SIX 105 
 
 Use was not for that day alone; a span 
 
 It arched to carry on the toil of years, 
 
 Itself by steady change sublimed to meet 
 
 The wants that infant hours demand. A thing 
 
 Like independence or like solitude 
 
 Does not exist; the Cosmos, woven In a chain. 
 
 Has no spare link; from wasted space no niche 
 
 Has chiseled been to hold a possible 
 
 Refuse of nature — she has none; she needs 
 
 All that she has; no more can use; for escape 
 
 No way she made. With hand of fate she grasps 
 
 Each element that's needed for her work, 
 
 And though the finite mind may never tell 
 
 The why, 'twill never find the thing or place 
 
 In universe that were a detriment. 
 
 Each thing, each being, has its niche to fill; 
 
 Is built or grown, sustained by mutual 
 
 Dependence; so it lives, if life it has. 
 
 And gives itself that others too may live. 
 
 This link is glory of its being; cut 
 
 It loose and cast it oflP where there is naught, 
 
 'Twill feed upon itself and then 'twill die. 
 
 Yes, solitude and independence are 
 
 A dream; for they in nature cannot be. 
 
 Her eras all are full, fitted exact 
 
 For their own time; she molds materials 
 
 And places them in mutual dependence 
 
 To carry forward work which when complete 
 
 She'll offer, challenging the highest mind 
 
 To fault it or improve in aught her way. 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 The primitive simplicity of nature 
 Had passed away; her elements were cast 
 And recast in the processes of time. 
 
 Each change brought something new; old forms might yet 
 Remain, but shading down from the first type 
 To linger, a parental memento. 
 Recording faithfully the transit of time. 
 The mind may scan them carefully; perchance 
 No beauty, idealized, was theirs; for rough 
 And wild might be each angle of the form. 
 Unknown in softening lines; but this was the garb 
 That nature chose. The beauty and the wealth 
 Concealed were the germ and process of life — 
 An Infinite Power had dropped them on this side 
 Of eternity like that and spoken them well. 
 Beyond to them was unknown, that was back 
 In depths no line could sound or light reveal. 
 There seemed a twilight and a sound that came, 
 A silken wave, unbounded both by time 
 And space, unfettered in its thought, that bore 
 The sweet acclaim which whispers still as then 
 It whispered of the Great Original! 
 And we love it still more than they had done 
 Whose primitive ear caught its melody. 
 Theirs was the glory of the world; He gave, 
 They took and gave to us, not semblance or 
 The substance, not the wondrous wealth, self-formed. 
 Of the Infinite, but personal being clothed 
 In flesh, instinct with life and intelligence, 
 Yet bound in reverence to give back as 
 We took, the sweetest music of the soul. 
 
 That robe was of a type such as the world 
 Had need; no human hand upon it had 
 Wrought, neither had it been by finite skill 
 Marked out or etched; it grew with years; 'twas old. 
 But did not fade. The winds of ages sung 
 Through it, but not a shred was torn away — 
 A silent but sure prophecy of decay. 
 
 106 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 107 
 
 Not yet gone was Its day, — not done its work. 
 
 It sheltered forest, glen, and nook; the plain 
 
 Did smile more sweetly, and 'the ocean broke 
 
 The stillness with its solemn roar, although 
 
 Subdued its echo was as 'neath a veil. 
 
 While yet was draped the world in virgin gown. 
 
 Of wealth was nature lavish then and quaked 
 
 Beneath the footsteps of the hoard of brutes 
 
 Whose tons of bone and flesh, hugh piles, she grew; 
 
 Quaint, cumbrous, each unique but kindred, they. 
 
 Perchance, were but to mold with life the coarse 
 
 Materials and make it possible 
 
 To weave for use the higher threads and twine 
 
 Them round with fibers delicate but firm, 
 
 That they in turn might bear the higher flung 
 
 More deftly by the hand of time across 
 
 The years; then these dropped one by one anew 
 
 And drifted, but still left a sweet refrain 
 
 Prophetic of the melody to come. 
 
 Why else those giant forms, in naught but size 
 
 Majestic, and beautiful because they were 
 
 Dug from the dead years and, decayed, are found 
 
 Now here and there .^ They ate, drank, fought, and died. 
 
 The softening influence that somehow links 
 
 Them kindred might draw us to them, and leave 
 
 A kindly word to note that we with them, 
 
 In common, have a natural, inborn tie. 
 
 Can we concede them more.^ They had trunk, tooth. 
 
 Claw, shield for attack, defense; the maimed, the dead 
 
 Or dying — only as the one fell could 
 
 The other triumph! Why blame them. ^ Was it fault 
 
 In them, that no moral purpose was theirs.^ Hope, 
 
 Intelligence — the fire that burns, starlike 
 
 Almost in its intensity, and glows 
 
 In fitful flames, was yet in embers; closed 
 
 The fount that feeds its life; the darkling wild 
 
 Was only fringed with promised light, and dawn 
 
 Was yet afar; the brighter coinage deep 
 
 Was In the crucible and in the heat 
 
 Of elements fusing, unrecked, unnamed. 
 
 But like the purest crystal to itself 
 
I08 THE COSMOS 
 
 Was gathering sympathy and building up 
 
 Essential features— clouds of darkness it reft 
 
 To peer above immortal summits where 
 
 Crowned it will stand, and fadeless in the light 
 
 Of the eternal day. The fiery storm 
 
 That wrapped it round it heeded not; it heard 
 
 The tempest not — unfelt the quaking world. 
 
 The mighty throes of nature in her birth 
 
 Had torn asunder countless molten stars 
 
 And strewn them in the firmament like balls 
 
 Of fire to run their course and die; with them 
 
 Had gone that life, unconscious and unrent, 
 
 Upon a silent, sightless quest and fed 
 
 On flame or ember in that conflict stern. 
 
 The melody of ages it did drink. 
 
 And treasured it like its own elements; 
 
 It woke with it, and with it did unfold. 
 
 Thus holding the imprint of nature's work. 
 
 Unfolding volume after volume stored 
 
 Away in cosmic library to live 
 
 The silent years along, and to remain 
 
 Amid the tumult fadeless and permanent 
 
 To be reread in time as if, almost. 
 
 The scroll had burst in meteor blaze above 
 
 The firmament, and in the sky was fixed. 
 
 The history of itself on every page. 
 
 Then he who reads the one the other knows. 
 
 For parts they are of broken whole, the same, 
 
 Tho' unlike and fated to a separation. 
 
 Yet, in the boundless ages of their union. 
 
 They have a semblance and a tie that we 
 
 Can neither question nor sever; though close 
 
 Their common birth, in darkness they have gone; 
 
 In splendor starlit swept the sky— nor track 
 
 Nor trace have left; unknown but not lost, they've sped 
 
 Unbeaten paths to decadence of time. 
 
 They lingered in communion there to list 
 
 Cosmical harmonies whose beat they felt. 
 
 And treasured the music to sing again 
 
 To conscious ears. That garb, who would disown.^ 
 
 They wove it when it glowed a star or, burned 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 109 
 
 To embers, blackened in the sky — the worth 
 
 Remained though gone its brilliance forever. 
 
 A skillful weaver ran the threads to clothe 
 
 The life anew; upon the charred remains 
 
 The waters dropped; a liquid texture, clear 
 
 And flexible, then played in tempest, wrecked, 
 
 And strewed, unconscious that it built again. 
 
 Here life now found its place to feed and grow 
 
 Until its tendrils twined around in form 
 
 Substantial; it divided, budded, bred 
 
 From a common center; the fragments sped 
 
 On chartered waves, forgetting home and kin. 
 
 To rear a race unlike, unknown upon 
 
 Its native bed — that home it may have loved; 
 
 In the maternal smile it may have warmed; 
 
 And dreamed away an infant hour — the stern 
 
 Necessities of being spoke for its 
 
 Departure and it turned away; it went. 
 
 Perchance, unwept, unnoted maybe, out 
 
 To find congenial resting place where it 
 
 Might face the storm, or work in calm to rear 
 
 Its brood that they, in turn, might then depart 
 
 In the grand conquest of the world; 'twas theirs; 
 
 They had to take it, and to grow in all 
 
 Varieties unnumbered places seemed 
 
 To need; adapted each to the other was. 
 
 Fulfilling the conditions then required 
 
 From mite to mammoth and to man, like world 
 
 Of elements before; in strife their paths 
 
 Were crossed from tropics to the poles; uncouth. 
 
 Unkempt, they savage, selfish, plied the work 
 
 Of conquest or of death — the battle of life 
 
 Was waged and won. With them was man; he drank 
 
 From the same waters; fed from nature's hand. 
 
 His was the bitter heritage, and hard 
 
 The conflict he must wage in testing life 
 
 On a domain disputed, while in garb 
 
 Of bestial make that wore away in time. 
 
 What mattered it to him that thus he lived 
 
 In narrow compass close to earth, or that 
 
 The sky was arched in blue beyond his reach. 
 
no THE COSMOS 
 
 And that the sun did traverse it, and stars 
 Were glimmering from azure depths? Long years 
 Alone sufficed to place them there. As they 
 Stepped not at once to completeness, to man 
 That came with them to live only when they 
 Had come to fulness of years, did cling the law 
 Of nature with the signet and the seal 
 Of promise — the fulfilment far away. 
 
 No matter of surprise it were, that man 
 Came not as an exception. Bloom and blush 
 Of rose were product of both time and toil. 
 The fragrance wafted by a breeze could shed 
 Its richness only when unnumbered years 
 Had done their work; so spark of life, amid 
 The change, in mantles for its own appointed 
 Work did wrap itself; it crept then but close 
 To earth; it grew and waited; then renewed. 
 It fought its way across the line not yet 
 So sharply marked, but veering from the clod 
 And beast to bear a treasure they had helped 
 To foster; much the same in form and taste 
 And habits, but apparent peer to that 
 Old fauna whose short story is now told 
 In skeleton forms, exhumed from where they fell 
 To speak as prophets old and give to man 
 The secrets of the grave. They lived, they died; 
 But they have graven on the rock, with pen 
 Immortal, image of themselves that they 
 May speak with a sepulchral voice whose deep. 
 Bold accents challenge thought and claim assent. 
 They need no imagery of mystic birth. 
 And no reverse of nature's laws — they were 
 But drift in the relentless wave, and niched 
 By time's attesting hand as mile-posts in 
 The eras whose long records have decayed. 
 
 If man was then close to the living world 
 And bore its kindred marks, he held within 
 His bosom the sacred fire whose wreath of iiame 
 Yet shall enwrap the earth with brilliance like 
 The glow the sun sheds round the morning hour, 
 And fling it on the sky, as even in 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN iii 
 
 A dreary hour the white snow banner is 
 
 Unfurled from the Nevadas, glorying 
 
 In triumph that the storm hath planted there. 
 
 Did he but nestle where he was placed, the seal 
 Of destiny was on his brow; his eye 
 In thought was yet unkindled; and untamed 
 His hand in cunning skill; untaught, alone 
 The world to battle and to fathom, what 
 Beginning! Nature and himself; the one 
 Unknown, the other all undisciplined. 
 But he must start, and he must live — and more. 
 He must the heights climb whose tops in the skies 
 Are lost — yet shall he do it.^* In depths where 
 He is, the voices are but faintly heard; 
 The brighter hopes the future has, to him 
 Unbreathed and far away; no path, no chart. 
 No guide; unclothed, unhoused, unskilled — the cave, 
 The rock, the forest, his defense and home. 
 The foes are lurking near; the tempest is 
 Abroad and earth doth tremble when mountains rise. 
 In darkness and in danger, the way he treads 
 Has a weird charm and he steps down the years 
 To music, irresistible to him. 
 He is linked in a chain for the savage hour 
 Just fitted, and walking upon the verge. 
 But bound to chariot wheel of time, whose roll 
 Is from beginning, and unstayed across 
 Its final way. 'Twas written in his nature 
 That he must go. The sun lights the heavens, his eye 
 Is kindled in its blaze; the threads begin 
 To weave and conscious thought flits through his brain; 
 He feels, he knows — complete that hour — the world 
 Is his; he grasps it; firm in poise, and bold. 
 He drinks the assurance giving draught with pride. 
 That day is his best, for the bliss that comes 
 With ignorance gave it — he knows it all. 
 His conscious merit, lofty step, and proud 
 Disdain were pleasing attributes of the hour. 
 Humility unlearned! the measure of man 
 And universe untaken — it was well. 
 To conquer was to live — he ever was 
 
112 THE COSMOS 
 
 Girded for battle. Cautious by instinct, 
 
 As savage, almost, as the beasts that lurked 
 
 Or trailed, he fought without a fear and slew 
 
 Without a pang. To live, to die — such was 
 
 The cast! He took from nature's proifered hand 
 
 The gift of life — defended it without 
 
 A murmur though against such mighty odds; 
 
 He bore it when the very elements 
 
 Were warring and the earth was shaking 'mid 
 
 The conflict, heedless that the fate of a race 
 
 Was in him then, or pitted was against 
 
 The world to win. If he were lost, untold 
 
 Millions might never be. On his horizon 
 
 The shade of night then would have arched — the sun 
 
 Have risen on a blighted world; but no 
 
 Such gloom was destined to befall; no such 
 
 Dread hour enshroud him, — his sky drape in black. 
 
 He lived, he fought for all. In fiber coarse, 
 
 In instinct low, he had the germs of all 
 
 The elements that bloom in full in life 
 
 That is to come, like bow of promise when 
 
 The storm has passed. Had he that now, it would 
 
 Not do; for such he was not asked. The world 
 
 Cared not for polish or for beauty; it 
 
 Had other shrines to whose insatiate maw 
 
 Victims were brought and bound and offered up; 
 
 Living or dead, 'twas theirs to submit when tread 
 
 Of skeleton was heard to pass that way. 
 
 His birth was humble and his nature wild; 
 But the world had need of him; this perhaps 
 He did not know. 'Twas sinew and not brain; 
 It was alertness, not the grasp of mind; 
 'Twas force, not moral purpose, pushed along 
 The front and held the line of battle, pressed 
 It forward, and thus gained the final end. 
 
 He had no need of work; he plucked or slew 
 To eat; he could not build; his only garb 
 Was nature's gift. Amid the wild he walked 
 In solitude, save one companion who 
 Was ever by his side; 'twas all that made 
 Existence possible to him; it was 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 113 
 
 The blending of life. Without her, days would have 
 
 Been years, and bloom and brightness, dark as gloom 
 
 Of settled desolation — no spot home. 
 
 No pleasant look, no cheery voice, no word 
 
 Of tenderness, of sympathy and love. 
 
 Yet here was life begun. How unequal! Born 
 
 To the same heritage, entitled each 
 
 To the world's richest treasures, one from that 
 
 High estate passed to take dishonored badge 
 
 Of servitude — 'twas woman's lot, and she 
 
 Has borne it well. In her alone was hid 
 
 The sweetness, delicacy, purity. 
 
 That gave the glow to nature, voiced its worth, 
 
 And bound a moral purpose in the very 
 
 Fiber of being; for this she suffered 
 
 And by this will she win. A taint or stain 
 
 Was her curse — such was his honor. Contempt, 
 
 Scorn, exile, death, the penalty of one 
 
 False step; no matter if by promise won, 
 
 Or lured by arts a higher purpose then 
 
 Might not withstand, there was no mitigation 
 
 Of doom; stern, cold, and dark for her was the world, 
 
 While the sunshine seemed wont to play with more 
 
 Brilliance around the man that sought her but 
 
 To betray; he did the deed, it was for him 
 
 An honor; he was not ashamed to point 
 
 The finger at the fallen, heedless that 
 
 A sterner justice would place him by her side. 
 
 He knew the degradation; he knew what 
 
 She had to suffer; but hesitated not. 
 
 For him it was a gain and he grasped it. 
 
 Unconscious it were nobler far to shield 
 
 The innocent and guard the tempted, round 
 
 Her throwing the impenetrable veil 
 
 That none might touch or dare to tear away. 
 
 He had a mother, but she was forgotten; 
 
 A sister, yet she too was unheeded; 
 
 A wife, but what of that, for she had learned 
 
 To suffer in silence; and a daughter that 
 
 Might plead to bear an honored name; all were 
 
 Thrust into shade of the Upas Tree to breathe 
 
114 THE COSMOS 
 
 A tainted air and taste the bitter dregs 
 Of the stream that runs below; but these dark clouds 
 Were flecked with light whose colors whispered words 
 Of hope, though not of justice; for all drew 
 Their robes around at her approach, but smiled 
 When he came; it was death and sunshine — world 
 In moral light and moral darkness hung 
 In splendor fitful on groundwork — despair! 
 
 No tear is shed o'er grave of the fallen; 
 No willow droops in pity for the dead; 
 No immortelles twine on the coffined form 
 Now sunk in the cold, damp, dishonored earth. 
 But bitterly she looked on a world that spurned 
 Her e'er she sunk to rest and whispered, "Its 
 Injustice I forgive. Alone, I pass 
 From pale of human recognition, to die. 
 Alone on me is stamped a dual crime!" 
 Yet once did turn the glazing eye, as if 
 The dying dared to hope, and long it peered 
 The future to unveil — a halo touched 
 The brow of the dying as if to gild 
 A broken urn when gem was gone — and none 
 Could tell who placed it there. It might be hand 
 Of herald from the deep in pity sent 
 To soften the dread hour and rebuke the cold 
 Injustice that will drive one to despair. 
 The cry of anguish, whisper of forgiveness. 
 The prayer for help, all, all mingling in one 
 Last strain, might reach the bourn and bring at last 
 A sweeter spirit to bear her away. 
 Yet leaving one trace that in remembrance lives. 
 
 Man is, perchance, not all to blame. Little 
 Has he to do with shaping world events; 
 Rather is he in grasp of law by Power 
 Majestic given, whose voice he hears and whose 
 Behests he is compelled to heed. Weak was 
 The gift of moral sense in dawn of life; 
 It grew, as man grew, only under stress 
 Of rigid laws. Its special casket then 
 Was woman; in duty bound she was to guard 
 It well; that trust was sacred, and she dared 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 115 
 
 Not falter. It was an Iron law hedged her — 
 
 Unjust as it applied to her alone; 
 
 Beneficent in that it constrained, adorned 
 
 One half the human race; worth it gave her 
 
 That is inestimable. It crushed the strayed 
 
 And fallen, but by contrast brighter made 
 
 Her crown; her judgment was warped to spurn when help 
 
 Was needed; it was necessary — why, 
 
 'Twere not so easy then to tell — for sin 
 
 And sorrow, close allied, have steeled the heart. 
 
 Dethroned the reason; under this ban then 
 
 Hath virtue grown; 'twas planted in rough soil, 
 
 A tender vine, tenacious of life, to climb 
 
 The rugged wood out of the darkness up 
 
 Into the day; everywhere clinging are 
 
 Its tendrils while the flowerets bud and bloom. 
 
 With fragrance and with beauty lending charm 
 
 And worth to life; the growth was not in a day. 
 
 With rootlets crowded out, or branches hung 
 
 In shadow o'er the frail and dainty vine. 
 
 Leaving it to wither and to die, while 
 
 More vigorous shrubs, with blackened pith, were spared 
 
 In the clear light of time; it even felt 
 
 The blight of mildew, while o'er arching spreads 
 
 The native vine, which yet with it at last 
 
 In dust must crumble. The hour but now has come 
 
 When those linked equally in sin or shame 
 
 Alike are bound, hand joined in hand, to step 
 
 Down through the stern ordeal set for crime. 
 
 Brighter was earth when man came it to take. 
 What heritage — a monarch and a world! 
 Unlimited domain and none to obey! 
 The mountains for his throne were reared; the plain 
 And forest for his harvest and his home. 
 At his feet lay the ocean, fitful in 
 Its moods; at times as restless as a thing 
 Of life; in violence or solemn roar 
 It seemed to shadow forth some weird, 
 Unfathomed powers, and like the thunder speak 
 As heralding dread agency to war 
 For rights it firmly must dispute and hold. 
 
ii6 THE COSMOS 
 
 How awe-inspiring, how sublime! The sun 
 
 Would rise upon his startled sight, or sink 
 
 Away down in the west, while stars were trailed 
 
 Along his course, bright, flashing like the eyes 
 
 Untamed in the jungles, restless to devour. 
 
 With some stray comet arching in the sky, 
 
 A harbinger big with the fate of worlds. 
 
 How little could he comprehend that world 
 
 In which he was, and part of which he must 
 
 Forever be! That world had passed the years 
 
 Of frightful tumults, and the elements 
 
 Were now in lighter tension, playing thus 
 
 In sweeter harmonies; for him it was 
 
 And fitted to his wants; here he must live 
 
 To learn; he knew but little, little cared. 
 
 To shun, defend, attack; to eat, to drink. 
 
 To sleep, these was he taught by simple instincts 
 
 His wilder nature gave. Wild as the woods 
 
 He roamed, rude, coarse, unkempt, as nook or cave 
 
 He sought for shelter or for rest or sleep. 
 
 Around him was his kin; but a speck above 
 
 Their level was he, scarce discernible 
 
 On tide of being; drifting away, a branch 
 
 Of tree of life; unlearned, unflowered, but fixed 
 
 In Cosmos, feeding from its elements. 
 
 Unconscious of the blossoms that must burst 
 
 From them upon the world. Unasked, he was here 
 
 Some power vast had given him beginning; 
 
 Had clothed him with the form of man; vested 
 
 In him those natural rights, his heritage; 
 
 And planted deep in his being elements 
 
 Of mind, while weaving round him world of form. 
 
 Of matter, and of law, so strange, complex. 
 
 And grand. In mind an infant, scarce in pounds 
 
 And stature then above a man; untrained, 
 
 Unfit to grasp the intricacies life 
 
 Had woven about him; unperplexed by thought, 
 
 He followed heritage of instinct, adrift 
 
 On river of time whose flow was on, still on 
 
 Toward that mighty deep, unfathomed, unbound. 
 
 And ever to receive but ne'er return! 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 117 
 
 The throes of nature parted rocks and piled 
 Them up; in them were clefts with rough, gray walls 
 And damp floors, unrelieved by human art. 
 Yet carved with trickling waters that have left 
 Rich gems to sparkle now and then like some 
 Stray beam of light. To these he entrance found, 
 For needed brief repose. Such was the gift 
 Of earth to her first born! Had he no pride 
 Of home,'* And none of kindred ancestry.^ 
 Where was the line, to separate him from 
 His fellows drawn, that set apart a race 
 Whose power and pride would grow to spurn their birth 
 Until they dreamed of skies they were begotten.'' 
 Too light of brain for mists unreal, he clung 
 To origin and home; he gave and felt 
 The touch caressing — to prattle in childish glee, 
 Or imitate a song in accents yet 
 Unframed in speech, was very real to him. 
 Real as the tree, real as the vine, with light 
 And clinging tendrils, stealing round his walls. 
 Or lowly wild flower blooming at his feet. 
 
 No thought of what he was as yet had crossed 
 His brain; with passion his bosom heaved; his eye 
 With anger flashed; the battle he sniffed; a wail 
 Was music; love was fierce; the tiger's touch 
 Was his caress. To him the now was all. 
 No hoard, no morrow — weal or woe, each day 
 Its own — enough; 'twas well. Companions wild 
 And strange his paths oft crossed; grim visaged bear, 
 With waddling gait; the hyena, with face 
 Forbidding; the deer, fleet, proud, majestic, wild 
 Then, even in his native haunt; the grand 
 Old lion in his pride of race; the huge 
 Rhinoceros and mammoth whose steps seemed 
 The earth to shake, perchance, familiar were 
 To him — the pets he loved and to his cave 
 Welcomed — in it, at least, like him they died, 
 And with his bones commingling, nature hath 
 Strewn them with earth, a monument and grave. 
 
 He lived; the night and day were his to tell 
 The flight of time; the years he did not know; 
 
ii8 THE COSMOS 
 
 No marks for him to note, no numbers then 
 To tell of their succession; undimmed the sun 
 Did shine, but mists were flung across his face, 
 Veil-like; the darkness hung thick as the shades 
 Of night, and as he dropped down in the west. 
 No star dared pierce the gloom. Above, unseen, 
 Whose chariot was lightning, wind, its breath. 
 Whose voice, the thunder, that inanimate 
 Personified power quickened with its force 
 To mark with ruin all its fitful way. 
 
 The forests bloom and fragrance gave to him. 
 And food; he stooped to pick or climbed to pluck. 
 He hunted but to kill. In vine was poison; 
 In serpents, venom dread; in beasts, vengeance; 
 In air were birds of prey — all, all and he 
 Were like, e'er moving to a destiny 
 They could not bend, for earth and sky did lure 
 With promise, covering the hand of death 
 That ever ready was to strike to kill. 
 Like lightning held concealed in darkness black. 
 Or whirling clouds in air that rush athwart. 
 Then passing on they leave a wreck^ — in peace. 
 But nature was and is adjusted, scales 
 In balance, even in their poise, with life 
 And death the weights inclining up or down 
 As in the grand economy they move! 
 
 The tiger had his stealthy tread and spring. 
 The boa, his intensive coil, the bear 
 His hug, to kill to eat, to kill to ward 
 Attack, to kill for place. Above the war 
 Of race, above the clash of elements, 
 Some rose in the ascendant armed and skilled; 
 Some hardened were; and some by accident 
 Had lived; the now was theirs to work or hide. 
 Their sun had risen in its morning glow. 
 And richness gilded their land of promise — man 
 Was where the dead were; and around him was 
 The turmoil; it was his to share, his blood 
 To mingle with theirs, and his fate to waken 
 On the morrow. If the mighty fell and turned 
 A race to dust, still others, proud in life. 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 119 
 
 Aggressive, strong, the weaker soon laid low 
 Till star malign had risen on blood-red cloud, 
 And fated them to go — thus man in death 
 Had his first lessons, saw the crimson flow 
 And quivering muscle till the life was gone. 
 Cold, pale, and dead they were — not he! The life 
 Had passed; he saw it when its springs were dry. 
 He saw them stricken in each hour; he knew 
 Them living — changed by death; the difference 
 He noted, felt the loss, but did not dream 
 Himself must die. Beneath him they were, scaled 
 Each in the roll of being — that was theirs. 
 When done with them the hand that gave had taken. 
 He felt the promise of the morrow, each 
 Succeeding in unending line — to them 
 That morrow closed, but gave no sign 'twould close 
 To him; a simple child of earth, it was 
 Beyond his ken, to live implied to die! 
 The steps of reason, flights of fancy, dream 
 Of skies, were yet unborn. He drank of day, 
 Its glories were as yet untasted — no vision 
 Of the future then for a moment strayed 
 Near, to illume the dawn of intelligence; 
 No voice from beyond had whispered that it is. 
 And called to him, his steps to steady well 
 For flight along unnumbered years, still on 
 When earth was wasted and the sun turned black. 
 That simple life a charm had, magnet like, 
 A prize no wealth could buy. Though dim the view 
 Of self, it burned with earthly fire to light 
 The fitful maze, thus shading all around 
 In darkness deeper than a starless night. 
 By it he saw his bound and wandered round 
 It like a child astray! 'Twas small, but still 
 Enough for him; 'twas not a paradise, 
 But 'twas his home, not in memory linked as time 
 May hallow, but a spot he owned in that 
 Unlimited domain of mind, and like 
 The plantlet, rich in promise of bud and bloom, 
 Though crude in form and narrow in its scope. 
 There were the living before him; they came 
 
I20 THE COSMOS 
 
 When chaos melted into order; germs 
 
 They were, the first by virtue of their birth, 
 
 An elemental part of being like 
 
 The properties of matter, to be turned, 
 
 But slowly, in ascending series, group 
 
 On group appearing, endless in succession. 
 
 Each link of chain appropriate in place 
 
 And time to play its part and drop away. 
 
 That chain is broken. Forged before the years 
 
 Began, when only waves of darkness rolled 
 
 Across the cosmic night, then the first links 
 
 Were echoing to elemental blows. 
 
 And garlands weaving for that natal day — 
 
 Garland and link alike are lost in graves 
 
 Unknown, but round them stars are strewn to keep 
 
 Their silent watch while ages blend the glee 
 
 And dirge on strings of cosmic length and played 
 
 By worlds now floating down the depths of space. 
 
 But other links are gone; the years them gnawed 
 
 Till they did drop as dust in ages spanned. 
 
 Though some have slept in robes unrent, while the grand 
 
 Procession moved along, till works of time 
 
 Have moldered and the winds and waters bore 
 
 Them hence; uncovered they have come to us 
 
 From whilom years, and as the dead they speak. 
 
 How little of life is compassed here, and yet 
 How much! To live, to eat, to die; a home 
 Where daily shines the sun, and earth, illumed, 
 Springs forward to his call. The beast feels it. 
 And loves, hates, woos, and battles on until 
 A kindred nature takes back her own and grows 
 The trees where they fall to sing vesper hymns 
 As zephyrs come and go. How poor, and yet 
 How rich! Here rocks are seen, gray, hard, moss-grown 
 And dripping, mute and eloquent; and there. 
 The vale in flush of life, aglow with fresh 
 Young beauty as the buds, then opening, turn 
 To morning sun, to take the tints with drops 
 Of dew; and scarce above, another life. 
 In place unfixed, and formed to act, a wild. 
 Bold wanderer then, with naught, it seemed, but his 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 121 
 
 Own pleasure sweet to fill; he drank — the draught 
 
 Was only surface deep; his dream, if dream 
 
 He had, that all was made for him — no sleeker 
 
 Form his eye surveyed, and no prouder step 
 
 Was given; he looked upon himself and loved, 
 
 Nor dreamed a creature nobler might be made. 
 
 But who would take away that dream; an hour 
 
 Of bliss, though small, was his and freely given, 
 
 A light that flecked the cloud whose trailing shade 
 
 Then deepening was; and soon of him no trace 
 
 Remains; 'twas a harmless fancy woven to gild 
 
 An hour of simple being — this, perhaps. 
 
 Is fame! A dream that others gild our deeds. 
 
 As we ourselves have seen, and on the scroll 
 
 Mount us that coming years may see and tell. 
 
 The creature feels when others uplift him 
 
 In weal of common purpose them to lead. 
 
 He takes by right the van; then if he fail. 
 
 The weight of woe upon him rests; if, though. 
 
 By accident or special gift he takes 
 
 The staff of victory and leads the way. 
 
 It were but just a glow of pride to tell 
 
 With look and step and curve the worth of self. 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 The law of life is to repeat itself; 
 And through the lowest types the instinct runs; 
 This in the varied numbers well is seen; 
 Then up, diminishing in ratio, the forms 
 Of higher grades appear with longer lease 
 For duplication. Man is bound by rule 
 The same, inexorable; as they, he came; 
 As they, he found a habitation made 
 Upon the shores of time; above, he was 
 Of them, a link away, a bud on tree 
 Of life whose branches, trunk, and rootlets reached 
 Across the years, dying and dead, to draw 
 From fount that mother nature ever feeds. 
 An heir by right, in honest succession 
 He takes his place and with his mate, they too 
 Repeat themselves — a bit of flesh and blood 
 And bone, unlike, yet like, that dreams away 
 Its days, unconscious of the watch above 
 Its couch. A bed of moss it had, a leaf 
 Was all; its wants were few; to breathe, to sleep. 
 To eat of nature's food, was most of life. 
 A wildling cast in nature's lap with need 
 Of every care, involuntarily 
 
 It played the game of life. The young of grades 
 Below had greater power and higher skill 
 To battle the first hours and go their way. 
 The moon their years did measure, his the sun. 
 They dropped away from the fold, and early took 
 The mead of life; a warmer love held him 
 In the maternal arms and sweeter words 
 Were lisped to his unlisting baby ear. 
 The moistened eye, the quivering lip, bespoke 
 A wealth of feeling deepening with the days 
 Until that mite was worth the world beside- — 
 And yet what was it worth .^ A thing of life 
 To sleep and dream the days and nights away. 
 It had but power its wants to tell in notes 
 Of fitful burst for love alone to know. 
 
 122 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 123 
 
 The spring of life was round, the key was lost; 
 
 It had no thought for future use — that life 
 
 In circuit hidden, the deep answering 
 
 In throbs mysterious, constant as night 
 
 And day — no questions asked, no secrets told. 
 
 A unity of atoms grown and like 
 
 The crystal, fixed by law- — a blending made 
 
 From different kinds by mystic agents whose 
 
 Unconscious workings fitted with a skill 
 
 Beyond the reach of manual architecture. 
 
 In all this he was not alone; for swarmed 
 
 The world with congeners in groups on groups 
 
 That in some things — not all — above him were; 
 
 The birds, in flight; on foot, the deer and horse; 
 
 The lion, in strength and smell. Even the cat 
 
 And owl, when darkness closed him in, could see; 
 
 While apes, despised but agile, could with their 
 
 Members prehensile, chatter from a perch 
 
 Whose dizzy height his eyes might tempt or awe 
 
 Without the hope or offer of a way. 
 
 In size and strength the mammoth held a place 
 
 Unique in living forms, beyond his ken 
 
 To look on self and it and test in lists 
 
 The summons to the fray, with odds so vast 
 
 In disproportion, one might think a hand 
 
 Unskilled a nursling planted but to die. 
 
 For each a type was set — peculiar trait 
 
 Of higher power vouchsafed to fix 
 
 On them a purpose to fulfil; there is 
 
 E'er moving on, though undetected, a gift 
 
 To grow unlike, yet to conserve the old 
 
 That with the newer blends in type or form 
 
 Of nicer finish; a change but slight is wealth 
 
 And added power, accumulating year 
 
 By year; each growth, decay, or pruning has made 
 
 An eminence whereon its wants are met. 
 
 And from that vantage ground 'twill make its way. 
 
 Thus had the baby drawn from world's rich mines 
 
 The treasured wealth of ages, and within 
 
 Itself concentered germ of mind and soul 
 
 That glows as in the sun's light glows the pearl, 
 
124 THE COSMOS 
 
 Burnished and cleaned though dust encrusted once. 
 
 He was upon the border land whose line 
 
 He touched, but backward drew, for affection, e'er 
 
 Present and clinging, in accents soft and sweet 
 
 Whispered of ties to bind him longer there; 
 
 But back he pushed the pleading years, and turned 
 
 Away from tear-dimmed eye to list the iron 
 
 Voice, Go! Then on a world unknown he strode. 
 
 Around him were his infant robes, and beat 
 
 His heart as memory in imagery 
 
 Recalled a spot or friend, all that life was 
 
 Or gave. He seemed to live where once he was, 
 
 Almost to nestle in baby land and dream 
 
 Again; his heart filled, mists sprung up to cloud 
 
 His sight and drift away the fairy land. 
 
 If he would stop, he could not; where to go 
 He did not know; his wildness and his stern 
 And practical inheritance to him 
 Still clung, but they new meaning had, for world 
 Of realities had its alluring charm 
 In simple grandeur of a master work. 
 Each had its birth and destiny, and spoke 
 In truthful speech to primitive ears. Could they 
 Have listened always to a single note. 
 No wandering steps, from beaten paths astray. 
 Had tracked the virgin earth; then would each beat 
 Alike have been. To live one day would be 
 To live them all; with dreary monotone 
 Would days drag to years, years to oblivion. 
 But nature had her light and playful moods 
 To strike the subtile chords of fancy which, 
 Above the solid fabric hovering. 
 Evolved the wilder strains that leap the rock 
 Or rill to go where airy castles float. 
 Or climb the mountain side whereon the mists 
 Are wove from peak to cloud in semblance that 
 It seemed was by the world forgotten then. 
 In silent hours again, half asleep and half 
 Awake, the colors came and went In light 
 Or dark, a simple shade to tell its tale 
 And pass along; but others too were near, 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 125 
 
 With brighter tinge, that wove themselves in blend 
 
 Of shapeless drift to leave their print and flit 
 
 Away, but leaving in their train, of home 
 
 Some light, familiar image — mountain, plain. 
 
 Wood, streamlet, dale, or nook that hung above 
 
 The world, in deep of night to pass away. 
 
 But nature was no longer tempest rocked. 
 
 The hard realities, the foundations, 
 
 And turmoil were with imagery aglow^ — 
 
 Just in the life a tinge to nestle, warm. 
 
 And brighten, but whose meaning was unknown; 
 
 Or like a stranger from beyond the bound. 
 
 Whose mission was to scatter weft that through 
 
 Us runs to grow till worlds, aye e'en ourselves. 
 
 Illusions are, a momentary cast. 
 
 In pleasing shape, but soon to disappear. 
 
 New life began; its visions and its drift 
 Were beacon light and bane of world to be. 
 The plodding elements of humanity 
 The fabric, coarse, unvarying, made; they took 
 A savage satisfaction in the days 
 When all was wild; they were leased by time to do 
 Their work; but they slept — toil had wearied while 
 Possession made secure. There was a glow 
 Upon the world; unasked, it brightened it; 
 It brightened man — it was not much, but then 
 It answered for its day, a warmth, and good. 
 And like a rose in cactus desert fed 
 By never-failing spring to live and bloom. 
 
 Thus it was nature favored man; she made 
 Him when she needed him; she planted him 
 Where danger was, to grow by active life. 
 Permitting him, in case of need, to call 
 The latent powers of his being forth 
 For pleasure or the purposes of life. 
 So it was under stress he lived, and so 
 He multiplied and grew though the storm drove. 
 Though darkness brooded o'er him and death was near; 
 For it a tension to his being gave — 
 A test of what he was in dawn of life. 
 
 That day was not a calm; the elemental 
 
126 THE COSMOS 
 
 War had subsided; its first throes when worlds 
 Were born, the flames that lit it then, had died 
 Away; but air was rife with the worlds born 
 As fragments broken in a mighty work, 
 And earth did rock, disturbed in dreams that day. 
 The world had dropped away — eccentric veered 
 From paths once trod till heat and cold in nice 
 Adjustment were succeeding; then in clouds 
 The waters lifted to drift and drop in sleet 
 And snow that piled a zone years deep in ice. 
 
 Across the line in brightness burned the sun. 
 And from its depths the ocean drank to hang 
 It like a veil around the world in black. 
 The wind toyed with its texture gossamer, 
 Gold, gray, then bore it hence, joined it in globes 
 Of tiny forms and dropped them back again 
 To mingle in their native bed; some froze 
 And fell as ice; others passed on to grow 
 In flakes and drop down in the Polar cold. 
 In the long night they journeyed on — in dark 
 They knew their way — to strew the earth in white. 
 And bury it inch by inch as the years rolled 
 Away. The moss died where it grew with snow 
 For its shroud; grass and herb were twined around 
 With ice-cold hands and frozen where they stood; 
 The rocks were sealed to earth; the valleys, filled; 
 The hills and plains were spread with icy mantle; 
 The shrub had sunk away in its last sleep 
 Beyond the reach of funeral chant, entombed 
 Where it stood; forests rich as valleys they 
 Adorned and stately as the hills they crowned, 
 With leaflets withered and their branches bound 
 In ice, stood grim above the rocks — the last 
 To live as mourners sad, to weep above 
 The dead whose dirge they sung till they went down 
 Themselves to snow-capped graves. Alone were left 
 The mountains; distant sentinels, they stood 
 Above the storm, unflecked and bleak; dark, cold. 
 Inert, they cared not for the living, wept 
 Not for the dead; above the snow they peered 
 Out into space; above the tempest, stern, 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 127 
 
 Unmoved, they whiled away the ages long, 
 Dead as the world, snow-buried at their base; 
 The lakes had frozen in their very depths; 
 The rivers, chilled, were hung on rocks, leaping 
 In crystals from the precipice, or chained 
 In deep or sinuous beds, with glint that played 
 In lines of light across the wastes of snow. 
 
 The glory of the north had gone; its sun 
 Had turned cold in that long, strange day; the night 
 Was weird and startling with its frosty sky 
 Fire-lit with streamers or aglow in flame 
 Till fancy from the deep did seem to call 
 A battle field on which did hang the fate 
 Of nature as the skies run red in blood. 
 
 The sweet refrain of earth was gone; slowly 
 And sadly it disappeared from nooks and haunts 
 It loved, and as if to live again, it left 
 Some type of harebell, lupine, moss, or rose, 
 Of grass, or shrub, in ice-girt bed entombed 
 To linger through the nameless years of cold. 
 And grow to bloom in higher beauty when 
 For its release the better days shall come. 
 
 The moon rose dim on the tomb of ice, the sun 
 Burned cheerless through the frosty air, the stars 
 Looked sad as they did roll across the night. 
 And there is nothing left but solid earth. 
 The ocean, and its mantle of snow, white, cold, 
 Sad, silent, dead! Such is one half the world. 
 So rich in promise once, so full of life 
 Of beauty, of fragrance, and of song; it vied 
 With tropics then and took the meed of life; 
 But deep its treasures lie; above them is 
 The silent tread of time; above, the cold 
 With fetters of ice; above, the calm and storm. 
 The dream and charm have died away in long 
 Ages in silence of an ice-bound grave 
 To rest and wait until the tomb dissolves. 
 The cold and dead are here! No marble now 
 Is needed to tell the coming years what lies 
 Beneath. The wrecks of living are in sheets 
 Of snow that wrapped them in its silent fall 
 
128 THE COSMOS 
 
 When terror seized them in arrest of flight. 
 
 With senses numb they died — died as they stood, 
 
 With but one wistful look, a mute appeal 
 
 Of agony and hope; then glazed their eyes 
 
 In death; yes, nature made them; nature killed 
 
 Them; nature cased in ice, as relics, their 
 
 Remains, and over them she builded high 
 
 Her monument of snow; on that did time 
 
 Leave tracks in circling round his lonely beat — 
 
 The hieroglyphs traced in memory 
 
 Of nature dead till sun shall come again 
 
 With melting power; then mightiest of forms 
 
 Uncovered shall be, and thus from the tomb that falls 
 
 Away Is voiced the history that was sealed 
 
 In the cold silence dark of untold years. 
 
 A beat in the universe was struck again; 
 
 And as the leaf does turn the sun to seek, 
 
 The earth did answer to the call and pass 
 
 To wider ellipse, as In the former days, 
 
 Almost forgotten now; the sun quickened 
 
 The ice-girt world and rivers flowed again. 
 
 An ocean sealed did tremble in Its bed 
 
 And broke a hemisphere of Ice, unloosed 
 
 Its way to make, though slowly, to the south 
 
 As if by hand of destiny 'twere pushed 
 
 To drift on to the tropics; grand and cold 
 
 And massive, flowed a stream that girt the world 
 
 On land and ocean bed. The forest, felled 
 
 By flood, was burled; hills were swept away; 
 
 The valley, scooped; the rocks from beds were torn, 
 
 Borne hence or crushed; flood climbed the mount and tore 
 
 Its crest; it kissed the clouds, In the south born 
 
 Of it on line of burning heat which inch 
 
 By Inch with polar cold contested; so 
 
 Thus, in reverse, back rolled the years again 
 
 To rescue from a tomb the world 
 
 That ice-bound slept as dead — no sun, no star. 
 
 But cold in crystal chains, with naught of life; 
 
 In strange embrace the great and small went down, 
 
 Unchanged and fixed for ages where they fell. 
 
 The time had changed; the magic touch that locked 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 129 
 
 The crystal drew away; the ice moved down 
 To break on sea; on land it wasted; earth 
 It soaked to its depths; filled the air with clouds; 
 The lightning flashed to northern skies, thunder 
 Spoke; water from the glaciers trickled down 
 To lun away; the rains fell; rivers filled; 
 Waters with waters mingled; and plains drank 
 Till they could drink no more — this was the flood. 
 Ice hemmed the north, but water swept the south; 
 The sun in darkness was; in turmoil were 
 The winds; earth was a waste; the ocean rolled 
 Turbid, fetterless, and dark; the fires within 
 Grew restless and the solid earth did rock; 
 The ice turned back; the waters flowed away; 
 The clouds were reft and the sun came; the storm 
 And earthquake in the distance died; gladly. 
 The mountains welcomed back again the plains. 
 The world is but a speck in space; unseen, 
 Unknown in the surrounding depths where stars 
 Roll on, unfelt but in a narrow space, 
 It plays a part subordinate; only 
 In borrowed robes 'tis seen; if it were lost 
 Who is to tell how small the void 'twould leave .^ 
 One drop in the celestial sea, it rides 
 The years along; it speaks in harmony. 
 Unbroken yet; though graded low in scale, 
 'Tis large to finite eyes. Events that then 
 Were passing — grand, and pregnant with results — 
 Impressed on memory a picture that, 
 Though it may fade, will live, woven in texture 
 Of dreams that will obscure its origin. 
 Apparently the forces of the world. 
 Unchanged, were hurried on and up to wild 
 And matchless heights till ocean, earth, and air 
 Did seem to mingle once and work as one. 
 No wonder man did not forget, and awed 
 By such a sight did feel as if it were 
 In fact the act of Supernatural — 
 The world, a plaything, trembling at his feet. 
 To him it was no fancy when the ice 
 Came to his home and buried the land he loved. 
 
I30 THE COSMOS 
 
 His cave, his grove, the vine and shrub that fed 
 
 Him, all were gone! He turned away in grief 
 
 And fear to seek a stranger land, that he 
 
 Might live; his faith was broken; the cold had crept 
 
 Over the playground of his childhood, chill 
 
 As polar frost; the things familiar all 
 
 His days, to which his strong affections clung. 
 
 Went down around him, one by one — he could 
 
 Not take, he could not save; and even hope 
 
 Seemed vain against the drift of death! His home. 
 
 His country — all was lost. He had to go — 
 
 Not as we turn from burial of our dead. 
 
 With solemn step so sad and slow, but quick 
 
 Before the storm, now closing down around 
 
 Him, leaving but the remnants of a race 
 
 To build anew. The cold, the wall of ice 
 
 That barred him out, sent after him its chill 
 
 To blight the land it could not take; and yet 
 
 He grew apace for under stress he learned. 
 
 He built a hut; he took from lava that 
 
 Ran down the mountain side a burning brand 
 
 And with the fagots made a fire; he had 
 
 To plan and work; his thought was fitful, his 
 
 Art rude; his childish dream was wayward like 
 
 The moods of nature, a mingling of the storm 
 
 And calm. His days went on, but not as when 
 
 The sun was warm and full of light and cheer 
 
 And bloom; he was an exile under skies 
 
 Of darkness, for where once was plenty, now 
 
 But little offered, and that little not 
 
 The best — a dreary world, of treasure full, 
 
 But locked outside the reach of those in need. 
 
 Then first occurred to him to ask, "What good 
 
 Is life, a burden now to live.'' What good 
 
 The world, to have so much and give so small 
 
 A dole and that on sufferance only.'' Why take 
 
 From life all that gives value and leave it 
 
 To prey upon itself.'"' To him the world 
 
 Was wrong; his dream of Paradise was back 
 
 In years gone by — scarce noted then, like sun 
 
 In memory it burned to an intensity 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 131 
 
 That made it part of life, and like the dreams 
 Of beauty it grew bright and brighter till 
 In wealth of coloring it unfolded there, 
 Though strained to verge that ends in tragedy. 
 The sky, too, was against him, for it hung 
 In darkness, turning midday into night; 
 And then the comets, like avenging angels. 
 With crests of fire aligned with wings subdued 
 To softer light, by contrast made the light 
 For goodness stand, and darkness for the bad, 
 Two agents of transcendent power flung 
 Against each other, limitless in scope 
 And in design — the world, surrounding space. 
 The battle ground and man, the object; for 
 In their contention man must suffer; first 
 To one he listened, then to the other, like 
 A waif astray, till darkness closed him in 
 And he became a wanderer, to mourn 
 The Paradise he lost; to work in taint 
 And under bitter curse, the long, long years 
 To come; but trouble multiplied; the days 
 Were bleak, the land unfruitful. Then it was 
 He saw, or dreamed he saw, some form divine 
 Or dark that spoke with promise or with threat. 
 Or lured with art adown a pathw^ay none 
 Might care to go, but he was not his own — 
 A something in a world that recked him not, 
 Disputed for by Darkness and by Light; 
 And e'er a prey to fear or hope as shade 
 Or sun did flit across his narrow ken. 
 Big with eternity, or big with woe! 
 
 Gloomy and grand the trend of time; its lines 
 Of fate had steeled his soul, but now and then 
 The Eden lost came back in memory, soft 
 To tenderness, till wandering away 
 In sleep, he nestled in the lawns and heard 
 The flowing waters of immortal life 
 That murmured in the Garden by the hands 
 Of angels tended; he saw the fig and palm; 
 The oak, in drapery of moss; in bloom 
 Beyond, the acacia tree; below, the grass 
 
132 THE COSMOS 
 
 And flower; the air was filled with fragrance. Deep 
 In shades the temple was of gods. 'Twas there 
 They came in human form and converse held 
 In human speech. As men they were, to eat 
 And drink; they loved, they hated, and they warred; 
 Vague was their speech; of earth their actions were; 
 With men they toyed; with women drank the cup 
 Of bliss, thus linking earth to heaven and hell; 
 The world they made, fixed it in space with lines 
 Extending and coequal, while the stars 
 Attendant and the sun all whirled around 
 In depths remote for night and day; well poised 
 In balance and then touched with flame, they sped 
 Around in rapid flight — a pigmy world — 
 All this he deemed they did for him alone. 
 
 The morrow came; the sweet commune of long 
 Ago with shades of night did fade to him. 
 And yet to him that night and dream were real; 
 For in it vistas of another world 
 Were opened in a fitful glimpse and strewn 
 With glories brighter than material sky. 
 When day itself was hung in night, the sense 
 Of being closed one half; but memory 
 Then treasured it the more and for it yearned. 
 As we some bauble crave that is beyond 
 Our reach. That was a strange unrest, for world 
 That gave him life, a thing possessed, was lost 
 And moral night was closing over it. 
 Too dull of mind to weigh, too wild in fancy 
 To fix his place, of passion strong, to control, 
 His gods he like himself did build and gave 
 To them each element of being, each 
 Attribute his own exaggerated. 
 The embers of his love did burn in them 
 Till it embraced mankind; he loved to rule; 
 They absolute obedience demand; 
 He hated with a vengeance for a day; 
 They, with a vengeance for eternity; 
 They grew as he grew, large or small; alike 
 In form and person; and as he was man. 
 So they were men of larger growth: he saw 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 133 
 
 But dimly, bounded by the horizon; their 
 Sight pierced the dim unknown; he toyed with earth 
 And scarce did leave a mark; they blew the winds, 
 The ocean tossed, and breathed the smoke and flame 
 From caverns of the earth; for worldly goods 
 He bargained; for the elements they lots 
 Did cast, assigning each to his domain; 
 He thought and planned, so too did they — his futile. 
 Theirs frustrated by design adverse; his art, 
 His cunning was met by theirs; he lied and they 
 Did too; he gave devotion; they asked of him 
 A sacrifice; he reasoned within the lines 
 Of finite being; they rose beyond the metes 
 To infinity, but broke down in the great, 
 Grand sequence of events; with curious 
 Consistency, for it man they blamed. 
 With prescient gift and with creative power 
 Nothing they touched — the world, the heavens came 
 Reflecting moral beauty and design, 
 With Infinite, interlaced, self-executing 
 Laws; but at the first touch of woman's hand. 
 The fabric crumbled. Fair as lilies they 
 Made her, with bloom of rose upon her cheek. 
 Of gentle presence — last and crowning gift 
 To Paradise she wrought it ruin, they 
 Said. She took it, a gift, in its bowers 
 She nestled, sweeter than the fragrance dews 
 Distilled; she trusted; from the fountain drank; 
 Plucked from the tree to eat — thus she fell, man 
 Dragged down — the world in desolation lay! 
 In Infinite wisdom planned, as pleased them best 
 They made it; fairest jewel, she was set 
 For tempter's hand. Above the world in fame. 
 Scarce less than Omnipotence and at bay, 
 He took the coronal the purest gem 
 To pluck — a shining fragment only, then! 
 Himself is measure of the man; his lot 
 Is cast in lines that stretch each way to bounds; 
 Beyond a certain limit, he is lost; 
 But on those lines, unequal are his steps; 
 Unsteady, in the dim twilight of reason 
 
134 THE COSMOS 
 
 He walks them, lured by visions, wisps beyond 
 
 That beckon him hence. Awed, uncertain, first 
 
 He looks, and looks, and looks again! Each side 
 
 'Tis fathoms deep, mysterious as time 
 
 Itself! then he forgets the solid earth 
 
 And turns in dreams away to touch a truth 
 
 That serves for fancy till links weird are forged. 
 
 Tied each to each the cycle to complete 
 
 Where one can wander round and round the chain 
 
 Of being, chasing mists that fly and grow 
 
 And multiply till each becomes a form 
 
 Of living essence peopling earth and sky. 
 
 By night the spectral beacons shone; by night, 
 
 In mystic dance the fairies twined; by night 
 
 The gods came whispering in the sleeper's ear 
 
 Till burned in memory life and death; by night 
 
 The message came and laws of nature turned 
 
 Back at his touch; by night he took the wand 
 
 And seal of prophecy! By day he walked 
 
 The earth, rich in treasures of a world unseen; 
 
 By day the dusk trembled with life, the winds 
 
 Were hushed; the ocean, stilled; by day his dreams 
 
 Became words, wrought in type and pictured in flames; 
 
 By day he hung them on the moral world. 
 
 In promise rich, or fated with woe! he came 
 
 To men, a messenger of the gods, and wrought 
 
 His wonders in attestation; but the world 
 
 Was drifting on its way, a silent force 
 
 Was curbing the wayward flight. The laws that bind 
 
 It chained the living to it, held for a time 
 
 The ascendant, heedless of the cry of life 
 
 Or death; they took it at its birth to mold 
 
 It with a tireless energy that brooks 
 
 No interference. Sadly the prophet saw 
 
 The drift, and sadly thought of his dream — tear 
 
 And flashing eye, the promise and the threat 
 
 Were waved aside by onward fiat, cold 
 
 As destiny. But his long locks the old 
 
 Man shook, his feeble step grew firm, erect 
 
 He stood on shores of time and eternity; 
 
 His mantle from his shoulders fell and there, 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 135 
 
 Transfigured, he lingered for a moment; turned 
 
 On the world his last look; a tear or the like 
 
 Was in his eye; in warning of the grave 
 
 Of waters, he moved as if to gather all 
 
 In his arms, breathed a prayer as for her child, 
 
 A mother, the world to keep — and he was gone. 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 Bold, self-poised, man a warning never heeds. 
 There is about him a touch of destiny. 
 The unyielding current of events has force 
 To fix its flow direct; the world and more. 
 The Cosmos, is in it, moves, as it moves. 
 On, ever on, urged by some impetus 
 As limitless as time and space; on it 
 No years are marked; no record tells of its 
 Decay; no eye sees it; no ear hears it; 
 But in the hidden depths, in silence it 
 Rolls on to fill the measure of design. 
 No world, no sun has crossed it; but they go, 
 As told in the beginning, down a realm 
 Untracked, unnoted, unsignaled; the long. 
 Long years have gone and undistinguished blend 
 In ages; now they too have sunk in measureless 
 Waves of the past, yet the material 
 Universe survives and comes down to us 
 With the light of unnumbered stars; but none 
 Have turned back whence they came; the first decree 
 That gave them being stands to-day as then 
 It stood when by its Author it was voiced. 
 This is the spell that holds the universe, 
 The life, deep as the foundations, that moves 
 With irresistible force, a glorious 
 Expression of its Maker's will! This gives 
 The harmony in all of the complex 
 Relations of Cosmos and stability 
 Commensurate with magnitude, or its 
 Duration in original design. 
 
 A touch of fate man felt in earlier days; 
 Turn as he would, there was fixed succession, cold 
 And stern and pitiless, to drift him on, 
 A child of nature, things to take as he 
 Found them. He nothing did or could reverse. 
 He thought, perhaps, himself in worth too large — 
 A fault in conscious life which drives that self 
 Along the simple, as the higher way — 
 
 136 
 
CHAPTER NINE 137 
 
 But he was governed by the laws of some 
 
 Transcendent Power he could not control. 
 
 They gave him day, they gave him night, in sleep 
 
 His senses locked, he dreamed, he hungered — all 
 
 Unbidden came. The outward form alone 
 
 Was seen. The wish crept in, perchance, to mold 
 
 Things to his mind; the stars to stop and give 
 
 Perpetual day; but bloom and blight still came 
 
 And went, while he in reverence bent to what 
 
 He could not help, and dared to ask the world 
 
 Conformed to be to his caprice; abased. 
 
 He prayed to stocks and stones the elements 
 
 To hold; but storms beat on him and prayers fell 
 
 Unanswered; he felt there must be power behind 
 
 Each act or thing to give it special force. 
 
 For each he made a god and gave him wife 
 
 And child. These gods he worshipped and implored, 
 
 Asked them for intercession — he thought they gave. 
 
 But other gods he made and called them names 
 
 Perverse and wicked; they watched to turn the good 
 
 To bad and stain with sin the fairest soul. 
 
 With a bold hand they struck at times and made 
 
 The elements quake; e'er present was the thought 
 
 They touched to lead astray; they slyly won 
 
 The feelings; lured with specious coloring 
 
 The festoon on the damp of death; by art 
 
 Their purpose they concealed; wove cunningly 
 
 The threads, so intertwined, of life and death. 
 
 By strategy the fair domain they took. 
 
 The fruit and flower they plucked, a moral wreck 
 
 They left with fragments of a ruined world! 
 
 Man sat upon the ruins, saw the work 
 His gods had done; he made them one by one 
 To fit his needs and grow complete as sped 
 The ages; armor gave and helmet, shield 
 And spear; they, like the knights of other times, 
 The lance and visor broke; on man they then 
 Their vengeance vowed; he heard their muttered curse 
 Above the clouds; from rocks across the glen 
 He heard its echo; then he heard it glide 
 Through the ruins around, and like a wail 
 
138 THE COSMOS 
 
 In forests die away! His gods had grown 
 
 Beyond him. Nothing was the world, and man 
 
 Was nothing, for a moral blight was all. 
 
 They took the scepter then for execution. 
 
 The mists grew deep and dark, the living all 
 
 Were restless, fearful of the danger, taught 
 
 By instinct it to know; the calm a lead 
 
 Portentous bore; the trees moaned now and then 
 
 In the dead silence; day into night deepened; 
 
 The clouds hung low, and dark they rose above 
 
 The horizon, creeping softly round the world 
 
 To girt it in for the carnival of woe. 
 
 The waves rolled sullen, crested with a gleam 
 
 Of phosphorescent light; the lightning flashed 
 
 Like sheets of flame and waxed in lurid glare; 
 
 A rift appeared, a chain with lines of fire; 
 
 The dead and murky air began to move; 
 
 The thunder broke, quick, sharp, or else rolled on 
 
 In long unending peal; cloud leaped to cloud. 
 
 Then surging into vortex sped to rend 
 
 All in its fatal track as waters fell. 
 
 The earth's crust under the pressure swayed and bent 
 
 In convolutions; the ocean lashed its shores; 
 
 The nations too went down; the continents 
 
 Were rent in twain and waves rolled in between; 
 
 To waters wild the world was given now. 
 
 To hunt the living and destroy; they through 
 
 The valley surged, the mountains threatening that 
 
 Were set to bar them from their work of death. 
 
 Long, sad, the years of desolation were. 
 
 Inanimate and animate alike 
 
 Did feel the hour of doom — the one, gone down. 
 
 The other in its bosom wrapped to shield 
 
 While they slept in a common grave. Some fled 
 
 In fright; some were struck dumb; some died in fear, 
 
 O'erwhelmed by grandeur of the storm; some were 
 
 Defiant, proud, who felt the creeping chill 
 
 Of death but died like men; some sought to climb 
 
 The mountain side for refuge — these survived, 
 
 Of man and beast a few; on the long lines 
 
 Of land, like promontories into the sea 
 
CHAPTER NINE 139 
 
 Stretching, was shelter from the cold or storm. 
 They made for man a home, but unity 
 Of race was gone — a broken family. 
 Each to the other lost, surviving but 
 As remnants, like the castaways from wrecks. 
 While even then the waters climbed the shores. 
 The sky was pitiless and frowning, while 
 Their refuge quaked beneath their trembling feet. 
 To each the deluge was complete — far, far 
 Away as eye could reach the waters rolled. 
 Above the ruined homes was the ceaseless roar — 
 Submerged the wealth and glory ages wrought. 
 
 On fairest plain the dead — the dead in groves! 
 On mountain side the dead! no tear, no tomb! 
 No hand to soothe the pillow in the last 
 Sad hour, no whisper of hope, and no caress. 
 No winding sheet, no grave^ — the dead, the dead. 
 Gone down in wreck of world and swept away! 
 Unnoted, ungathered, unnumbered they 
 Fell as trees of the forest; unheard the plea 
 Of innocence, the child in tears, unseen. 
 Was crushed. The wail was for a moment, then closed 
 Above them the waters cold, unfeeling as 
 The fiat that unloosed them on the race. 
 
 The few remained to live and list to waste 
 Of waters, dark and turbulent, with not 
 A word of the myriad dead it to itself 
 Had taken and hidden away in realms 
 Uncanny, to remain and waste, the mote 
 With mote commingling in their bed. The toil 
 Of years was taken too — the home of years 
 Was gone; the tie of family, of kin, 
 Of friend, was broken — strangers were the few 
 That lived, but friends, made so by common grief 
 And fear, on that spot spared to them, where they 
 Must live. These colonies were scattered far. 
 Remnants of a once mighty race, the shade 
 Of whose uncounted dead hung on the world. 
 And ever present with the living stalked, 
 A ghost of augury with its long train 
 Of evils; but such days are not forever. 
 
I40 THE COSMOS 
 
 In cycles nature runs her course and dark 
 To-day is promise of to-morrow clear. 
 An age that leaves in ruin has grown old 
 In time to drop away, furrowed and dead; 
 The light from its funereal car comes 
 To arch the cloud, one end upon the dead, 
 The other on the promised era new. 
 
 The Phenix rose from flames of dying bird; 
 From floods new races sprung; conditions new, 
 New climes and varied wrought the flexile lines, 
 Cast them, and turned them from a common mold 
 In slow divergence. Each had not the same 
 Inheritance; the treasury of life 
 Had been indeed for all, but none had drawn 
 Alike in distribution — strength one took. 
 Another, skill; some, pride of stature, gift 
 Of song, of eloquence, of poesy, 
 Set high, like stars in the sky, to mark an age. 
 Some canvas painted, or the marble chiseled 
 Till they spoke, lifelike, in fame; some told, in weird 
 Imagery, of the cast, the birth, the life, 
 And destiny of man. His types were dreams, 
 His figures, mystic; these he cast in all 
 The fervid heat of passion, till 'twas felt 
 The work of life was but to build to faith 
 Intangible and varying as seers 
 Did dream, that became the solid arch to pass 
 Believers from this to an ideal world. 
 
 Mutations strange — and peace — the earth was glad. 
 Its sun and song had come again — the green 
 Of its fields toyed in the light, crept into nook 
 And glen, and over hills left bleak and bare 
 It spread a mantle of welcome and of cheer. 
 The moss, the waters fringed; close round the cliff 
 Brake, fern, reed, willow, and tree awoke to life; 
 The flower with tint and fragrance crept again 
 In sunshine to adorn and sweeten the world. 
 Above the ruins nature wove her wreath, 
 And on the fields of dead her garlands twined. 
 The garb of mourning dropped away and its 
 Mementos disappeared. She paused for but 
 
CHAPTER NINE 141 
 
 One moment on the confines of life and death — 
 The dead she gave their meed — the morrow gave 
 The living to build from the tomb; there lie the years 
 With glories strewn, their trophies are the lands 
 Submerged and life that's passed away. The day 
 Was not as when the world began; each age 
 Was but a step, one count on the roll of time. 
 Wherein by chemic force and life were tossed 
 The elements, refining by the change 
 For new and higher possibilities. 
 Long, long had nature worked in building; she 
 Touched with deft hand the subtile forces, twined 
 Them silently in atoms then unseen 
 Till they became instinct with motion, life; 
 She curiously blended them in forms, 
 To reappear a simple mass, inert 
 Or grading up through myriads of strange 
 Combinations to find the more complete 
 Expression that they had risen from the tomb 
 Of kindred whose dust reanimate they were. 
 A shadow falls upon the world; its long. 
 Dull track is strewn with cold and pain — the why. 
 Perchance, lies deeper than the mind can reach. 
 When clouds above us hang that speak till shakes 
 The earth, when night of our own feelings broods 
 In bitterness o'er the foundations of things, 
 We break to build as nature never knew. 
 Pleasure and pain, life and death, woven are 
 In constitution of the organic world. 
 And each succeeds the other; nature has 
 Alaterials wrought for use — she has more; 
 They play in her alembic — this to-day. 
 The same to-morrow something else though it 
 Appears to be; the atom in the track 
 Of lightning is the atom still though it 
 Tells not the story told before; a touch 
 Hath wrought expression wondrous, simplest note 
 Reveals a hidden law! That atom links 
 Once with another atom, harmless then 
 It is and fragrant; breaks and links again. 
 The pleasing attributes have disappeared; 
 
142 THE COSMOS 
 
 They blend another substance, rank, unlike, 
 And poisonous — such is nature's way. She has 
 No form to last forever — the day she 
 Begins to make, her elements she calls 
 But to destroy. The lily, pansy, rose 
 Grow, bloom, and die; the tree that lives for years 
 Or centuries, has weights upon its life 
 Unerringly to limit the time of growth, 
 Maturity, and death. The world now stands 
 For man, his monument defiant to time. 
 But dust to dust it falls before one hour 
 On dial of the Cosmos, one, is struck. 
 
 Their value atoms have; its value force. 
 Too, has; without them life such as we know 
 Were impossible. Millions told, untold 
 Of atoms; space beyond our ken; and force. 
 Elusive, infinite, correlative — 
 All, all were summoned from profounder depths. 
 Revealed in time, perchance wrought in endless 
 Succession e'er the conscious thought turned back 
 The pathway noting the simplicity 
 Of its foundations, the wisdom of the laws 
 That govern its unfolding, and the wealth 
 And beauty of the Cosmos now perfecting. 
 
 Life needs more than a world — a little space, 
 A lump of rock, of mold and clay perchance — 
 But 'twould not make a living world, for cold. 
 Black, dead, it would roll on in cheerless night. 
 Ever, forever, one and the same. Beyond 
 The finite, boundless in time and space, beyond 
 The stars, beyond the universe each way, 
 Unbroken in depths, a circuit lies in which 
 Unnumbered stars are clustered, and each group 
 Numbers but one on the infinite roll, each 
 In poise and common balance drawn upon 
 By one majestic force that spans the way. 
 Still binding each to each in one endless. 
 Unbroken revolution. In this is man; 
 Of it he forms a part; each step in its 
 Evolution implied he was to come. 
 Had one link in the chain been missing he 
 
CHAPTER NINE 143 
 
 Might not have been! yet was all that for him? 
 
 Is this the purpose and the end of all? 
 
 The limit this of the Cosmos? Moons roll blank, 
 
 Could they then call it theirs? The star that died, 
 
 If called again to the living roll, might urge 
 
 Its claims; a mote with breath of life might take 
 
 The palm! 'Twere sweet to think so much is ours; 
 
 To stand far from beginning, and above 
 
 The arch of matter, space, and time, above 
 
 The living world — the end and crown of all! 
 
 A dream is this, or is it fact? Is this 
 
 The measure of the Cosmos? This the last 
 
 In possibilities of Infinite? 
 
 The final act and turning point whereon 
 
 We look back to beginning, forward on 
 
 The other half the circle down whose curve 
 
 Is reached the starting place, and infinite 
 
 Only because it turns forever round 
 
 A center in one unbroken line — the end 
 
 And the beginning a point one and the same? 
 
 Are we but drops in realms infinite, made 
 
 Like others higher than those past, as each 
 
 Is higher than the last before, and is 
 
 Because they were? Somewhere in the Cosmos 
 
 A something, held and used, then ground to dust 
 
 In cosmic mills? Are we to feed a world 
 
 Of living yet to come as we have fed 
 
 On living gone before? Dust, rock, the air 
 
 We breathe have turned at nature's call and served 
 
 For each succession, plant or animal life. 
 
 Till earth is but a charnel house, yet blooms 
 
 Better to-day that it has nurtured life 
 
 And killed without remorse. As they did fall 
 
 May we not fall, with here and there a wreck 
 
 Decayed, or turned to stone, all, all 
 
 That's left of us to tell to coming years 
 
 That we have been? Yes, undisturbed they sleep 
 
 The centuries away, till we have torn 
 
 Them from their graves to wrest from skeletons 
 
 Their history. Could they but speak like seers, 
 
 Might they not read for us the annals we 
 
144 THE COSMOS 
 
 Now read for them? They lived and died — to think 
 
 Or hope? Or yet, was that day all to them? 
 
 A moment, touch of life, a glow — and death! 
 
 Some crowned each era, its apparent end; 
 
 Some knew, perchance, the rank they held above 
 
 Those gone before, and like ourselves supposed 
 
 The cosmic architecture now complete. 
 
 But o'er the future hangs a veil; the sun, 
 
 If it illumes the future, shows it not 
 
 To mortal eyes. The brightness may be there. 
 
 And glory penciled, it may be, with the ray 
 
 Material and divine — but the veil, the veil! 
 
 Before the morrow it hangs, and deeper still 
 
 May be when roll of dead is called. Who that 
 
 Has lived would not lift it to peer beyond 
 
 Without passing the portals of the dead? 
 
 We would lift it, yet live! The hour of death 
 
 We push away in future, yet on earth 
 
 Who'd live forever? A race can bear the thought 
 
 To die! In moments of rapture, even, dream 
 
 Away in death! A dreary hour 'twould be 
 
 Were it decreed by nature here to live 
 
 Forever! Then to-morrow we would die! 
 
 And yet, strange inconsistency, would have 
 
 That morrow never come! A star to be, 
 
 Illuming as a beacon light, far, far 
 
 Away; yet we approach it as the days 
 
 Fall, only seen in distance when the eye 
 
 Is dim, and welcome only when the sense 
 
 Is dull and springs of life are turning dry! 
 
 From shades of death a race did turn to live 
 Its way; the murmur and the roar were like 
 A requiem; then rent and gorge, the hill 
 And river came, with shrub and bush or vine. 
 To give what life required; to eat is part 
 Of life — not all, for born in it the years 
 Along there grew desires that speak as plain 
 As hunger, and wake into activity 
 The energies the world to master; love. 
 Thought, will, devotion, and ambition — each 
 With its foundation in the human soul 
 
CHAPTER NINE 145 
 
 Its object craved. The individual was type 
 
 Of race; for in him were embraced the end, 
 
 The errors and the possibilities 
 
 Of man; yet no two were alike, though kin; 
 
 They saw, but colors were not the same to them; 
 
 They felt, the texture was unlike; the dream 
 
 Was real, and unreal; fate linked one 
 
 In harder lines close to the earth; a world 
 
 Of fancy, mind, was to the other given, 
 
 Now changed in thought or lost in sleep — he recked 
 
 Not things of earth! Extremes, these were; between 
 
 Them, all grades that yet, like the elements 
 
 That change and interchange, were restless, filled 
 
 With longing, moved by strange behests, as springs 
 
 Within are coiled to drive the hidden wheels. 
 
 But mystic in activity. The work 
 
 Of time was slow; an age had not sufficed 
 
 To build the nerve and round the brain of man 
 
 In full completeness. First impulse and then 
 
 The second garnered, then they multiplied. 
 
 The first, intuitive became; then new 
 
 Experiences in the alembic fell; 
 
 With potent spell organic force transformed 
 
 Them there to speak like voices in the unknown. 
 
 x\s ages passed away the rocks grew one 
 
 By one, made of both inert and living forms. 
 
 And hardened; moss crept over them to feed. 
 
 The fern, the weed, and tree began in long 
 
 Ago to root and feed and multiply; 
 
 Through days of sun and rain, through nights of rest, 
 
 They turned away from their estate to wrest 
 
 A treasure from the world, saving as they grew. 
 
 To-day we read their history as they live 
 
 And bloom in wealth untold, and by a force 
 
 Directive into a living structure weave 
 
 The elements, so thus to beautify 
 
 The world which, by a law of similar 
 
 Power and significance hath made itself 
 
 A frame work piece by piece, from garnered gifts 
 
 Of matter. These laws are mandatory made, 
 
 As here and there the universe they touch; 
 
146 THE COSMOS 
 
 And love came first to make in line of life 
 Succession possible; that life to defend 
 Came war, an inwrought constituent of life's 
 Being, a birth-right given to resist 
 Minuter forms that feed on elements 
 Of life organic; a war to ward; a war 
 To kill; a war to eat — each living form 
 Hath felt it; the dead bear witness it is law. 
 That war was basis of activity; 
 The act of the individual became 
 The act of family and tribe; the clan 
 Then hunted clan from rock to tree, from tree 
 To jungle with a restless energy 
 
 And purpose fell. They thought, then weapons made, 
 And these with skill they fashioned to destroy. 
 Thus war became an object and a need 
 Of life, a bond of union; stratagem 
 Grew from it — to it men were trained; above 
 Then rose the chieftain highest of the dead 
 Counting. Religion from the skies bowed down 
 The work to aid; each god a nation loved; 
 His prophets spoke to man his fellow man 
 To kill. The wreath of fame was for the hand 
 That dripped with blood alone, and heaven, the goal. 
 Festooned with flowers dipped in human gore. 
 Souls of the dead were summoned from retreats 
 Of bliss to aid their kindred in the battle, 
 By gods led on to victory or defeat. 
 The earth ran blood; the sky was red in flames; 
 The wounded in air, ghastly, turned on cloud 
 To float away; then with their gods the clans 
 Defeated followed on; with broken spears, 
 Their shield and vizor crushed, affrighted they fled. 
 Chariots rolled on air to the music 
 Of dying groan; and banners trailed before 
 The victor hosts were lifted above the cloud, 
 A symbol to the flying columns; fear 
 To hope did turn and vengeance gleamed from eyes 
 Blood shot; the trumpet blew — the broken ranks 
 Behind the ramparts rallied — the victor fled. 
 By strange fatality the fate of man 
 
CHAPTER NINE 147 
 
 Was fate of gods. On earth the tide did mark 
 
 The battle of the skies; a hatchet cleft, 
 
 Or poise of lance, a column broken hung 
 
 In darkness over both the earth and sky. 
 
 Beyond the power of gods and men there lies 
 
 The Infinite that gave to nature being 
 
 And made the way to pass from death to life. 
 
 The cold clay trampled lay; the hand once used 
 
 On earth was dust; the ax it wielded lay 
 
 Beside — the dream of glory vanished. Blood 
 
 Dried on hoof-beaten turf, the grass grew green 
 
 And richer tint of flower was on the field 
 
 Where men fell. Life was cheap; in mockery grim 
 
 The chieftain sat, a stoic to the brand; 
 
 He smiled at ax uplift; an eye that ne'er 
 
 Blanched froze with gleam of joy, the last in death. 
 
 To die for his tribe was to die for his gods. 
 
 Here, then, another place the coward had! 
 
 Decrees of gods time softened; self interest 
 The oracles closed; the wish this side the grave 
 Became the echo from above; needs grew; 
 To work was then beneath the man who fought. 
 And scarce the artisan, the clod, the drudge, 
 Mechanic were saved for the prophet dreamed 
 In silence of the night, and told his tribe 
 The gods say, "Useful captives spare." A voice 
 Was heard in cavern's depths, the oracle 
 Translated it thus, "Make the captives slaves." 
 
 How sweet is mercy tempered by love! Twining 
 Around the heart it ripples in a stream 
 That flows on like the current of time, full. 
 Free, carrying the world of thoughts, hopes, cares. 
 Affections, and desires. No bud e'er bursts 
 With richer coloring than the heart when its 
 Emotions kindle, in expression speak 
 Untainted and untrained; and warm in flush 
 Of life, it gives but asks for no return- — 
 Unknown the hand that offers, still the tongue 
 As to the gift; a measure follows of fame; 
 Time treads upon its track, a tree it plants 
 Beside the fountain, feeds it to become 
 
148 THE COSMOS 
 
 An evergreen in order that the world 
 May not forget while years lengthen forever, 
 And marks of ages lie strewn on the ground. 
 The hush of graves is o'er it all — to-day 
 The living, the dead to-morrow — buried all, 
 Forgotten quite! Their world to pass away! 
 But where it was is nothing left? or from 
 The first has nothing, nothing passed on down? 
 Or is something of being whirled across 
 The realms of time to disappear? or may 
 That life survive the wreck of matter, free 
 To grow then better still than now? what will 
 The memory be? a leaf of sin and shame? 
 A treasury of noble deeds? perchance, 
 A mottled parchment that every act and thought 
 Reveals, from which to turn away to hear 
 The depths repeat what sight before disclosed? 
 But what if mercy spares the life to make 
 A slave? Man grows in rugged climes; the frown 
 Of fortune stimulates to activity. 
 The birth of agriculture was first hailed 
 By crack of driver's whip; the world was rocked 
 In cradle of the tempest, her shores lashed 
 By wind and wave — the echoes spoke her well. 
 The need controlled the man; his hour held night 
 And day — his all in twilight blinded was. 
 He knew not why; the dictates of a stern 
 Necessity wrote justice on the deed, 
 If legions were behind to give the power. 
 Needs then had spared the man to make a slave. 
 In after thought to justify they wrote, 
 "In mercy," when beneath, in fact, was law 
 That made the earthquake and the whirlwind, steeled 
 Humanity in progress so to war; 
 Like these apparent evils slavery was, 
 One incident to tame the spirit wild 
 Of man and fill an end, far, far away. 
 He could not hunt forever; and a world 
 Uncultivated is a dwelling poor. 
 The plain a few might rove; a few might seek 
 The forests for a shelter; a few might cling 
 
CHAPTER NINE 149 
 
 To shores of sea and live. Untouched and wild 
 
 The fauna and the flora might thrive for years, 
 
 But the one slain, the other plucked, to feed 
 
 A race, have years but few, themselves bound down 
 
 By limitations Impassable. But man 
 
 Was given Intelligence and will; before 
 
 Him was the day to look for time to come; 
 
 Within was restless energy, while high 
 
 Ideals In the distance beckoned. He 
 
 Stood on a world once rocked In convulsions with 
 
 The air awhirl and streaked with fire — before 
 
 Him want and war and pestilence, before 
 
 Him slavery, the warrior and the serf, 
 
 Co-partners In the glint and toll of life, 
 
 Co-partners In the lash, the sword and blood; 
 
 Co-partners building states by way of toll 
 
 And absolutism on to freedom, peace. 
 
 The storm brings harvest In economy 
 Of nature; so civilization grows from war 
 And from the sweat and blood of serf or slave. 
 Above the slave the altar, and the arch 
 Above the throne for warrior monarch turned. 
 This was a high estate, not chosen, but 
 Accepted after It was won. Athwart 
 The living was its way, and over dead, 
 The passage to the crown. Alone! A king! 
 A prophet! given by needs of earth and sky. 
 
 In lonely vale the darkness creeps, with cllflf 
 Above; a ray of light the sun sends now 
 And then to cheer; the dew or frost glows like 
 A living picture In the silver sheen, 
 Or in the softer tone of pearl; 'tis thus 
 In night of soul the darkness mellows down 
 With streaks of light, and stars at intervals 
 Are in the firmament to cheer, to guide 
 The way, and fix the thought of Infant mind 
 Through gloom and toil to reach a man's estate. 
 The tinsel pleases for more than an hour, 
 And valued Is by varying rule that lifts 
 Or falls with ebb and flow of Intelligence. 
 Trappings of war, the flag, the music, each 
 
I50 THE COSMOS 
 
 A charm, but bind to sterner discipline, 
 Like hand of fate, in close allegiance firm. 
 The world is mystery and man, in life 
 And death, with all his problems, is but just 
 At border of the twilight streaked with dawn. 
 While o'er the soul doth flow a stream of hopes 
 And fears, the tumult of the water's light 
 Eddies and on the sight confusion hangs. 
 In sacred groves his fathers were; they saw 
 The footprints of the gods and from the dark 
 They heard them speak; a simple faith, sublime 
 In compass, woven in the network of state. 
 Bound serf and noble to the throne, to splendor 
 Of heaven magnified the hidden reserve 
 Of royalty, and monarch then, to all 
 The grandeur of a god! Unseen, unknown 
 The limitations, unquestioned the wisdom. 
 The mandate, force, and the authority 
 Of supernatural control! As on 
 The grave, a veil, around the throne is drawn 
 A curtain, and a hand, hidden itself, 
 The scroll will open for man to see with eyes 
 Of mortal mold, when dead for heaven or hell 
 Are marshalled! It breaks the sequence of time, 
 For as to-day, so future and the past; 
 But it is well if man is seen of man; 
 It breaks the spell that hedges him to hide 
 His foibles, that he may not pass for more 
 Than man, the mystery exalt and his 
 Fancy complete the apotheosis! Himself 
 Unknown and unapproachable, on his 
 Altar lie secrets of eternity. 
 Beyond him promise and the penalty. 
 Replete with hope and with despair, he lives 
 His life in childish faith and serves content. 
 
 To tell the thoughts and wishes of the gods 
 Were easy, and to wander where they live 
 Above the solid earth, speak to them face 
 To face; when done none can dispute. They stay 
 From common men apart; divine by birth, 
 Yet human too, they talk without the range 
 
CHAPTER NINE 151 
 
 Of mortal ken, their words are safe; no gift 
 Is ours to watch their flight and test the wing. 
 For us they go to bring the secrets back. 
 What words they speak, what story tell, we see 
 The truth by faith and ask no more; they live 
 For us and we a tribute pay; at best, 
 We see them not, and name above their worth. 
 If brighter sun should shine the waxen wings 
 Might droop and we fall back in moral night. 
 'Tis so of truth, if tinsel vanishes; 
 Yet for the long, long years the star did glint. 
 That warmed the fancy, touched the heart to win. 
 
 Illusion! Infancy has turned to it 
 In the first pleasing hours; youth, with a tinge 
 Of romance, passed under the wondrous spell; 
 And strange, man bore the standard in the years 
 Of his discretion; age tottered to grasp 
 The web and died 'neath the halo — a dream, 
 It was, that hung between the earth and sky, 
 Mirage-like then its wizard spell to cast 
 And take the votive offering; it burned, 
 A star in azure depths, in beauty's guise. 
 To warm the world with feverish heat, to thrill 
 Like touch electric, and on border land 
 Between the living and the dead to stand 
 For truth, with hope to cheer, or voice despair. 
 The myriads come and go on phantom bridge, 
 While reckless hands part clouds and point the rift 
 And fall, as steady tramp goes on, to wake 
 In the unknown, to realize the sheen 
 Is rust and day like this is only night. 
 
 The myth turns round the cloud in silver gleam 
 And fancy leads a captive there; the shrine 
 Unseen, the victims love the more, for hands 
 Divine have built it and of them demand 
 An offering; if they hesitate or doubt. 
 On them the portals open — and forever close. 
 
 The glitter is not all; but it is seen 
 On frame work of the truth, to hide it, to give 
 Itself instead, or build on life a mist 
 And top it with a cloud on which the sun 
 
152 THE COSMOS 
 
 Shines till it glows; its dome is under the sky; 
 
 It seems in simple grandeur built, seen as 
 
 A central arch from all the world, to lure 
 
 And warm complex relations, or at times 
 
 Reflect the moral beauty and the deep 
 
 Emotions of the soul; but as supreme 
 
 It ever turns to itself — a fault this is. 
 
 If it a pleasing attribute appears. 
 
 The pulse then quickens and the fancy warms. 
 
 To give a richer life. Accessory 
 
 In purpose, the ambition built beyond 
 
 Original design, and artfully 
 
 Turned natures too confiding from hidden gems 
 
 To chase a myth, to think it were a pearl. 
 
CHAPTER TEN 
 
 The softer mood of nature, murmuring sweet 
 As music, came again, the peaceful years 
 Glided along as time with healing lips 
 The wounds had touched to press and kiss them well. 
 Her wind and storm gods she chained In the caves 
 Of earth to slumber there In fitful rest. 
 The snow birds dropped from northern skies and, glad, 
 They spoke In merry twitter; the robin sang 
 His mate to woo; they built the nests In which 
 To brood a life to have Its hours to flit 
 Away In chirp and carol, mystic In 
 Succession; little It was and like a dream. 
 Yet throbbed Its full heart, overflowing with 
 A gladness that comes only once In life. 
 Instinct the grasses seemed with tenderness; 
 Like the rest, their mite they flung In nature's lap 
 To add to the general cheer; the rose climbed from 
 Its modest retreat and, unobtrusive, gave 
 Its beauty and Its fragrance; pines waved high 
 Their foliage of green while murmuring 
 Their song; the ivy and the grape clung round 
 The sturdier forms, reaching out from limb 
 To limb, thus arching bowers where eye spoke 
 To eye the simple language nature taught 
 Her children — warm and wild the throbbing heart, 
 And wilder yet the thrill of primitive 
 Devotion. Like the elements untamed 
 The mystic passion played; eccentric broke. 
 As storm on peaceful hamlet breaks; at last 
 It turned to rest In sweeter calm awhile. 
 
 The day that's gone an impress has unlike 
 To-day's; to-morrow tells another tale; 
 Yet nature's changing forms have turned again 
 And again In infinite variety. 
 But rounding ever and anon. She seems 
 In cycles to repeat herself. Her garb 
 In parts or fragments we have that we see 
 But dim in outline, and then weave them with 
 
 153 
 
154 THE COSMOS 
 
 The threads time spins to-day in light and shade, 
 With here and there a tinge or blur — to us 
 The likeness is complete. One of the links, 
 Perchance, will chain the world in long, long lines, 
 Now twining unencumbered, running through 
 Us and it will to our affections truly 
 Answer as answers that, strung round the globe, 
 To storms magnetic which sweep across the sun. 
 
 Mount Attal was east, just at the edge within 
 The continental range; it rose above 
 The clouds and oft its summit hung in glint 
 And glow of sundog or of frost or haze 
 That played in whirls as winds chased them around 
 The rocks, broke them and drove them up or down. 
 Then sent them away. It stood there gaunt and grim. 
 In solitude of air and capped with snow. 
 Seamed and scarred were its rugged, barren sides, 
 And tempest swept; the line between the shrub 
 And snow might well have been abode of gloom 
 Or desolation; near its base the belt 
 Of timber, as downward it extended, deepened 
 Into a forest whose low moan was like 
 A dirge; clear, pure, and sparkling, from its sides 
 Burst springs and grasses crept along their banks. 
 The sun, when clouds were gone, looked in on them 
 Each day for one brief hour — their ripple seemed 
 To prattle recognition. Ages past, 
 No ear had listened to their murmur, no foot 
 Intruded on their verdure. Miles away 
 The line was drawn, a circle, by the god 
 Whose name the mountain bore; to cross it was 
 To die. 'Twas said that every living creature, 
 Worm or insect, reptile, bird, beast, and man 
 Had felt the influence divine and turned 
 Away. In the west a cave once opened, but 
 Long years ago was closed by interposition 
 Divine when the author of all evil dared 
 To cross the line and penetrate the haunt 
 Of sacred mount; then from the side huge rocks 
 Broke from the mountain with a noise deep, dread 
 As roar of earthquake, plunged down to the mouth 
 
CHAPTER TEN 155 
 
 And sealed the cave throughout unnumbered years. 
 
 By night or day his step was heard the walls 
 
 Within, rock-bound and dreary, where he was 
 
 In darkness doomed to walk long as the world. 
 
 He chafed; his frown was fixed and cold; keen was 
 
 His spirit, firm, unbroken, proud, defiant; 
 
 Lithe and graceful he was, with nerves of steel, 
 
 A will of iron; his head erect; his eyes, 
 
 Fire-lit, did pierce the prison wall to see 
 
 Time hastening down his beat, for then the world 
 
 Shall melt and set him free! Impatient now 
 
 His step would quicken; like a furnace was 
 
 His breath; the mountain trembled; rocks were hurled; 
 
 And from its sides the flames leaped lightning-like; 
 
 Smoke curled away in distance like the germs 
 
 Of his own evil genius; arch and grim. 
 
 He smiled; though chained, the earth in thrall he held; 
 
 Man breathed the taint and worshipped still, for half 
 
 The world was his, and more! The rest he touched, 
 
 They felt his power, for in every guise 
 
 A syren sung to wile and win the world. 
 
 The mountain opened to the east; to it 
 Here Attal pleased to come, where he the ground 
 Had strewn with opal, pearl, and ruby, while 
 The cedars in the pride of years as guards 
 Now stood, or seemed to stand, as back they looked 
 Across the centuries of calm and storm. 
 Majestic as the mount itself, they lived 
 When others died. The memory of their birth 
 Had faded with the generations past. 
 Age gave them dignity and spoke them peace. 
 In awe we stand, for here the gods reclined 
 In rites of human imitation; here 
 Were spoken words to live forever; here 
 The prophets were annointed; here was built 
 Their altar, and its emblem was the sun. 
 Power, light, beneficence did form a blend 
 Triple as type inscrutable of that 
 Omniscient Majesty, from whom all things are. 
 The altar was imperishable; its base 
 Was on the solid rock; each stone was cut 
 
156 THE COSMOS 
 
 And squared; upon its bed the largest first 
 Was laid; the next a cubit less, with each 
 Decreasing in like ratio, the last a base 
 On which a shaft uprose; upon it was 
 A hollow globe containing sacred fire 
 Brought from the sun to burn until himself 
 Shall die; the flame turned red, the globe and it 
 Became the light of the world. By influence 
 Divine, unnumbered altars were built like 
 Their prototype; his torch the prophet took 
 And lighted in the sacred flame, then bore 
 It hence to kindle fire on each to burn, 
 If fed by human hands, forever; but 
 If once gone out no power will light again. 
 
 The globe was just at the entrance of the cleft 
 That formed the grotto; light from it shone deep 
 Into its recesses, blending rock and moss 
 And gem in simple beauty, to reflect 
 A halo fit for brows divine — this was 
 The chosen retreat that Attal loved; his wont 
 It was, his far-off home to leave and clothe 
 Himself in personality, for a time 
 To live the life of man. Below him was 
 The dell and plain extending leagues away. 
 Under his care a race had grown; him they 
 Loved; him they worshipped — kept his laws; their fields 
 Bloomed like a garden; treasures were at their 
 Command and their days were of pleasure full. 
 He promised, and he gave — the harvest theirs. 
 
 Pride crept in; with it sloth and sin; themselves 
 They loved; the altars burned in memory of 
 Their god grew dim, the embers cast a light 
 In sickly glow as fitting their neglect. 
 Nar, the prophet, Attal called and sent him 
 To them to plead for him and bring them back 
 To their allegiance; but they heard in scorn 
 And went their way; each for himself did live; 
 Allegiance their nation owned, but not to him. 
 Their god forgotten, from seer they turned away. 
 Ambition had its dream, its charm, and glory, 
 The crown its fascination; worship they 
 
CHAPTER TEN 157 
 
 Had, reflex of such light as people cast, 
 A center formed by human wisdom their 
 King to exalt as high as majesty 
 Of God! Amazed, the prophet turned away; 
 His mountain home he sought and wept; himself 
 Forgot and plead to stay the vengeance from 
 His people; but Attal deaf became and cold 
 And stern, he looked to kill; while within him 
 The anger boiled, exclaimed, "False and ingrate, 
 Selfish and sinful, you I will blot from 
 The face of earth; the land I gave with fire 
 I will destroy — unfit for habitation, 
 A desert it shall remain forever." 
 
 Then while like man in wrath his hand was raised 
 To execute his threat, a gentler form 
 Was by his side, a face, seen once before 
 In space, was turned to him and sad and sweet. 
 In fullness of a woman's love she said, 
 ^'Mine, mine they are, we made them — they are ours. 
 They are but children hedged with imperfection. 
 I'll take them; give to them a mother's love; 
 My look shall touch their hearts; my voice shall soothe 
 Them and my hand restrain; my breast their shield." 
 
 Untouched by love, to pity dead, with spear 
 The angry god did smite the ground; he drew 
 A dead line round the mountain's base to warn 
 And ward, then turned away and disappeared. 
 
 The prophet, bent with grief and silvered with 
 Years, sought his cave and laid him down to die. 
 The scroll he tucked in secret niche of rock 
 And breathed his last! Alone he died, alone 
 His spirit from the grotto passed to wing 
 Its way unknown to find in dreams he thought. 
 
 The fire upon the altar still did burn 
 In softer light to play around the face 
 Of the dead, as if to shade the lines of grief 
 And care, their trace to hide or smooth away 
 And leave the smile of tenderness that through 
 The years had glowed as impress of a divine 
 Commission. Abandoned by his god and spurned 
 By his own people, he thought of the future; words 
 
158 THE COSMOS 
 
 He treasured pregnant with the weal of man; 
 
 Himself he laid by them to guard in death 
 
 That chart of life that the place might not be lost. 
 
 That generation passed away; its thread 
 That runs through lives of men, unbroken was. 
 With sweetness laden and with sin, it sung 
 In strains of mingled grief and glee; with notes 
 From the beginning but not set to fit 
 The music, in depth and in volume they 
 Increased through years as generations passed; 
 Each added to each its tones in million swells 
 Like waves the universe hath made; but strains 
 The highest eras mark were living; though 
 Blurred by time they will in original 
 Beauty glow with a more enduring flame 
 Than that stolen from the bowers empyrean 
 And fed with vapors on a stranger world. 
 
 The thought lives, form dies; memory substance takes. 
 And treasures; thus man grew. To him the past 
 Still clings, its fading light an aureole 
 In vistas softening away to Paradise; 
 Though to the future destined, with it the past 
 Will blend, through turmoil and through drift to take 
 Of peace and sweetness from those gone before. 
 The dark forgot in blur of seams and scars 
 Of sin, the beauty of to-day to us 
 In sweeter vision comes — the now it gives 
 In place of phantoms that only live in dreams. 
 
 In truth 'tis not by one alone discerned. 
 But winding through the race a master hand 
 Hath touched and brought it out in clear relief, 
 Impearled across the ages to condemn. 
 But it did fade, as in the memory 
 The spoken word of prophet faded till 
 His name was but a myth, though still it hung 
 In lingering sweetness on the ancestral tree, 
 A type of purity, obedience. 
 And innocence; with it the vision comes 
 Of Paradise where angels spoke with man, 
 iVnd man once walked with God! When clouds are dark 
 And storms abroad, beyond them and above 
 
CHAPTER TEN 159 
 
 In beauty and in peace, we see it, our 
 
 Birthright; across the sunny hour there play 
 
 The ripples of its light, regret at loss 
 
 Then dies away in hope that somewhere warmth 
 
 From it shall reach us to rekindle fires 
 
 That on the altars had been left to die. 
 
 Impressed on man was thought of lost estate. 
 Long years it overhung him like a pall. 
 While fear gave gloom to earth and closed the skies. 
 To think forbidden was and justice then 
 A living death decreed — to man a reign 
 Of night; to cross it mercy's gift to him. 
 Despite it man grew. Lost! lost! echoed each 
 Departing step of time. The mother whispered 
 Softly, "I am with you my promise to 
 Fulfil, for light the darkness follows now. 
 Within I step to make the way, and guide." 
 Above the horizon was a star of hope — 
 Another sun that casts a milder light 
 Will come, and sweeter make for us the day. 
 
 That sun the prophet saw; from nation, priest. 
 And king he turned, in solitude to fast 
 And pray, to sleep and dream. Here demons came 
 To tempt, but them he waved away; for him 
 The real dissolved in the ideal world. 
 Alive, he was in spirit land where bright 
 The angel gift of life immortal shone. 
 'Twas there he learned the story of creation; 
 Of life and death, their mystery; of man, 
 His destiny; then took the signet, seal. 
 And word of heaven and sought his native earth 
 To taste its dregs again, transfigured now! 
 A miracle was in his hand, the light 
 Of prophecy was in his eye, upon 
 His tongue were words of wisdom, star that never 
 Sets, his inspiration, in crystal beauty 
 Poised to his spiritual sight, and with 
 Sublimer faith he followed where it led. 
 The line it crossed; within the mountain cave, 
 Over the ashes of Nar, the crypt illumed; 
 The sacred scroll revealed; he took it from 
 
i6o THE COSMOS 
 
 Its resting place and brushed the mold away, 
 
 Then bore it to the ruins of the shrine 
 
 There to await alone the will divine. 
 
 He heard a voice say, "Open and read." He broke 
 
 The seal, unrolled the parchment — language long 
 
 Forgotten, treasuring messages to man. 
 
 Was written there. He read, "From nothing I 
 
 Have made the world. I spoke and chaos fled. 
 
 I made man and for him the sun, the moon, 
 
 And stars. I gave him liberty; to his 
 
 Wants angels ministered; I set before 
 
 Him good and evil — then the Tempter came; 
 
 He disobeyed my law; on the world is 
 
 My curse — with innocence its glory passed. 
 
 Repented me it to destroy — and man 
 
 Will I redeem in mercy, if he repent 
 
 And keep my laws; my altars shall he now 
 
 Restore; to the end that he may live, my 
 
 Covenants will I keep; the wicked I 
 
 Will burn; my prophets shall go forth to speak 
 
 My will; I will be with them to protect; 
 
 My people I will comfort; I will come 
 
 Again." 
 
 The way seemed easy to the seer. 
 Divinely sent, with words divine in hand, 
 And to attest him gift beyond the power 
 Of man, the conquest of the world was but 
 A day; but man had grown; the old land marks 
 Of faith moss-covered were, unlike the dream. 
 Before him others stood, by nature's right. 
 If he spoke by authority divine. 
 So too did they; his prophecy at first 
 Was met by prophecy and miracle. 
 By miracle; the promise died away 
 In counter promise; and the penalties 
 Of death were cast back in the prophet's teeth. 
 The wall of prejudice was laid in years 
 Of toil, and trees of bitterness grew round 
 It, but the tide of humanity ebbed and flowed 
 About it and silently the stones were worn. 
 
 The seer had something more than beads to tell. 
 
CHAPTER TEN i6i 
 
 He turned from king and noble to the serf; 
 
 From priest to man; from rich to poor; from joy 
 
 To grief; from tinsel to outcast. He spoke 
 
 Them well to touch the springs of being — wake them 
 
 Anew to life; from moorings dropped the ship 
 
 Of dead to float away and sink, perchance. 
 
 That man had rights and duties too he taught. 
 
 In spirit sweet and gentle, clear in sight. 
 
 By love he gave and wisdom's word, he won. 
 
 The king he knew — because of princely birth 
 
 A crown was his; the star he saw to him 
 
 Was star of destiny, for in the sky 
 
 It was; it spoke of peace, it spoke of love; 
 
 It turned the darkness into light; the cold 
 
 And bitter curse dissolved at its mere touch. 
 
 The world had grown, not withered; sunshine was 
 
 Day — it for man was made; for work, the fields; 
 
 The forest, for his art; variety. 
 
 For his taste; music, for his ear; the flower. 
 
 In beauty and in fragrance sense to charm — 
 
 A pleasing attribute of nature's skill. 
 
 The world worked, ceaseless in its energy. 
 
 Its mission to fulfil; and man, to crown 
 
 His years with fruits of toil, from nature wrest 
 
 Her secrets, use them, and her laws obey. 
 
 He was to do the right because the right 
 
 Demanded it; be good because the laws 
 
 Divine enjoined it; to fellowman be kind, 
 
 His rights respect just as his own; to love. 
 
 Obey, and worship God; then will he glide 
 
 On peacefully to the end of being — glide 
 
 Into the rest his God alone can give. 
 
 Around him gathered the poor. Suffering and toil 
 
 Their work had done, but they lived again at touch 
 
 Of sympathy — a new star had come, birth 
 
 Anew, the world to brighten ;'twas yet to pale 
 
 Before the one to come; but them it bound 
 
 By faith that never questioned and a love 
 
 That deepened in peril to the verge of death. 
 
 Dim of perception, of judgment innocent. 
 
 Acute they were to feel and quick and proud 
 
1 62 THE COSMOS 
 
 To follow, but unlearned — one prophet they 
 Had and his god; tenacious, narrow, warm, 
 Impulsive, they became enthusiasts; 
 They gathered as a storm and like a storm 
 Burst on the world. 'Twas nothing, others loved; 
 Their reason a delusion, their gods, if gods 
 They had, were evil; they struck without remorse 
 And conquered by command divine; mistake 
 They could not make— wrong others were for they 
 Were right — admit of doubt, impossible! 
 
 An amity of thought and purpose fired 
 The mind with zeal and gave the impetus 
 To glow with heat, to work and win the way. 
 It conquered by its faith. It center had — 
 Its dignity and power; it first made 
 Creeds and their forms; foundations laid of states; 
 The rites prescribed, the morals regulated; 
 It built to limits of the human needs 
 And crowned them with perfection; nations grew 
 That were inspired, though not yet large enough 
 The world to fill. Hemmed in, simplicity lost 
 And flexibility, the care it gave 
 To man withdrew to self; with cruelty 
 Incident to faith when first it starts its 
 Own to take, it hardened into system 
 Cold, remorseless as the grave, while life, glow, 
 And beauty, these instinct with motion, turned 
 To stateliness; instead of the impress 
 Of living temple, bore a something like 
 A death mask of the tomb, ice-cold at heart. 
 It sought the world to take — the world used it 
 For its own needs; when done with it, killed it. 
 Built over and away from it, and its 
 Remembrance was a name — and that alone! 
 
 What is the world .? What is man.? What is that 
 Which deeper lies than both and uses them 
 Like toys adrift in Cosmos, moving on 
 With depth and weight without an end.? Why did 
 It tear the earth from cosmic womb and give 
 It life in space to run a variable 
 Ellipse and bind it with unbreakable law.? 
 
CHAPTER TEN 163 
 
 Why burn it through the ages like a star, 
 
 Then turn it black as night, to range the sky 
 
 For countless years, all dead to conscious life? 
 
 Why make that life so long a blank and kin 
 
 To matter and to force, unconscious of 
 
 The tie? Why make that matter dead, and force 
 
 To move it? or Is life a member, part 
 
 Of whole, to grow in it, and specialized 
 
 From it, immortal? Why not have left it 
 
 A blank? The dead are silent — no smile, no tear! 
 
 Time would have rested in a dreamless sleep 
 
 And then eternity might never be! 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 Dead is not written of the world — the crust 
 And waters are but ashes of a star 
 And have a significance that's deeper than 
 A burning orb that glitters in the sky. 
 The one of many in its beauty, one 
 In the necessity of transition, 
 It leaped a sun in space, untrained in force, 
 A treasure house to scatter its excess 
 Of prime, preparing for a high though less 
 Imposing action on the fields of time. 
 
 It did not make itself; its birth it did 
 Not know, though wrought in very being was trace 
 Of forge that gave it shape; it did not make 
 Its force^ — that was stored up to work upon 
 Materials successive in the years 
 Appointed; life it did not make, for that, 
 Kindred by its parentage, was with it 
 At its birth and was in the furnace when 
 It waxed the hottest, rode in billows girt 
 In flame, a part of it though waiting a day 
 On which to reveal a higher beauty than 
 A burning world in storm and fire — a mill 
 Refining for the universe, each mote 
 To grind and fix, then grind and fix again. 
 And ever moving up the ascending scale 
 In endless succession to complete their work. 
 A remnant of the one is left to us; 
 The other comes but now and then in gusts 
 Of spiral form, perchance a feeble type 
 In imitation of how worlds are made. 
 The ocean had worked faithfully and well; 
 The rivers ran wild; lightning was but flash 
 Of agencies in matter immanent; 
 In space was a silent worker whose waves roll 
 A circuit bearing stars and binding each 
 To each and one to all; life wrought upon 
 The atoms too — under its stranger spell 
 They came at call; the mite, to eye unseen, 
 
 164 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 165 
 
 Was living, myriads were swarming then, 
 
 And the dead matter was the hive of life. 
 
 They came apparently but for a day — 
 
 To live, to multiply, and then to die. 
 
 A spark glowed in the graceful and grotesque 
 
 That from the universal lamp was lighted. 
 
 But each the self-same purpose served, to work 
 
 On grosser elements and them to fit 
 
 For needs of higher life. The invisible 
 
 Passed to the visible; the worm dug soil 
 
 And used its elements, cast up then 'twas 
 
 To light; in jungles the snake reveled, fed 
 
 On other forms of life till man, at least. 
 
 Hath worshipped it as symbol of a god, 
 
 Or shrunk from it as type of hell — a freak 
 
 Thus curious in its history, for it 
 
 Was neither meriting the one, nor like 
 
 The other; it has played the part assigned, 
 
 All heedless of the foolish stories told! 
 
 The birds grew shapeless, neither fish nor fowl. 
 
 Unfit for earth or air, a mass in mold 
 
 Of life, unconscious of the end they served. 
 
 They swam, they walked, they flew- — in semblance each 
 
 Of fish or beast or bird — no fault of theirs — 
 
 For nature made them so, refining thus 
 
 Her coarser elements to build again. 
 
 Perchance then, they were fair to look upon; 
 
 For mountains were rocks, rivers, torrents, life. 
 
 Just struggling to the surface, and our dream 
 
 Of beauty, yet unknown and far away. 
 
 The mastodon, the mammoth, and the whale 
 Then came and grew as higher types, for work 
 Of larger kind, each in his own domain; 
 So many were their years, so huge, these pets 
 Of nature, massive, firm-knit, used for scores 
 Of times, and skirting now the border land 
 Of consciousness and will, with vein of mirth. 
 Conceit, and pride, they were but living mills 
 To grind for time to come. They lived to eat 
 And die. Like freaks of monster birth they looked 
 And useless seemed — their work and not themselves 
 
1 66 THE COSMOS 
 
 It was, that nature wanted; them she took 
 
 To use and drop when done with them; she gave 
 
 A narrow ken, no dream, no vision, no hope 
 
 Of world to come — their day was all. She bound 
 
 Them to their time, it was enough for them. 
 
 Thus slowly nature worked her way; if time 
 Was long, 'twas hers; she had no need to haste. 
 She brooked no interference; with her worlds 
 She toyed; in space she tossed them, with just less 
 Than lightning speed; she burned them, cooled them; rocked 
 Them in the tempest; rent their crusts; with fire 
 And water deluged; raised the mountains; tore 
 Out valleys; raised and sunk the continents; 
 The ocean's bed was changed; the tempest came; 
 No moment, no fragment was lost; no hour 
 Was given to rest; the day was black with clouds; 
 The storm, with lurid flame, did sweep the earth; 
 The night was lit with jets of fire to speed 
 An elemental war; in throes, the heart 
 Of nature beat convulsive; work of years 
 In ruins fell; she built to destroy, she 
 Destroyed to build again — it was her way. 
 No law there was to bar. She took the years 
 To do her work. She did it well. She wrought 
 Materials as she needed them, in form 
 Or substance, to prepare for that to come. 
 The rock was dumb; the fire, a flame to burn. 
 But not to feel; the wind, a gleeful song; 
 The ocean, a requiem. They had a force, 
 If not a life; a purpose, if not a thought; 
 Impress, if not a consciousness; they had 
 Ambition, if not their own; they changed, though not 
 Of themselves; deep foundations laid, constrained 
 By agencies that molded by a law. 
 The weight of eras rested lightly on them. 
 Each morrow had its purple dawn, each change, 
 The freshness of youth; seeming decay, the light 
 Implied of promise. Theirs were treasures; through 
 Them ran a subtile, unseen force, intact. 
 Directive; grandeur to the mountains gave; 
 Sublimity to the ocean; beauty weird 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 167 
 
 And tremulous in borealis, startled 
 
 By lightning's flash. It touched the mote and it 
 
 Ran to its place; the crystal formed, and stamped 
 
 The diamond with enduring power; the pearl 
 
 In its bed rested; in secret nook the ruby 
 
 Was dropped and amber, in the depths of sea. 
 
 But life was treasure that was held in trust — 
 
 In water active, tremulous in earth. 
 
 It quivered in the plantlet, woke in forms 
 
 Self-moving on the way that never ends. 
 
 In space the forces immanent were, things 
 Material were flung or broken, moved 
 And answered silent energy, alike 
 Were innocent of will; and yet there was 
 A secret in the depths that gave to blind 
 Impulse the order and the beauty that 
 Belongs to forms the brightest we may know. 
 Each had a law unwavering in time 
 And constant in remotest depth, in naught 
 Too small and naught too great to turn around 
 The atom playfully in shadow or 
 In sheen — it touched it lightly but that touch 
 W^as touch of fate; it took the star in its 
 Iron grasp, the world, the moon, or meteor. 
 And each was as a feather borne on wave 
 In ebb or ripple, bound to crest, and like 
 A specter dark, in gloom did ride the years. 
 Each knew not the beginning, dreamed no end; 
 Unconscious of a distance and by weight 
 Unburdened, bore the wheels of time across 
 The flnite passage, laved the shores beyond 
 The infinite and turned in wondrous course 
 Its circle to complete; 'twas one to day. 
 Majestic in its motion, swifter than 
 Thought in its flight — the morrow found it reft 
 And broken, here and there a fragment stopped 
 To burn, a star, and ride away in space. 
 Another, in the form of light, a line 
 Each way extending from the center prolonged 
 To infinite, described a mighty sphere 
 Where gravity and heat, electricity 
 
1 68 THE COSMOS 
 
 And light, the one but of the other form 
 And interchangeable, have taken of space 
 A lease, of time the measure of duration, 
 To rear the fabric of the universe; 
 
 The elements are few and simple; one 
 May be far reaching in its change, each change, 
 New form persistent to the type, its work 
 To do, perfect for it and for its time. 
 Thus star on star was dropped alone in depths 
 Far, far away, and lighted then to burn 
 Where night had been, for thus the day began. 
 Worlds clustered round to play in light that makes 
 For them the morrow, flecks that here and there 
 As suns did group in constellations, each 
 To each related and in magnitude 
 Untold, unmeasured in their distance, held 
 In limits, multiplied until each realm 
 Of cosmic space was filled with gems its own. 
 Each world was part of a system, linked in chain 
 Of worlds, obedient, inseparable; 
 And that of other systems but a part — 
 Of grander systems — each but one of the whole. 
 Infinite in number and complex in matter. 
 Each star was given space to range and time 
 To note its years. The hour of birth was dropped 
 Where waves of oblivion rolled and the spot 
 Was never seen again. It was a speck 
 In that deep, seen a little way, a fleck 
 On its wave borne on and away, that, scarce 
 Noticed or known, sped on its lonely way 
 Unheralded, untracked, yet bearing weal 
 And woe to possible races yet to be. 
 Had it dropped down in waves and disappeared 
 From the Cosmos, would it have been missed among 
 Unnumbered millions and the Cosmos less 
 Complete.^ A vacancy in space? or lost 
 To time an hour? Each has its tread, its way. 
 Each answers to the solemn beat, and each 
 Makes something of the grandeur of the whole. 
 Were one lost, harmony would be broken, poise 
 Of skies disturbed and its day hastened with years 
 But half complete and promise unfulfilled. 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 Man was the product of the past; each step 
 Succeeding, higher was than the one before. 
 Could each one wrap itself around a life 
 Of consciousness with power to know, then as 
 The train of years hung luminous on the sky, 
 The mark distinctive, scrolled in characters 
 Of light, would be, "All that and all this too 
 Is made for me!" It were a vanity 
 Void of offence for all things needed were 
 In order of their being — the morrow lies 
 Beyond their ken. The sun knew not the world; 
 The world knew not the repose and mineral 
 Activity that came the years to crown. 
 The forms of life, the first to use the world, 
 No reason had to think aught else beyond 
 Them was to be. They were in whirl of being, 
 Seeming above the rest, yet not the last. 
 But one of many nature used to build 
 The future on — each preeminent for the hour 
 To bloom and die. Why should it be the first. 
 The grandest work of time.^ Why should it be.^ 
 It ranked above in moment of conceit. 
 Without the ken of nature's higher art, 
 A stepping stone, the summit then to melt 
 Away for use again. The ages climbed 
 The one above the other, to each the rare 
 Distinction, once to crown the pile! To-day 
 Man looks down on them made for him, perchance. 
 Not as a parent whose toil has made him 
 What he is, but in service bound to watch 
 And wait his needs — he knows them less than they. 
 To him as them, 'tis nature's last; no art 
 Can build beyond! yet each has had its dream; 
 Each, its pleasing hour, its pain and grief. 
 The print of time was on them, sleep of death 
 Crept over them, the ashes and the mold 
 Have strewn their resting place — they had been used, 
 And what was it to them! One conscious hour, 
 
 169 
 
I JO THE COSMOS 
 
 And that was all! Unconscious dust, untold 
 
 The years of change — for what? Can the dead tell? 
 
 Can the living? From the grave we know they were. 
 
 If we their purpose ask, they in silence sleep! 
 
 The world, was it made for them? Was the sun? 
 
 And space and time? All, all that they might be? 
 
 Are they the end, or factors in the line? 
 
 Was it gain when they came? loss when they went? 
 
 Without them could the world be? with them is 
 
 It better? When come, highest for its hour, 
 
 Why pass away? And must the living come 
 
 From the dead— birth the halo of the tomb? 
 
 Nature her secrets has; she gives to each 
 Enough for its time; she no counsel asks. 
 If day it is, 'tis well; if night, her work 
 Goes on; no choice she has — her gifts, may be, 
 Are not her own. As in her hand we are. 
 She, but in mightier power, moves on 
 A grander maelstrom in eternity! 
 
 She is not all, her secrets not her own. 
 Her past, her future, are to her unknown. 
 She has her being, law, but not a choice — 
 Her heritage, obedience. Whence come 
 Or why she is, can she tell? How long will 
 She last? How many worlds have died and now 
 Lie cold in death? How many suns are black 
 And ice-girt, drifting on in space? Will she 
 Go on till each star burns out and the light 
 Of stellar depths is lost? What use a dead 
 Universe? Or what use the living? Worlds, 
 Are they but incidents in her career? 
 Are we but specks, above a day, the last 
 And closing work of her skill? So we think! 
 As those below could not think for us, we 
 Think not for those to come. They had their time 
 And place; so have we ours; if they content 
 Were we know not; we do not want some form 
 Of life, a being of finer mold, to grow. 
 Succeeding to our inheritance — we love 
 To think it made for us and ever ours. 
 We once did give it higher being, light 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 171 
 
 As air, with each a favorite nook and power 
 To rule; that spell we broke and we now take 
 The place — but even this is not enough. 
 This world will do for years a few, perchance, 
 And answer for a tomb; above our graves 
 There shall none tread; we go away, and then 
 The world must die! By us it is decreed! 
 
 A restless life we lead; as something turns 
 Us round a center, pearls to dig, we find 
 Ourselves a drudge; but here and there a gem 
 Whose light is promise leads us on; we draw 
 It in and drift again; it may be real; 
 If 'tis but fancy, it faith burnishes 
 And we cling to it lest we lose again. 
 A solid ground there is whereon we tread 
 The ideal way whose changing wraiths hold us 
 While we our castles build and wait our day. 
 If they fall down we build again nor care 
 To lay both deep and strong the foundations — base 
 Of sand will serve our purpose well; for toy 
 Of mist and foam to pass the childish years 
 Has thus a favorite resting place, though waves 
 Yet deeper are rolling on, the sands to wash 
 Away as phantom clouds drift by, while now 
 And then a pebble comes to light within 
 The newer walls that leans from the line 
 And hastes the fall. Below are jutting points 
 Of rocks whose base is in the night of time. 
 Around them seas have surged to scar and seam 
 And hollow, each hole a nook for waifs, a place 
 To nestle or hide as in their native bed. 
 To rest, to toy, or brood as nature called. 
 Within the pores they crept, in seeming were 
 A part of the original; with mien 
 So modest then they peeped to light to share 
 The meed to others due, while wreaths were turned 
 To deck their brows and purpose hide as springs 
 Of life they dropped to grow another form 
 Of their own life — so thus a column grew 
 To press its bed and bear the weight of years. 
 Alone it stood in grandeur when the world 
 
172 THE COSMOS 
 
 Was new; the clouds of darkness rolled round it; 
 The seas were turned loose at its base to strike. 
 Unshaken by the storm and by the sands 
 Unburied, 'twas there in darkness and in light — 
 'Twas Nar with shadow on his brow, with ivy 
 Around it twined — a poison for the living, 
 Hope for the dead. The toil of ages rested 
 Here and here, too, the fallen tears of a race. 
 The mirth, the hopes, and wisdom grown, all, all 
 The life had been, and promise — God was here 
 Alone in chaos of time, above to still 
 Its storms and guide the soul along in peace — 
 Thus here was written Immortality. 
 Fire was on the altar from world to come — 
 Its light, the way; to die — to live again! 
 
 The home, the shrine with simple faith, was not 
 Unclouded then; debris of growth was there 
 To sprout in life again, a brood thus strange 
 It bred to take the world; with that did come 
 The Devil armed in full, with legions — man 
 Was easy prey. Himself invulnerable. 
 In war was skilled; in art, a master; one 
 To him was light or darkness; of facile form. 
 The foul he took, or fair; in beauty clothed 
 The world, or slime. In heaven born, exiled, 
 Evil he personified, the earth to soil. 
 He chose the strong; the fair he toyed; the rich 
 He took; the simple and the beggar, high 
 Or low, was one to him — nor cared to sort. 
 The world was vantage ground whereon to build 
 A shrine that all might see — a motley thing 
 With needs for each. A solid shaft and plain 
 Upon the rock he built to win the men 
 Of sterling worth; wrote fame ambition to feed 
 And placed the laurel just beyond the reach; 
 Put gold for avarice; for the enthusiast, 
 A vision; glint for vanity; for tramp. 
 Community of goods; for caste, a wall; 
 For politicians, spoils; for beauty, gems; 
 For credence, miracles; for the mystic. 
 Arcana; morals for the pure; to crown 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 173 
 
 Them all he built a dome inscribed in tongues 
 Of every land — Religion! 
 
 Needs gave man 
 The rival shrines; himself imperfect, laws 
 Imperfectly known, simple faith took him 
 Beyond his ken; the love, the thought, the world 
 Of beauty and of peace, were gifts divine; 
 But anger, hate, caprice, strife, gloom, and death 
 Betokened dual form of Infinite, 
 Contending each for the universe; with skill 
 And power, one the other balanced. Fields 
 Of space had been their battle ground whereon 
 Were legions fighting empire to win; men 
 Saw them in vision, beckoned to the world. 
 There fell from the spirit the lance; the shield 
 And armor fell; a war unseen was waged — 
 Secret and silent it crept round the lines 
 Of Paradise and girdled it, like pine 
 Or cypress living on, alive and dead. 
 An emblem of the promise and the fate 
 The years will bring in toil, in hope, in death. 
 
 Man specialized here knew not much of waves 
 That dark were driving hard and bearing him 
 On tides of weal or woe, of mystery 
 Or light, woke fancy, substance, or shadow. 
 Each origin and purpose him to give. 
 Grasp them as he would they whirled him around 
 A point till ideal fixed became as world 
 Of fact; they grew together, one to make. 
 The other mar; love, thought, act, limited 
 By nature, fettereci were by evil hand. 
 A perfect man in perfect world makes no 
 Mistakes; imperfect man in growing world 
 But gropes his way, uncertain right or wrong. 
 If error then he gives position, name, 
 Excuse he has, that he no better knew. 
 Why ask him more.^ Why blame him then.^ Why take 
 His landmarks one and all and say we know 
 No better now.? His dreams, they did him good. 
 They helped to while his hours away — a gift 
 Just fitted for his years, a pipe and bubble, 
 
174 THE COSMOS 
 
 The bubble and its illusive coloring 
 In momentary change to pass away. 
 
 Nar had his empire, life and beauty gave 
 The world to lure men from the toils of time. 
 He talked of earth, he talked of skies and world 
 To come; gave hope to cheer the sad and dry 
 The tear; the sick he healed; made laws to rule; 
 Gave morals, faith, devotion; wove them each 
 In man, a part of him, to live while he 
 Lived, riding even the wreck of years; thus man 
 Learned them to know by simple faith; but he 
 From that shrine wandered; other gods came him 
 To claim, and intertwine his faith with wreaths 
 That held the flowers of life and promise full 
 In bloom to meet the needs to come; them he 
 Took one and all and glided out in mist 
 And fog; he found a counter shrine and bore 
 His offerings there. He fancied not 'twas built 
 To tempt and win the heart; it was alone; 
 It had no rival then nor has it now, 
 Nar asked no aid, he shared no spoils; himself 
 Above the world, he bore on evil tide 
 An undisputed sway. Long years have gone 
 Since man brought him here. Long years hath he borne- 
 The sins of men. Mishap or error, it 
 Was his; stray thought, a passion, or a sin 
 Was laid to him; a blow, a fetter, war. 
 Or slavery, crimes of men or nations — all 
 The wrong of the world his shoulders burdened through 
 The ages and he bears them still. The gods 
 Have come and fallen, their names and work a myth. 
 Each year hath his print, time cannot escape; 
 'Tis under claim and tribute pays; no cloud 
 Is on his brow, no wrinkles tell his fate. 
 He counts no years; but fresh as youth he plies 
 His work and fears no end though gods he knows 
 Were called to die; he saw them one by one. 
 Fallen chiefs, needed no more; man may change 
 If he does not; for hands that spare not good. 
 The bad may strike — no service rendered, plea 
 In bar, nor promise charms with gifts a day. 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 175 
 
 They may not need him more, and count his years, 
 Perhaps, to see him die with none to mourn. 
 
 Amid change nature is. The sun of to-day 
 May set, but he shines while we in darkness sleep. 
 We live, clouds come, fogs rest on the mind, the light 
 Of the world grows dim, the morals decay; 
 That form of religion, needed no more. 
 And with it family, tribe, nation, die. 
 The race remains; its needs are here; its laws 
 Still live — no arts reverse, no skill eludes. 
 To breathe, to eat, to see, is thus decreed. 
 To think, to know, to act, to worship, is given 
 To man — not all alike, but each in world 
 Of variable form must play his part. 
 Experience may be lost, the wisdom go. 
 And wealth dissolve — force, time, space, matter still 
 Exist. 'Tis well, for in world's history few 
 Will be remembered. Of its millions now 
 And then one lives, embodied woe or wealth 
 Of his race — we count them as the tide marks 
 Of mankind, note their course and turn our steps 
 To measure the drifting years that bear us living 
 And drop us dead. A tear may fall in grief; 
 A flower entwine, affection's mite; a stone 
 May mark our resting place, but friend and flower 
 Remembrance follow, passing on the way 
 Whence none return. But the world has no tears; 
 For grief it never stops. The serf may drop 
 And die as the worm, but it heeds him not; 
 The prophet fall by his side, little does 
 It care, though memory lingers through the years. 
 Embalmed in vapors and idealized 
 In myth — we count the difference much, but on 
 The roll of time they lie so near the point 
 Of vanishing it makes no angle now. 
 As much as we may value ourselves, the world 
 Makes no mistakes. It wrought us into form 
 And gave us place. Do we but think ourselves 
 Above and reverence due, it gives no thought 
 To us, but turns in silent course to fill 
 The measure of destiny — yet still the call 
 
176 THE COSMOS 
 
 Goes ringing o'er the graves to summon man 
 To live where we have lived and take the web 
 That we have woven, the threads we spun, the raw 
 Materials all unused, as start in life. 
 
 It were not well to weep for long, nor yet 
 To mourn; we cannot always lau^h; for shade 
 Will come over its pageantry in brightest 
 Hours we know at the thought, religions die. 
 Naught else so deep a hold takes on the race. 
 Around the primal man it hung so weird 
 And specter-like, the simplest thing became 
 A mystery; he gave it reverence; 
 He gave it love; he bent in awe beneath 
 Nature's inspiring grandeur, and by his 
 Devotions sought to tame the elements 
 And harness them to his will, ward the harm. 
 And bring down blessings from the heavens; his 
 Offering on its altars placed; by it 
 He made his pledge; he wedded there; and there 
 He took his child in solemn ceremonial; 
 With it he bridged the awful chasm of death; 
 Through his life it ran; was above it; held 
 Him in his thought and act; invaded sleep 
 With dreams of fairy land, or startled him 
 With supernatural woe; it gave to life 
 Its sweetness and its zest; entwined with flowers 
 While narrowing the way — eternity 
 Of bliss dependent on eternal woe! 
 And it is sad to think we gave our all 
 For nothing; to feel the very ground as rent 
 Beneath our feet as one by one the stones 
 Are loosened; the creepings of despair; the gods 
 We loved in mockery spurned, to save themselves 
 Unable; and invective, scorn and hate, 
 Where once diviner ties had linked us one; 
 Faith shattered; reason turned adrift to seek 
 Some nook for anchorage, yet drifting on. 
 Life then has no charm, world no beauty, mind 
 No meaning; matter lies at our feet cold 
 And dead — our birth a shadow and our years 
 A dream — the now, the future, each a blank. 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 177 
 
 Why does our faith, our hope, entwined in life. 
 Coming to us as our breath, wither in 
 The light of time to leave us strangers in 
 A home our fathers loved? 'Tis not a world 
 All light, all love, all beauty; but in us 
 Pleasure and pain have common ground — the one 
 Over the other glides and weird in dream 
 Or song we step to beat of time. The needs 
 Are eras; if one lives the other dies. 
 But little of the dead remains — the type 
 And elements survive. Our lives, our thoughts. 
 And forms like oaks will break in ash and gas, 
 Perchance to reappear in shapes to form 
 Ideals in wealth of beauty, while to us — 
 The fragment gone — is given newer lease 
 To tide the waves and shoals of life to come. 
 
 The shadow will not last forever; the world 
 To us is not bound; state builded with care. 
 The hopes enchained with promise, faith grown through 
 The generations and by words enforced. 
 Putative divine, all have gone again 
 And again, while in the ocean mingle tears 
 For the lost, and the miseries of transition 
 Dissolve with years that gave them birth and drop 
 In void that lies behind. That wreck is not 
 A waste, the passage is not death, the night 
 Is not forever; with it is a germ 
 That lives and nestles in the darkness pressed 
 With drift of dead, and feeds mid fear in gloom 
 And in decay. Its life gives promise, hope. 
 The light; its voice, as sweet as music, comes 
 In dreams, when skies are clear and fairies harp 
 Its melodies. Around that permanence 
 Of being nature wraps the transient, builds 
 A habitation pregnant with the life 
 Unfolding uncouth for use; in clearer lines 
 Of symmetry reveals her hidden self. 
 If but her purpose served, it matters not 
 To her; herself unseen, intangible. 
 She gathers the material forms to tie 
 Them each to each and build anew her nest. 
 
178 THE COSMOS 
 
 Her hour she broods; a habitation grows; 
 Lays it aside to build again, then takes 
 With lavish hand and scatters wide the seeds 
 Of life to make the forms repulsive walk 
 Her native earth to-day — the morrow finds 
 Them cold, a festering mass one step away 
 From that point on the endless circle whence 
 They started full of life and strength and pride. 
 
 Although she builds for use, careless of form, 
 She builds in beauty too. The crystal, pearl. 
 And sapphire, the pansy and the evergreen, 
 These while the sense and captive lead the sight. 
 The mite has curve and color; the bird, its wing; 
 The serpent, spiral coils that flash in the sun; 
 The lion and the tiger, conscious pride; 
 Elastic step, the horse, and speaking eye — 
 Yet all look back on the tomb, their dead in dust! 
 Time's solemn march and its remorseless tread 
 Hath strewn their way, and where the dead lie grow 
 The evergreens in memory, the type 
 Enclosing to bud and bloom again — that lives. 
 The world's a tomb concealing life's last dregs. 
 The tears we shed are only for the mold. 
 Whose use past, is dropped in the forge again. 
 The dead have but an hour — the songs that come 
 From graves are nature's melodies that cross 
 The years of change to glide away and live 
 In future, gladdening life with call to work. 
 The balm, the spice, the winding sheet are vain, 
 For nature gave no word to raise the dead. 
 The symbol in memory traced shall fade; the crypt 
 Will waste; the shrine will fall — no spot is safe 
 From life's touch; ceaseless in activities 
 Of nature 'twill invade them all; though broken 
 And scattered they will wake in forms anew. 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 The world is a speck in immensity afloat. 
 Upon that speck man is a mite; of it 
 He knows not the inception nor the end. 
 It drifts a cloud o'er an untrodden way 
 And bears him hence; constrained his birth, gave him 
 The liberty to go with it, a choice 
 To use it, then he must grow old and die; 
 Heeds not his cry in passing; at his prayer 
 Stops not; but binds him with a law and gives 
 To him a tomb. But he lives on in his race. 
 Used how he may not know; but yet he is 
 In the alembic of the universe fused. 
 Run into a cosmic mold; important he 
 Is as a fraction in its purpose grand. 
 Is this his all.'' He does not know. The world 
 To him is center of creation, himself, 
 The final cause. Earth smiles; the moon and stars 
 Are pearls for his night; the sun comes up to warm 
 And brighten his day; gods and devils fight 
 For him, to quicken or sear his conscience, bind 
 Him, good or ill, a captive^ — weal or woe.^ 
 Or yet the hand of fate picks here and there 
 A star, self-shining, plucked for the Creator 
 In far away, while dimmer orbs worth more 
 Are drifting on a deeper night; and still 
 Impelled are other stars whose light beyond 
 The chasm shines; they go their way; no star 
 Itself is e'er a wreck, but lights the path 
 For other stars, beyond whose lines is death! 
 
 There is no rest; to-day must pass and comes 
 The morrow that is like days gone before. 
 Its mingled strains of good and ill are sung 
 To help or hinder years to come that drift. 
 Not of themselves, a way unknown, in space 
 And time idealized, o'er world of form. 
 Of matter, whereon the living go unasked. 
 Unwilled they sleep — how long.^ Awake, when.^ Where .^ 
 None answer now and yet, shall none e'er tell.'' 
 
 179 
 
i8o THE COSMOS 
 
 Then Brahma came the secrets to reveal. 
 Murmured the deep, he heard, and in the forms 
 Material the eternal woke — that was 
 Himself. That deep he filled. He has no past, 
 No now, no future. Matter is of him. 
 Himself a form he gives^if not a dream, 
 A shadow to perfection dim. The soul 
 Is pearl from infinite beauty dropped 
 To time and flesh. While matter is, is time — 
 They are for man. A taint is here that he 
 Contracts; his life is short, too short, the stain 
 To wash away — to him a respite is given; 
 In forms inferior he couches and lives, 
 A penitent, through varied gradations 
 Of animal life; and cleansed, the circle completes — 
 A pearl from the Infinite redissolved 
 In universal soul. That purity lost 
 Is vision dim that kindles in the soul 
 An idyl echoing through departing years. 
 Lost! Lost! Lost! Yet it of an Eden sings. 
 Bright, fair, with rippling streams and meadows green. 
 With vine and tree of fruitage rare, with gates 
 Of gold and walks of pearl, with evergreen. 
 With plant and flower in fadeless bloom — breaks then 
 In a low wail as night draws on apace 
 And sin deepens on the scene; that spark, once bright 
 From the ethereal flame, burns dimly now. 
 The earth rocks with its burden of woe and seas 
 Roll back in nature's throes; upon the wreck 
 Man looks — despair; the sin and curse, the call 
 And death — the doom, a trackless waste; in toil 
 And pain his children live; inheritors 
 Of woe, they die! To grief a listening ear 
 Then Brahma turns; and o'er the waste of death 
 And desolation he eyes the turmoil now 
 To nature fixed by his decree; the seal 
 Of fate he holds; although 'tis set, aside 
 He turns in pity, a promise makes — himself 
 Prepares the way. To time, eternity 
 He brings; to matter, spirit; God to man. 
 In virgin blend, himself an offering 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN i8i 
 
 For the sins of man. A faith was needed now 
 
 To take in trust the mystic tie, a priest, 
 
 To tell the story, a soldier too, to write 
 
 It plain. Man failed, the Brahman said; from that 
 
 Failure the Brahman grew to talk with God; 
 
 To man his story told; he named himself 
 
 The first; the soldier, next; the artisan, third; 
 
 Below and last, the serf — each had his place, 
 
 All hedged around by a divine decree. 
 
 From one no path to the other led; no ties 
 
 Of marriage or of blood could cross the line — 
 
 For woman no hope, and for man no choice. 
 
 There was no gate for money; fame heard but 
 
 The plaudits of its native caste; the gods 
 
 Gave each his birth in caste they chose; the priest 
 
 Fulfilled the purpose when he placed him there. 
 
 Man fell, a type divine, and promise had, 
 A way in death his lost estate to gain. 
 Though Brahma lured him to his bosom in world 
 To come, no pity here, no love, no skill, 
 Or fame had power to break the wall that man 
 Had built across the track of fellow man 
 To bar his way and keep him down — no hope, 
 No mercy there. The gods might feel and change, 
 But man was made in harder mold, for caste 
 Had written on the wall. No entrance here! 
 But still those moss grown walls had gates to swing 
 An outward way to pass the wretch who once 
 In pity stooped to touch the caste below! 
 
 Thus will it ever be with man, to build 
 Himself his temples and his gods.^ His marvels 
 Of high degree are placed in years long gone; 
 Ages weave their halo; martyrs attest; 
 And men sleep on in glory men have won. 
 Defect in the god betrays his origin. 
 The marvel reads the better in dim light 
 Of time; martyrs divide our interest 
 And pity as they crowd the pages scrolled 
 In infancy of race with words now strange. 
 
 It is in man to grow; who sleeps must die. 
 The work he does must stand the sun and frosts 
 
1 82 THE COSMOS 
 
 Of time; for dross will shrink or melt if there 
 A flaw itself reveals. Who builds forever, 
 Must stand above all time in work that is 
 Of crystal purity, to needs each hour 
 Demands adjusted, and night or day is light 
 To cheer the lowly, sweetness, dignity. 
 And charm to guide the learned or good, beyond 
 In beauty the measure ages take or crown. 
 
 No easy task it were to speak beyond 
 Our day in coin of words, to sing in air 
 A music weird to bind not only friend 
 To friend, but tribe to tribe, their feuds to hush. 
 Inspiring them with common purpose till 
 They live by word just as they breathe to live. 
 Thus have the mighty gone before. Their voice 
 Is heard in gliding down the years to charm 
 Or to compel by lifting men above 
 Their day to see where mist and glory meet. 
 Dissolving in a dream that lures to rest 
 The song that sinks in chant whose cadence strange 
 Suggests the coming dirge — they wait to die. 
 
 Man dies, so must his nation; and in that 
 Procession his religion goes; man's work 
 'Tis not; the same law that gave life, gave too. 
 Duration, death; the needs of life were given 
 Of alien type, its vitals feed upon 
 And scatter husks and forms while yet it grows 
 On ground once rich, now poor, by aged hands 
 Neglected. The old must die^ — their day they had- 
 To newer life give place they must, the work 
 Complete that they began. While yet their doom 
 They see, they close their eyes and cling to life 
 Till pushed aside, still hoping vainly for 
 A younger blood to fill their veins and stay 
 Their dying limbs to climb the hills again. 
 The dream is vain — behind the crest, beyond. 
 Illusive, fair, we tread no more. Our eyes 
 Are dim, the wreath of wealth and fame is blank 
 Against the sky and is no longer warm 
 As on the other side, yet strange as thought 
 In retribution, moments come, we ache 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 183 
 
 In void of promise and would turn to take 
 Again — that is beyond our task. We love 
 To linger on the edge of coming years 
 And brace against their way, but they flow on. 
 Heedless that we are there in the drift dying, 
 The web of newer life they weave and leave 
 It to the world to sink in future with 
 A faith unbroken by the haps of time. 
 
 The force is spent, but the form lingers on, 
 A casting cold as clay from which the ore 
 Is dug that now no fires will warm. The damp 
 Of death is on the grate; the furnace waits 
 Decay; 'tis old and out of place, but yet 
 Another use it has, to check the life 
 Whose restless speed might else turn wild and mar 
 The fabric that it came to build. It hates 
 The child whose life it gave, the feeble hands 
 Would break it down; but it mutters from the ash 
 The curse it failed to bring; still in the flame 
 Its embers image a being whose smile gladdens 
 The mind while a tear is dropped for the dead. 
 As if we vainly tried to forget the fault 
 In solemn hour when we lay them in the tomb. 
 
 Earth had its wall; the skies were terraced round; 
 The gods from towers watched the thoughts and acts 
 Of men to guard the word they spoke in creed 
 Of rigid form, and bind in closer lines 
 The few they loved while broadening the way 
 The millions go. Where mercy sleeps, one path 
 There was unguarded then, one soul unchained 
 To fly the mystic deep, uncover the birth 
 Of time and turn upon its secrets the light 
 Intelligence brings. And no God was there! 
 No thought, no feeling! But insensate force 
 The mighty void did fill, self-existent, 
 Self-moving; space a form and time but its 
 Expression, it wrought in the seeming form 
 Of matter built in worlds, illusive dreams 
 Just like the flame, its energy to sense 
 A moment lifted, themselves unreal yet 
 Existent still, a momentary play 
 
1 84 THE COSMOS 
 
 Of underlying mystery without 
 Beginning and without an end; soul was 
 A spark; intelligence and passion, fixed 
 In personation for an hour to sink, 
 Unknowing and unknown, a mite in Force 
 Indiscriminate, the world to follow on 
 The waves reflow — Nirvana! To its priest 
 It gave a sweeter spirit, deeper love. 
 And a nobler humanity; it preached to man 
 A common origin, a common purpose, 
 And a like destiny; broke the walls of caste 
 And made man equal now to man; it took 
 The pariah by the hand and bid him hope. 
 The lowly outcast dreamed of life again. 
 And then with step reversed he climbed the way 
 Before he dared not go. To him wealth brought 
 Her treasures, fame, her chaplet; and religion 
 Called him to her shrine to minister to her 
 In solemn ceremonial — no God 
 He had! he longed for rest! no bond tied him 
 To the world; no wife whispered love; no child 
 E'er lisped his name; his chain of life was broken; 
 He lived but gave no being; his last link 
 Severed from its fastenings, a waif unreal. 
 He spoke to lure men to a dreamless sleep 
 Where matter wrecked, dissolved, shall disappear. 
 The simple form of being was clouded then, 
 And faith was taxed; one shrine in many lost 
 And temples multiplied. One God! One God! 
 No longer preached in purity of first 
 Annunciation; simple works were not 
 Enough; the facts of life, with sunbeam traced. 
 Had gone down in the mists with which winds played; 
 For something stood, or nothing, truth or light. 
 Ideal or idol, history or vision. 
 Permit or mandate, hurried in confusion. 
 And like the colors of the kaleidoscope 
 They changed at each turn — left a hopeless task 
 For man. His eye could rest upon them, yet 
 See not the intricacies art might weave 
 But common hands could not trace; here were his 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 185 
 
 Hopes, his affections; to the accident 
 Of choice his destiny left, that choice beyond 
 The pale his nature speaks — what worth his life? 
 What chance in death? Well might he ask, what use 
 Such gods? Compelled to take the gift of life 
 Or death without the power to tell which one 
 His fate may be, what wonder then he lives 
 A mixed, a sad or merry, wistful life? 
 
 A man-made god a man can understand. 
 The mantle, human nature, fits him well; 
 Enlarged though it may be, it is within 
 The finite covers and hides not the marks 
 Of mortal skill; his deeds are better than 
 Man's in degree; his crimes a man to own 
 Might blush; his meaning he conceals by words; 
 Draws on his fancy for his facts; what he 
 In wisdom lacks, in vanity makes up; 
 Threats take the place of power; with energy 
 Flexile the past he covers, ministers 
 To-day, the future tells — dies feared, not loved. 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 Time lingers! say the young; Time flies! we say 
 When old; Time changes, it is said by all. 
 The skies in wreaths, the earth snow covered, cold. 
 The fields in colors, or a desert waste. 
 The vine that lives a day, the cedar that lives 
 A century — they linger, haste, or change. 
 The same in story each to the other tells, 
 And blend their echoes as the currents blend 
 In air, when we hear music of the storm. 
 Our birth and bloom we give to time; we charge 
 The seams and scars that blight our days, we charge 
 Decay and death! Do we know time.'' 'Tis what.^ 
 In types we talk we know not what to hide. 
 To name, we grasp — 'tis gone! Its tread we list 
 To hear — in silence it passes on; we seek 
 The prints it makes, but none is there; we have — 
 But what.^ A name.? The substance — what.? A thing, 
 Or naught.? We talk as if we knew; if so. 
 To tell were easy. A word we have- — it means 
 What.? Why ask for more.? In consciousness 
 Affirmed a something we name — that is all! 
 
 Of space, so it is; ours to cross, a realm. 
 Or void.? In it suns burn; stars turn black; worlds 
 Grow old and die^ — none can its myriads count; 
 None fathom its substance; none its distance measure; 
 A mystery it lies, while over its 
 Beginning a veil is hung; in magnitude 
 And purpose alike beyond our ken; its end 
 No human eye will see. 'Tis here where worlds 
 Traverse, who can touch it.? 'Tis here where waves 
 Of heat and light have rolled — who can see it.? 
 Without it we could not be — what is it.? 
 And matter.? O'er its beginning hangs a cloud; 
 'Tis nearer to us, forms of us a part. 
 Is our meat and our stay — yet what is It.? 
 Our senses question it, it answers them; 
 We revel in its beauties and are awed 
 By storms; we're borne on it in time; on it 
 
 186 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 187 
 
 We traverse space; one passes ne'er to return, 
 
 The other sinks in distance, it we may 
 
 Not see again — have they reality? 
 
 Have they law? Fleeting are they, or constant? 
 
 Can we rest on them, read their history 
 
 And purpose? Or must we see them, fabled 
 
 In vision to-day, reset and in fancy 
 
 For the morrow garnished ? Dream on the mount hath pledged 
 
 Our faith, the weird in cave hath beckoned our way. 
 
 Reversed our senses, light to darkness turned. 
 
 And substance to a shadow, to us living 
 
 Priceless, to the dead measureless! The dream 
 
 Passes; the solid earth sustains, we heed 
 
 It not — it hath borne us when following 
 
 The wisp, and cared for us when we spurned it. 
 
 Whate'er the myth, it was the sun in man's 
 
 Life, passing from actual to ideal. 
 
 Its light, transfigured in the mind, impressed 
 
 Duration and power, to which the reason turned 
 
 Unquestioning, as the ray penciled faith 
 
 Divinely there, in reverence and love 
 
 Unfolding vision of a Being above. 
 
 Whose will was law, whose words the chart of life. 
 
 Though we turn back on the dead the light of years, 
 
 Smile at their fancy, and lament the things 
 
 Of tragedy so full, an earnest we see 
 
 And long the veil to pierce, if stand they might 
 
 In very presence of the Eternal. 
 
 The mystery of life and death, the veil 
 That o'er beginning hangs, the lure of hope 
 With promise full, the closing scene, the night 
 No eye can pierce, in darkness hides the hour 
 So solemn — beyond we wake again. And laws 
 Of nature, no hand can break, bind us as bind 
 The ocean and the storm, to destiny. 
 
 The dream, the fear, and faith of childhood, lured 
 By marvels, schooled in threnody, and gave 
 A mystic power to ride the whirlwind, light 
 With fire the sky. In awe we bent as gods 
 W^e loved and feared did speak in signs to us. 
 The oracle translated thought divine 
 
1 88 THE COSMOS 
 
 In human speech and, repeated, it was 
 
 As pages of a sacred book that was 
 
 From the beginning prepared to be revealed 
 
 Amid the thunders of the mountain peak! 
 
 Was ours to fault it? The great and good had gone 
 
 Before; they drank the waters of life, we sipped 
 
 From rills; they saw the invisible, we dreamed 
 
 In shadow; the voices they heard, the echo we; 
 
 Them angels led where light and darkness meet, 
 
 We walked by faith; wise prophets they became. 
 
 We, sheep lured to the folds; they broke the ties 
 
 Of man — as gods were born! We took from them 
 
 The promised gift; we asked no questions— ours 
 
 It was to follow and believe. Was theirs 
 
 The way? We did not know; they broke the laws 
 
 Of nature, in attestation they said. 
 
 We took their word; 'twas easy then, we did 
 
 Not think; we loved the music of the skies, 
 
 The light that burned above — in simple faith 
 
 To drift the years away, no thought, no care 
 
 For the morrow! How to live, we were told; what 
 
 Forms needed were given; mystic ways made plain. 
 
 Plain to follow, but not to know; we asked. 
 
 But not to learn; 'twas not ours depths to sound. 
 
 Not ours the light to gage. Above it shone 
 
 Too bright for mortal eyes. We warmed in the rays. 
 
 Turned down the vale where shores of eternity 
 
 And time meet — pass the waters where? One God 
 
 There is! how few have known him! A thousand gods 
 
 Have pledged the world, ten thousand prophets spoke 
 
 Their will; with countless marvels drew or drove 
 
 The race to seek or take what lies beyond! 
 
 We gather at their graves, the graves where rest 
 
 The millions. Prophets lie beside them. The gods 
 
 Are dead, no tomb in memory. Mists men wove 
 
 In dreams to hang on the coming years and waste 
 
 In the rising sun. Yes, the gods are gone! In faith 
 
 Men followed them, died in the promise — who 
 
 Fulfilled? Beyond the grave what? Gods they loved, 
 
 But figments of the brain, what fate awaits 
 
 Them? simple children, trusting myths bequeathed — 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 189 
 
 'Tis weal or woe? Each god hath flower, grave, 
 And plain for them that love him; embers that 
 Ne'er die for those who stray to other gods 
 Beside! Where are the millions dead? 'Tis plain 
 That few, if any, have had a living God! 
 But one among them all, if one were God; 
 Yet each on each pronounces woe to the dead! 
 If true in faith, correct in life, and good 
 To fellow man, it were of no avail! 
 The god that rules exacts implicit faith 
 In words himself hath given, and none dare hope, 
 Who words of his deny, or never knew! 
 
 In youth of world 'tis night; midday hangs dark, 
 And age creeps on apace, but catches glimpse 
 Of morning light; around its beams the clouds 
 Of error cling, and where they meet and blend. 
 Men worship; through all, common feelings run. 
 The name they lisp in love, the hope that speaks 
 In promise, the prayer when the soul is full — 
 They drift away in faith and dream of gods. 
 Ideals like themselves, whose care they are. 
 The dream to them unlike all others is — 
 Theirs^ special and divine, because to them 
 It came; in rapture then, forgetting men 
 Are like and kin, one earth is theirs, one sky, 
 One God above, in divers tongues they lisp 
 A stranger Name, the heart beats but the One! 
 
 On banks of Ganges pilgrims stood, and then 
 Into its waters plunging, washed their sins 
 Away; but where no sacred waters flow, 
 The prophet bears the healing balm that he 
 May sprinkle sins away; his staff, a wand 
 Of miracles, and bottle filled with life's 
 Elixir, welcome gain him to the homes 
 Where hearts are longing for blest waters, words 
 Divine to thrill and cleanse the soul for rest. 
 The Jordan, too, hath drunk the sins of men. 
 And wreathed the bow of promise, arched on cloud. 
 To pass the children waters purify. 
 Twin rivers! Flow on, flow forever; rich 
 In treasures, sweet in memory, time hath crowned 
 
I90 THE COSMOS 
 
 You — your glory shall never die! In grief 
 Man found you for his tears a balm; in sin 
 He was lured to your bosom to be born 
 Again. Above you ages pass, beside 
 You generations sleep; your skies speak of love; 
 The smile of heaven is imaged in your depths, 
 And ye have spoken to redeem a world! 
 Though other rivers may be grander far. 
 Their waters from Paradise will never flow. 
 They bear the sails of commerce, cities grow 
 Beside them, science builds them marvels of time, 
 Material must they remain; your light 
 Is mellowed with the years, from spirit land 
 The music of your waters is, there rests 
 Upon your brows the aureole divine, 
 Fadeless and forever. 
 
 But restless is 
 The world, and nature presses on. The grounds 
 Our fathers loved are hallowed; foot prints their 
 Gods left on the mountain side, and holy words, 
 Imprint in memory, tell the way of life. 
 The temple we build — the altar, is divine. 
 We give it, mystic glory gathers round 
 To fill the measure of needs. Upon the past 
 The seal is set, and Time with finishing hand 
 Rounds it to completion; to it none must add, 
 And from it none shall take away; to us 
 The law is given — we take it to fulfil. 
 
 The sun in beauty paints the crest, the frosts 
 Their crystal tracery weave, and e'en the storm 
 In gladness hails the coming day — 'tis vain! 
 No voice shall speak the cosmic rest, no hand 
 Will bind in chains her forces. Rocks, first laid 
 On beds of liquid fire, were crushed, uplifted 
 And folded; nature wrought her way. Words first 
 Spoken, man's simple guesses at truth, did while 
 His hours away in drift he little knew; 
 Though edged in miracle, in flame illumed, 
 They were, like world emerging from the mists 
 Of the beginning, only semblance, rich 
 In possibilities, complete in time. 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 191 
 
 Why was he made? Why made so close to earth? 
 
 To cling to it, his feet on it, his thoughts. 
 
 His love and hate, religion, rooted to grow 
 
 From it in creeping years, gnarled, stunted, tame. 
 
 Or savage? By right constrained, will free, yet bound — 
 
 A puzzle to himself; to virtue inclined; 
 
 To sin a prey; unwilling earth to leave 
 
 Yet longing for the skies; below him much. 
 
 But more above^the little, his; with straw 
 
 Or whistle he plays or toys an hour, to be 
 
 Lost in the wreck that awaits a living world. 
 
 How sweet, life's purpose known, on the sky traced 
 The end, that eye might see, and all might walk, 
 As we walk to-day, in light of the sun. 
 The cup of bliss, but would we drink it then? 
 How many come to tell the way, and we 
 Believe? A cloud is there — we see, but not 
 Beyond; we go in faith of the real. 
 To others lift the cloud, the myth and we 
 Are gone. The thing we do not have, we crave. 
 It calls us, it's worth whispers, grows beyond 
 Its value till 'tis ours, then pleases an hour 
 And palls; we drop it in the casket where 
 Our treasures lie, to live in memory, 
 A dream; and fading with the years, 'tis lost. 
 
 The love and truth, the faith they need. 
 Gems dropped from Father's Hand, accretive, grow 
 Until their setting, out of date, awaits 
 The fire and cunning hand to cast and fit 
 For time to come — nor waits it long; for though 
 The stone is old, within its depths the beauty 
 Lies, clear, pure as in its native bed; no spot 
 Is on it; in its texture, no flaw; fires 
 Have burned around it, beside it embers burned 
 Black, but its beauty lingers as of old. 
 And as the light plays round, its purity 
 Reveals its birth place — the skies. We pick gems one 
 By one from sands of time, into an urn 
 We drop them — ours and garnered for the years 
 To come. Our careless children take them, old, 
 Familiar, prized but little; they use them 
 
192 THE COSMOS 
 
 And work still harder for the new ones bright 
 That in the distance lure with promise fair, 
 Elude them, draw them close to the whirlpool 
 Of time; at last they take them, hand them down 
 Along the stream of years, new gems and like 
 Their kindred to be numbered with the old. 
 
 Of earth, of sky, of life, how little known! 
 A moment of its course we have; its wealth. 
 How little prized! The years, the toil on us 
 For our time centered, we feel the hate, the love. 
 Disgrace, and glory; darkness we see when 
 Our nature ignorance tints and impulse 
 Of crime we feel; truth, justice, liberty, 
 Seen by us as ideal mists resting 
 A moment, drifting like a cloud that each 
 Instant is changing, seem imprint divine. 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 
 The East! A light once strange is on its hills; 
 The valleys wait in peace; the skies are glad — 
 Between there hangs a star to guide and rest! 
 The world unconscious sleeps the sleep of night. 
 The hope is dim, the promise unfulfilled. 
 Words spoken of old are dying; forms for chosen 
 Few, used on the way to the skies, will break 
 When millions go that way. The arch unkeyed 
 Awaits the touch of time — few might pass — falls 
 With weight of mankind, while the shrines so loved, 
 So useful once, are strewn with wrecks of faith 
 That failed to pass the screen of time, or build 
 Within the Temple large enough for all. 
 
 The rocks of Judea are grim; their years 
 The trees of Lebanon attest; by Hand 
 Of the Maker coined they saw the birth of man. 
 And woman that came as crown of all; the words 
 Of God were spoken here; here, life and death, 
 An hour of bliss — and sin, then Paradise 
 Rolled as a scroll to vanish from the earth. 
 The garden was in ruins, the waters murmured 
 In sadness, but the old rocks slept in peace. 
 The song of gladness echoed on the first morn. 
 Rocks treasured the mandate and promise, bore 
 The feet of prophets as they imaged birth. 
 Duration, and end. The moss crept over them. 
 And darkness gathered, but the words were traced 
 In light to shine adown the years and with 
 That star the wandering steps of man guide back 
 To birth-place of his God! The mother sought 
 Them in the hour of need; as in divine 
 Fulfilment they opened; smiled a welcome when 
 The world was cold. The Son of man was there — 
 Him they protected; He named them to live 
 In memory with Him, The Rock of Ages! 
 
 One God! was first the cry of India, 
 One God was written on the stones of Egypt, 
 One God from Sinai Moses spoke to man; 
 
 193 
 
194 THE COSMOS 
 
 And when the mystic clouds were gathered o'er 
 
 Israel, One God! One God! the prophets cried 
 
 Till darkness lifted and the children turned 
 
 From sin to the Temple of their fathers' God. 
 
 They learned to love their faith, and by it led 
 
 To heights sublime, looked out from world of night, 
 
 Till vision of themselves grew clear and bright 
 
 To culminate in the reflected glory 
 
 Of promised Messiah! To them he never came. 
 
 Their eyes were dimmed; their Temple was destroyed. 
 
 Banished from home, as wanderers they lived 
 
 On a far wider world, with banner aloft 
 
 As in the wilderness of old, and on 
 
 Its sacred fold. One God! One God! One God! 
 
 The east had her Messiahs; in promised hour 
 They were by right of succession, their empire 
 Under the rising sun and near the early 
 Cradle of the race. The genius of her sons 
 Drew them to shrines of mystic light where they 
 Clung to the altars, built by holy hands 
 And ministered by gods in human form. 
 The old gods they loved, not the new; to them 
 The tears of Gethsemane were vain, the words 
 On the mount but cullings from their ritual. 
 And the denunciation of Salem's fall. 
 But wrath of pride offended. Him they nailed 
 To the cross, and when he prayed, "Father, forgive, 
 They know not what they do," they had no love 
 For Him, but let the soldiers of the west. 
 His west, bear witness to the Son of God! 
 
 Men kill their saviours, seals of infamy 
 Set on their brows, mark them for oblivion. 
 The crown of thorns shines as the aureole 
 Of fame, the cross, as emblem of life. The blood 
 From the side of Emmanuel flows round 
 The world; men drink it — drink in fact or type, 
 Blessed in chosen ministration, and eat 
 The body — wine and bread in memory of Him! 
 He died to live again; the dead became 
 Restless in their tombs; graves open and they live, 
 Come from the bourn to greet a Saviour risen 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 195 
 
 And pass from Salem's shrines on earth, to halls 
 That wait above in the new Jerusalem. 
 
 Lowly in life He grew to man's estate. 
 His nation He saw dying, dying 'neath 
 The shadow of Imperial Rome, and dropped 
 A tear in waters of affliction; they turned 
 From Him to Moses and the prophets; called 
 A king in David's line to wield a scepter 
 And wear an earthly crown — the last had come. 
 No David more to shield or save — their cup 
 Was full. Once more the chalice to their lips 
 Was proffered- — the hand no royal signet bore. 
 The cup of life they spilled, from skies they turned 
 To carnage and razing of Jerusalem. 
 
 He lived to love. To Him the Jew was much, 
 But mankind more. Too large for Judea, 
 He spoke to the heart of man. In sympathy 
 Sweet, gentle in spirit, from within Himself 
 The moral treasures of the world He drew. 
 And from severity of law He turned 
 To God, the Father, touched the chords of life, 
 And man was warmed in the transfiguration. 
 Unknown, unnamed, an alien in the land 
 Of His birth, His eye rested on the field 
 Of setting sun. He left his mantle torn. 
 The cloud in the sky, the forms, the ritual. 
 To dying classic lands. With Paul He sought 
 The Gentiles, summoning men to repent; 
 It was with grace and singular tact he told 
 By marble Athenae of the God unknown. 
 Called Greece to prepare the way of the Lord, 
 And proffered crown immortal. With Peter, climbed 
 The hills imperial, to blend His rites 
 With pagan Rome; with her to conquer, rule, 
 And bless the millions yet to be. The hand, 
 Alaric's, razed the shrines of Jupiter 
 And on the ruins built the city of God. 
 No gods of Greece and Rome were spared a niche. 
 India's Trinity blurred in association, 
 The Trinity of Egypt dead— above, 
 In mystic beauty, rose the Trinity 
 
196 THE COSMOS 
 
 Of the west. Then Peter took the keys; the world 
 
 Was his to bind or loose; one hand held heaven 
 
 And hell; the other, sword and law of Rome. 
 
 At his feet nations lie; Greece is no more; 
 
 The sun of India is set; Sirius 
 
 Went down upon the Nile, and on the hills 
 
 Of pagan Rome the night of ages rests. 
 
 The art of Hellas nestled in the church, 
 
 Her genius in the marble lived, while crypt. 
 
 The altar, science, and philosophy, 
 
 In poesy by Virgil, Homer, were linked. 
 
 The children of the east had gone; they took 
 
 Their birth-right to the west, an offering, 
 
 But Brahma called them from the Ganges, his 
 
 Voice mingled w^ith the waters and was lost 
 
 In the tides; Osiris called from the Pyramids, 
 
 The winds toyed. with it, buried it in the sands; 
 
 Zeus called from the Acropolis, his voice 
 
 In murmurs of Adriatic sunk; and none 
 
 Were heard where Jupiter lies entombed forever. 
 
 'Twas Peter gave the priest the rosary 
 And cross, commissioned in the mother church 
 The lost to seek, the poor to bless, the meek 
 To comfort, the proud to humble, foil the wise 
 And crafty. Christ in faith he took, and Mary 
 In intercession prayed. With him were the saints. 
 He planted tree of life in every soil. 
 And watered it with blood and tears; by it 
 He lived; he plucked the fruit for sinners; spread 
 The table of the Lord and called the prince 
 And beggar side by side to eat; the w^ne. 
 The Saviour's blood, himself he took, the bread 
 He gave in transformation free to all. 
 To him the world was dead, the center still 
 And object of creation. The sun ruled 
 The day, the stars the night, unstained by fall 
 Of man. The child he was of God, his needs. 
 The sandal, cowl, and frock, a crust, and bed 
 Of straw. He asked no riches here, no wife 
 Or child; in house he slept, or cave, or wood; 
 Fared with the poor and blessed their store, but stood 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 197 
 
 Above the rich In palaces, and awed 
 
 Them with the mandates of his God. To him 
 
 The world unseen was dual, good or bad, 
 
 With each a king; the first was his, but man 
 
 The other served; his heart in Eden he took. 
 
 Drained it of purity, filled it with sin; 
 
 This was his mission to reverse, and lead 
 
 Him by way of the church to the Lord. JMan's heart 
 
 Was cold and rugged as the clime he left 
 
 On banks of Obi or Yenesei 
 
 Where came the glaciers to ice-gird the land 
 
 His fathers loved as Paradise, and leave 
 
 It heritage of sleet and snow. Born where 
 
 The storm cloud is wove, schooled in tempest where 
 
 Whirlwinds girt him round, rugged he grew, stern. 
 
 Unyielding; and as nature took from him. 
 
 He took — 'twas his, he needed it; for life 
 
 Nature gave, to feed that life her treasures grew. 
 
 Necessity it was him westward turned. 
 
 To Dneiper, Danube, and to Rhine and Rhone. 
 
 The softer breezes of Mediterranean 
 
 Wooed him, the priest him beckoned to the church. 
 
 And offered Christ in peace. The warrior scorned 
 
 The cross. His Aryan blood, his nerves of steel. 
 
 His hand in war deft, brooked no dalliance. 
 
 The olive branch was in the creed, the sword 
 
 Was by it, grace was there, and law — to take 
 
 Were his. He loved not sweetness of the one — 
 
 A sterner faith was his; for the other, code 
 
 He had, his own. No gentle spirit his. 
 
 To bow to stranger priest, no craven fear 
 
 For blade; but the new Gospel was in the air 
 
 Of the west; it nestled on the banks to sing 
 
 With the rivulet; 'twas in the sunshine, sweet 
 
 As music of the day; it climbed the hills 
 
 To mantle them in peace; the mountains scaled 
 
 In face of storm to leave a blessing there. 
 
 The Alps spoke it, and Pyrenees, the cloud 
 
 Traced it in fire, the ocean in its bosom 
 
 Gathered it, the tide took it to setting sun. 
 
198 THE COSMOS 
 
 The cold of north had wrought in ice her temples 
 And wreathed in frosts her garlands, with stars of night 
 To vie; by morrow's sun dissolved, they flowed 
 To seek another clime, the storm-cloud left 
 To rend, and span the track with bow of promise. 
 Like that storm, legions have gone before to seek 
 Death's harvest, with no sign their native skies 
 To illume, no voice to stay dissolving faith. 
 Vain their creed, vain their fathers' cry, and vain 
 The pledge that faith exacts — to change is law. 
 First written in nature's constitution; a clime 
 More genial called them hence; the linden spoke 
 Them welcome, and no iron seal fixed them now 
 In permanence, or crowned with perfect truth. 
 Years gnawed their temples, broke their idols, made 
 Familiar other shrines, and placed in touch 
 A faith to lead their children to the skies. 
 The old was good enough; it nerved their hands 
 In life, took them in death across the stream 
 Their fathers knew and passed — too much it was 
 To ask that they another place should seek 
 And in a world to come with strangers live. 
 Their love and hate, their hope and fear, their pride 
 Of race, all, all was in the balance then. 
 And waiting till the sword rewrites the creed. 
 
 The type persists; for man to yield is hard. 
 The will, steeled in hereditary way. 
 Clings to its prejudice though wooed by song. 
 The earth has run red with the martyrs' blood. 
 As ax the path hath hewn from death to life. 
 The voice of prophets heeding, souls to save. 
 We think it ill such deeds are done — how else 
 The false shall die.^' We fall in storms; in heat 
 And cold we sleep; we're in the forests eaten; 
 Us microbes take in pestilence; us earth 
 And ocean swallow. Man has learned to carve 
 His will in human flesh, the stronger has 
 The law — who made it so.^ Let others tell! 
 A better world we might make! That way, at least. 
 The fault we find doth point. Two ways there were — 
 To make each world a heaven, each man a god. 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 199 
 
 Or infinitely small the mite to start 
 
 And upward grade through changing finite forms, 
 
 With each a niche to fill, an hour to serve, 
 
 And pass away. The last we like, we think 
 
 It best — too many gods would spoil it all! 
 
 To laugh or cry, it matters not, the world 
 
 Will turn. We mock at folly, heed life less, 
 
 Only to turn and grasp beyond our ken. 
 
 The mighty current will not stay, nor build 
 
 For us again the Cosmos. Place and time 
 
 We have, to-day is ours; with it, no lease 
 
 For the morrow; if for us it shines, it then 
 
 Is ours; but if instead night comes, we sleep. 
 
 In peace we multiply, in war we kill. 
 
 We seek the provocation, necessity 
 
 Mourn; with one hand we wound, the other heal. 
 
 The right we know; 'tis ours; all else is wrong. 
 
 The world our God did make for us alone. 
 
 He made the way for us, it none must cross. 
 
 The mandate His, ours is avenging hand. 
 
 The right we know, the right we do, because 
 
 Of us it is; all else is wrong, because 
 
 Of others 'tis — the test is self or they! 
 
 Our creed, our acts, our lives are right we feel. 
 
 We see, we know not we live in narrow ken. 
 
 Think it the Cosmos — this woven in the /, 
 
 Exalts self, burning in a fitful gleam 
 
 To light the way we go. How vain it were, 
 
 A prophet come, uncertain what to tell! 
 
 How vain to have that prophet unless we know 
 
 He came divinely sent, and give ourselves 
 
 To him! A hand above, a hand below. 
 
 To link for us both earth and sky, he leads 
 
 Through death to world to come, and yet what faiths 
 
 Are dead, what gods and prophets are no more! 
 
 On plains of Europe they lie in bloody graves. 
 
 Their monument, a myth in memory reared 
 
 By poet's metaphor or historian's pen! 
 
 And is this all.^ No more are they to us.^ 
 
 Thus are we free from them.^ On plains of East 
 
 The type was laid; the web of life was spun; 
 
200 THE COSMOS 
 
 The make-up wrought in form; and toll of years 
 Fiber hath hardened, tempered to needs of life — 
 This was their gift to us; in it we drop 
 Our mite; they live in us, we do not die. 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 Another hour Is come, another prophet 
 Born! Sands of the desert sighed not In vain, 
 For Allah heard the cry of Araby, 
 And token of his love her children gave. 
 On tearless skies, on trackless wastes He turned 
 The waters of Paradise. The palm drank from 
 The fountain, ships of desert sailed along. 
 And clouds hung fitful, darkness half, and half 
 In light, of evil and of good the types. 
 The murmurs of that storm, low on the sky, 
 And weird In music, presage were of Its woe, 
 'Twas waiting time and place to meet In whirl. 
 To drop, whose sight chills the blood, whose touch Is death. 
 The wrath of tempest was earth's cry of sin, 
 The blast of desert furnace, but a breath 
 Wafted from bourn where burns driftwood of race. 
 But Allah was In that storm to Himself 
 Reveal, and bring to light His mission, love! 
 The cradle of Mahomet angels rocked 
 To turn to skies his dreams, while from his heart 
 Wringing the drops of sin original. 
 The heavens opened at the sight and angels 
 Brought Book of life for the Infant seer to read, 
 Bearing weal to the exiles of Judea, 
 The wanderers calling back to the dream 
 Of home, of childhood. The children lost had strayed 
 On sands till they did heed nor wind nor sun 
 Nor nature shriveled, for the prophet held 
 In hand the tempest of the day — the night 
 Guarded was by the angels sent of God. 
 Beyond was vision sweet, beyond, the fount. 
 Beyond, the luring voice from lips divine. 
 They waited only appointed hour to pass 
 The gates on hinges fixed to beat of time. 
 The Book of life was coined and written there; 
 And pages turned by Allah's hand were read 
 By prophet In vision hallowed to earth and sky. 
 From his call men turned In doubt and denial; 
 
 201 
 
202 THE COSMOS 
 
 An Infidel the priest called him In wrath; 
 The scoffer free was with his fling and curse; 
 The saints their garments drew around them, then 
 Unsolled passed on; the sinners turned away, 
 In their looks of reproach vied with the saint; 
 Each muttered his prayer to the Lord and thanks 
 That the evil had passed them by untouched. 
 No child born of the skies brings peace on earth, 
 And glory of the heavens; a taint Is here — 
 The master hand. Imperfect; clouds of gloom 
 Tone down the light and shade the memory 
 Of Paradise — the cup of life, a tear. 
 The thought has limit, and hope Is a trail 
 Of possible Illusion; our trust, of doubt 
 Has margin, and to sound the cosmic depths, 
 Short Is our line. When others come to drop 
 With larger weight In soundings infinite. 
 Space long by us unreached In finite still. 
 May yet by them unfathomed be, and what 
 They bring to us, but pearls of earth alone. 
 No wonder some take In doubt and some refuse. 
 To many a child of earth and time are truths 
 As yet too rich; and favored ones may stop 
 When time hath gathered jewels not their own. 
 
 The flame of prophet In his ecstasy 
 Of love doth wither weeds In Eden of life. 
 And grows the seed of the Lord — grows that alone. 
 The unbelief, the scorn, the hate, he feels. 
 Entreaty spurned, through night of sin he sees 
 The fabled rest of dreams; of God he talks. 
 By meekness, love, to win; and lures the world 
 To see through him In visions Paradise. 
 The earth In value sinks, life Is a test. 
 To die Is gain, no danger appalls, no odds 
 Too great. If open gates of heaven are. 
 And skies reveal the promised glories there. 
 Success means change — humility place gives 
 To dignity, persuasion to command. 
 Sufferance of wrong, to vengeance; peace spreads her 
 Wing and In silence flies away. The cave 
 Needs not the spider or his web; the month 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 203 
 
 Sacred to mankind its protection yields 
 
 No longer to the pilgrim; and the stone 
 
 That wooed a kiss in worship, withholds its grace 
 
 From unbelievers. The foundation is faith, 
 
 And works complete the edifice. In blood 
 
 The brain runs red — conversion, tribute, or 
 
 Decapitation! What then is the / 
 
 In prophet's field of vision.^ Hath he not seen 
 
 The Lord.'^ Are not his words the words of God? 
 
 Can he doubt what his eye hath seen, doubt what 
 
 His ear hath heard.? His being, lost in the Lord, 
 
 Is like the current of time that flows by fate 
 
 Ever onward to eternity! To him, 
 
 What matters it what others may think.? What 
 
 Their faith.? Truth is with him alone — aught else 
 
 Is false! Why speak the Lord to him unless 
 
 Men believe.? Earth is nothing, nothing men 
 
 Are, only in the Lord! If he comes by 
 
 His prophet, then must men believe; their will. 
 
 Their conscience, thought, design, centered in self, 
 
 Must nature's laws reverse when prophets speak. 
 
 Is it strange the thought sometimes will come to men 
 
 That God, who made both nature and her laws. 
 
 Might send a prophet knowing them to speak 
 
 To us as God in nature always speaks.? 
 
 A head unlaid with holy hands that dares 
 
 To think the laws of nature true, and voices 
 
 The will of Him who made them, it has found 
 
 A resting place untimely sent, and from 
 
 The ground unhallowed whispers- — how rash it is 
 
 To proffer cup by hands unconsecrate! 
 
 No bed of roses his who takes the wand 
 A prophet bears to guide a people from 
 Established faith to one of higher worth; 
 Friends, kindred, earth itself, with hate 
 Seem filled; and nerves that thrill with poesy 
 To fibers of steel must harden when he turns 
 From childhood treasures, as an outcast spurned, . 
 And embers of his being must burn red 
 With fires unearthly as in world to come 
 He fixes retribution. Hell was born 
 
204 THE COSMOS 
 
 Of man's injustice; fires burned red in brains, 
 Lighted by deeds a fiend might love; o'erwrought 
 Imagination twined in flame, a devil 
 Summoned to live and guard the lost or damned. 
 
 Mahomet's dream was peace, his youth was love; 
 And when at Allah's call his heart awoke, 
 He longed his own to gather to his faith, 
 Have them the first-born of his church to glad 
 His heart in full! ah then, how sweet the earth! 
 And what a heaven beyond! and what a God! 
 The scorn of his mission was the gall of his creed; 
 The curses of his kin, the coin in wrath 
 Of God; from the tempest he fled and grew 
 In measure of hell; thus fate the unbeliever 
 Consigned to a doom that gentler hours revoke. 
 Years, ten, he waited the promise of the Lord, 
 And schooled himself in humility and prayer, 
 Each year wasting away in gloom as hate 
 Thickened, only lighted by that star that shone 
 For him alone. Faith deepened by flight of years, 
 A soul that grew above the buried treasures 
 Of earth, saw a vision beyond the broken ties, 
 All centered in a new religion brought 
 To him in dreams by angels of the Lord. 
 Alone he took the gift mankind to woo 
 To paradise; but the world in darkness wrapped 
 Heeded not the words he spoke and light he bore 
 Unseen by them. With zealous care they guarded 
 Walls sacred by inheritance and stone 
 Turned black with sins absolved, in reverence kissed, 
 In type a form to worship the Unseen. 
 With key of symbol he, the last of all, 
 A mystic faith unlocks, recast in mind 
 Divine, in call to save a dying world. 
 Had they received him and his words as law. 
 What visions of beauty in peace unfold on sands 
 Of Araby! But clans of the desert, schooled 
 In art, did call the gods by fathers' graves 
 To plight their faith around the standard, war. 
 The banner they unfurled was pledge to die. 
 That cloud they beckoned, a pall, and storm that swept 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 205 
 
 The plain where angels fought with men on earth; 
 
 Error and wrong went down before the Lord. 
 
 Too long had darkness hid or dimmed the sky; 
 
 Too long the call unheeded passed; too long, 
 
 The grace in peace refused; the Lord had spared 
 
 In mercy — now in vengeance he did kill. 
 
 The darkness vanished in the sheen of spear 
 
 And the face of the prophet shone like the sun, 
 
 For angel of the Lord brought from the sky 
 
 The aureole divine as sign and seal 
 
 Of his mission. Fate was born in the folds 
 
 Of the flag, and for slain of Beder and Ohod 
 
 The gates of Paradise swung wide- — the blood 
 
 Of martyrs was the seed of the church, the sword. 
 
 Its great evangel, key of heaven and hell. 
 
 To faith it gave the earth and Paradise. 
 
 On high the toil and blood were noted; the fall 
 
 Did blot the sin; the chart of battle field 
 
 Led to the skies; than faith 'twas better — prayer 
 
 Unheard in peal of notes; the hinges old 
 
 Turned to the cry from field of blood and dead! 
 
 Light mellowed in beauty, pearls shone like stars. 
 
 And waters rippled in beat to houri's chant. 
 
 Welcoming the dead home to Paradise. 
 
 The call of the angel was the bugle cry, 
 
 And only heard in the brain of the seer. 
 
 His people to marshal and a new faith weave 
 
 To wind in and around the pillars of state. 
 
 Each note came as 'twas needed stone on stone 
 
 To pile, while grew the mosque and state, linked each 
 
 To each, a mighty whole. The civic walls 
 
 He trenched in earth and barbed with soldiers' spears. 
 
 The foundations of the church in heaven were laid. 
 
 The spire, a sword with olive twined to speak 
 
 Both war and peace. His task was done. He built 
 
 For the living, himself was summoned to die. 
 
 The voice that cheered him in the night of woe. 
 
 Turned now to earth and called him to his grave. 
 
 His legions stopped; his dream was o'er; the eye 
 
 That pierced the clouds was shut; the ear that heard 
 
 The words of life was deaf; the tongue that spoke 
 
2o6 THE COSMOS 
 
 The way, now spoke no more. No God bore him 
 To a resting place unknown; no chariot 
 Of fire took him; no cross held him in his 
 Last prayer — unlike the mighty of his race, 
 He went in peace. He died as nature takes 
 Her children, he died at home; his angel guard 
 Was near, the God he loved beside him — , "Be 
 It so Allah, with Thee in Paradise!" 
 
 Dead to earth, he was more than living; fire 
 Was in his genius, fire in his words, fire 
 In his acts — dead, his people looked on him; 
 Dead, they cried in grief; dead, they buried him. 
 To them he had gone like the sun in sky 
 To rest — unlike the sun not to rise again 
 Till by an angel called to judgment seat. 
 The brand he plucked burned on his native sands 
 Till skies waxed red and stars in flames did glow; 
 It passed o'er Iran; Salem's walls dissolved; 
 It crossed the Nile and western strait; illumed 
 Iberia; and on the plains of France 
 And Hungary it dimmed and waned in light 
 Of the cross and rolling back, left the Aryan 
 His north while brooding millions in its own 
 Clime fairer, for the coming of the Lord. 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 Man was born with his intellect asleep; 
 His infancy faith cradled, wove the threads 
 Of illusion and dropped them down the years to link 
 The past and future, binding each to each 
 In common error; earth and sky were called 
 To witness, while sun and stars in colors set 
 The seals to bind time in the gossamer. 
 And with its glint to lure and awe. He saw 
 In dreams, he reasoned in imagination. 
 The earth was a sealed book; the sky unrolled 
 A scroll. A stranger in the finite, he 
 Reveled in the Infinite, while mysteries 
 Of drop of water were beyond his ken. 
 He compassed the Divine to fix His will. 
 The world he loved not — it was not his home. 
 Its rocks and mountains, sands and cataracts. 
 The moan of ocean, told in nature's tongue 
 The wreck of man; from it, as the dead, he turned. 
 A burning sun was Tempter's blight — iceberg. 
 His transformation in woe; the volcano 
 But foreshadowed his doom — a helpless child 
 Under the reign of law, whose beauty is 
 In thought enshrined, and though it bound him round, 
 Was far away in time. He sought by way 
 Of clouds fruition of his dreams in castles 
 Of mists and frosts, in tints of fancy hung 
 'Twixt earth and sky, and wrought by gods himself 
 Had made to bridge the way of life and death. 
 Aught else was void — their light alone was real. 
 The film did break in colors, solid ground 
 Whereon the souls of mortals play the game 
 Of life to take the road of weal or woe. 
 But nature cast him a stranger here to watch 
 And wait, unwelcomed and untrained, half self, 
 Half dream, to find a resting place, to build 
 From mystic lore to fact and law. In nook 
 Or bay, on peak or head-land hung danger's signal 
 To guard the way to myth and tale whose harm 
 
 207 
 
2o8 THE COSMOS 
 
 Would wreck a world. Earth had no charms for him, 
 
 And nature laughed his simple faith away. 
 
 Her lands she gave; her forests sheltered him; 
 
 Caves were his habitation; her grounds bore fruits 
 
 For him, the air, its fowls; the waters gave 
 
 In plenty — but from meat and drink he turned 
 
 And muttered, "'tis cursed." The smile of nature was 
 
 The Tempter's wooing, bog or bush, his trap. 
 
 His gods, both good and bad, in their hands held 
 
 The elements; winds sped away at their 
 
 Bidding; clouds came at call; the rain tears shed 
 
 At nature's shrine; the lightning was a bolt 
 
 In vengeance hurled; the thunder voiced the wrath 
 
 Of an offended god; as he in sleep 
 
 Turned, the earth shook; the ocean rolled beneath 
 
 His step; and even the sun veiled his face 
 
 To hide in night a stained and shameless world! 
 
 He talked in dreams. Beyond the world where he 
 Lived were angels, whom taught to list, his words, 
 Though wrapped in form of earthly mold, still bore 
 The messages of earth and sky in types 
 That speak unwaking hours to bid him fair. 
 He held in memory the metaphor 
 Translated to his will, while on the vast 
 Concave stars moved to write the oracles 
 Of fate till round him and his race alone 
 There centered conflicts of the unseen world, 
 To him the treasures of all existence were called. 
 Himself he saw in dual form, the sky 
 He wrote as dual too — for self and kin. 
 The better part, for others, the residue! 
 
 The fires that light to-day but dimly burn, 
 And clouds that tint the sky may fade away; 
 But 'neath them lies a cause whose texture part 
 Is of the universe; so of living things. 
 The forms they have, their dedication in time, 
 Express conditions then as an underlying 
 Something moves them, and keys to a note that sounds 
 True to the years, and yet may linger on 
 To mingle with other times and mar the work 
 A new decade hath wrought, yet still persist 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 209 
 
 As though it were the thing Itself Instead 
 
 Of glint, In colors made to pass away. 
 
 Yet what appears, though strange at first, unmarked 
 
 And fleeting, played on consciousness to note 
 
 Its presence, memory woke at will, and each, 
 
 By faith accepted and stored away, a thing 
 
 Of images In confusion piled, will tell what it 
 
 Might want in Interest to fix a rule 
 
 In characters uncertain and flexible 
 
 To steal the drift of human destiny. 
 
 But the time came for mind to wake and work. 
 It touched the vision to tame it to earth. 
 And turned from guess to fact; in years agone 
 The twain were blended strange In combination 
 To hold in gift a common life; each, armed 
 In defence of the other, bore alike the shield 
 And spear to ward and wage for faith and fact. 
 
 But man must wake, for thoughts within, the force 
 That underlies the energies around. 
 Compel the dreams to fade, the dross to burn; 
 And yet It seems like parting life itself 
 To break the strings inherited, from words 
 Of early years to turn, and in the paths 
 Forbidden wander, while behind the smoke 
 Of battle curls on wanton threat, and clouds 
 Both deep and dark portend the woe that lies 
 Along the track that leads to nature's weal. 
 Thongs hurt and fagots burn, but men risk them 
 Into the unknown to peer, and spirits leave 
 Their haunts at call to bring a truth they seek 
 In faith, and weave a chaplet for the brow 
 Now crushed and cold, but lighted once wltli flame 
 Of lurid glow. The graves where evergreens 
 Grow are no solace for the dead — time reaps 
 Where they have sown as tears have turned to Ice, 
 And if suffering were stone, the monument 
 In memory reared would hide the sun. 
 
 The earth was rugged way for man to climb. 
 Himself hath hewn the track and filled each niche 
 With forms of monster birth that wait the hour 
 To feast on flesh that grills in sulphurous flame. 
 
2IO THE COSMOS 
 
 His step uncertain is; thought wanders; sparks 
 Like meteors in darkness play, as faith 
 And fear alternate till one anxious glimpse 
 A truth doth give — night closes on the scene! 
 One victim more dreams not on earth again; 
 But the jewel is set — the cost a life hath paid! 
 The chasm unbroken woos the perilous way; 
 Across the rock is cloud, above the cloud, 
 A star whose light but speaks a truth unfit 
 For earth till dipped in human tears and blood. 
 No hour is stopped, no note of woe unsung, 
 But flesh untamed to suffering shrinks from 
 The sacrifice. As faith in error steels 
 To martyrs' graves, so nature's laws have touched 
 The heart and trained the mind to speak them well 
 Though the ax is uplifted or the torch 
 Impatient for the quivering lip and nerve. 
 
 Man lives not for himself alone; if life 
 Serves best his race he lives; if not, he dies. 
 The book he writes in blood dies not with him; 
 It speaks when his lips are cold, throbs with life 
 Warm as the fires that burned him, stirs beyond 
 His dumb and witless generation; it feels 
 Like something come from another world, and through 
 His grave impels us so we take it then 
 And go; though red the path, a halo marks 
 The way, and light plays round it till a truth 
 Again revealed — another waits the skies. 
 
 These then were half truths, things that but in halves 
 Are seen; the sight told only what appeared. 
 And mind misled confirmed the tale, as men 
 Had heard that gods did walk the earth, come from 
 The heavens above. The world was then a plain, 
 And sin below — in place unfit to tell. 
 All things were made as men make things, by hand. 
 What the eye saw and what the legend told 
 Became the heritage of the race — all, all 
 Of surface with no thought of deeper things. 
 Wild-wood of fancy, tropical in its 
 Luxuriance, toys makes for earth and sky. 
 Man loved them as real, worshipped them as types. 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 211 
 
 Grew to them till they were part of himself. 
 
 Dream It was of the bard with treasured flowers 
 
 In wreaths for angels as they toyed with seer, 
 
 Who cast in figures that in future might mean 
 
 Whate'er Time from his budget on the world 
 
 Might drop and twist in form to fit the word 
 
 Just coined and draped to tell a story hid 
 
 From human ken, but bent to chime with years 
 
 That come; it gliding from the past will vouch 
 
 For what was never sung. They little know 
 
 How great Time has made them, nor heed the hour 
 
 Their fame, broken and scattered, drifts the way 
 
 Of forgetfulness. The morrow is free; though 
 
 Born of to-day, its measure is not full. 
 
 It promises, but turns the pledge aside 
 
 And leaves the wreckage, heedless of broken hearts. 
 
 The myth that twines sunshine and scourge, but blends 
 
 In crosses of life, fills the pit and spans 
 
 It with the bow of promise whose arch no foot 
 
 Can tread; but in yielding mire below sinks deep 
 
 The weary pilgrim, lured with tints above. 
 
 Man reared the works with toil and pain to give 
 
 Alternate hopes and fears that help or mar 
 
 His race. The dream of self is much in thought. 
 
 If thought it is that builds beyond, seems but 
 
 Of self expansion, weaves familiar things 
 
 In forms of larger mold, and dreams them unlike 
 
 Because of size; then self-deceived, forgets to find 
 
 The image made has naught but what is forged 
 
 By senses here; a figment time may add, 
 
 A leaflet drop till myriads count, yet 'tis 
 
 E'er the same to the millions that come and go. 
 
 The fragment fixed, by metaphor implied, 
 
 The broken bud, a fancy gone with years; 
 
 Thus we play ourselves to cheat that we may make 
 
 Something from naught, or call a thing to life 
 
 That never was. To think within the lines 
 
 Of thought, no fancy there, is gift of few, 
 
 If any, and our ken is hedged to us 
 
 With moving limits; thus as from the past 
 
 We grow, we drop some things to make the room 
 
212 THE COSMOS 
 
 We need, while arch or prying eyes have scanned 
 
 The works of man there from the much to coin 
 
 The little that may live. We think no dread 
 
 Is harder than to see the image graved 
 
 By our hands, rechiseled by mystic force — 
 
 No trace of us remains. What springs are touched 
 
 To make us wild.? Forgetful then, we lift 
 
 Avenging hand to kill the living, thus 
 
 To save the dead ! The tomb no voice can hear, 
 
 No cry the flight of time can stay, for years 
 
 Will glide where we have been, our scroll efface 
 
 And write the deeds and needs themselves have made. 
 
 Of that cup why not drink and say no more.? 
 Is it enough to dream and take that dream 
 As nature's law, or take as in the wrong 
 Our senses and live on in the bubble blown. 
 Content to fancy, but yet not to know.? 
 When nature made her rugged way, she left 
 The chisel marks for man to read, grew them 
 To dig her backward track, rewrite her scrip 
 And trace her laws. From her walls they then tore 
 The legend and penciled with trembling hands words 
 That touched the essence of things, set to music 
 Of the Cosmos; the living-dead shuddered 
 At the sacrilege and waited skies to fall; 
 They listed graves for coming of the dead; 
 They waited the earth to wreck — the sun to sink 
 In night, the stars to hide away; but tears 
 Turned crystal as the fount of light where ages 
 Slumbered in mints of wealth to wait the call 
 When genius bids them wake to tread the earth 
 In robes of nature's make — skies greet, All hail! 
 The sun took his place in the firmament; 
 The earth turned round; the waters moved in waves 
 Of ceaseless roll; time traced back on her clock 
 The countless years; the rocks their story told 
 In crystal beauty, or wrecks of life encased; 
 The way of nature chemistry reversed. 
 Broke into elements the earth to tell 
 The secrets of the forces locked and sealed 
 For ages in the mechanism of worlds. 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 213 
 
 The fire and wind and water toiled the years 
 
 Away to write, efface, then write again. 
 
 Life backward worked in mystic trail to bid 
 
 The dead give up the chain of being that linked 
 
 Each form to kindred form and bound in one 
 
 Beginning and the end where light hung but 
 
 By a thread — darkness was abroad as thick 
 
 As murky wastes, where science touched the ground, 
 
 But in it seeds of promise were to grow 
 
 In that night, fertilized for coming day. 
 
 Man tore from his mind garnishment of ages. 
 And dug in common things for origin 
 And use, took each in turn to view from side 
 To side, above, below, within, without — 
 Broke into elements, then weighed and scanned 
 And laid away, but named for call when need 
 Arose to take and fit it to its place; 
 Thus mind reasoned back and forth to fix the way, 
 Right sometimes, sometimes wrong, still persistent 
 To find a measure which would tell with more 
 Exactness; to weigh in ever nicer scales 
 The elements evading sight till one 
 And all were found that made the balance which 
 Once broken might ne'er be made again. Each form 
 Was for its time; though lost to sight it was 
 Existent still, and in another shape 
 It wrought as nature bid; the energy 
 That gave it motion, was born to change; 'twas but 
 A correlate and broken once became 
 Another, yet the same; it woke the deep 
 And sunk it to rest; burned a flame to die 
 Away in cold; it sped as light and by 
 An interference Into darkness turned. 
 Thus mind them followed in transformation till 
 By art compelled they did rewrite themselves. 
 Man broke the night of time and turned on it 
 The sun's meridian blaze; he woke then 
 The soul from its slumbers and burned the dregs 
 Of life; he tore the shades of darkness, too. 
 That bound his upward flight; in one hand grasped 
 The past and weighed it for its worth; to-day 
 
214 THE COSMOS 
 
 He scanned to place it well as it did fall 
 
 From nature's forge; he counted laws as threads 
 
 In nature's loom and toiled to fit them now 
 
 For human needs. By them he molded things 
 
 And chained them to agents unseen that wrought, 
 
 But secondarily, to build thus himself 
 
 The world anew; he forged a glass to read 
 
 The stars to make his charts; the sun he scanned 
 
 To learn its history; fixed the world in place 
 
 And watched its marvelous flight; he measured both, 
 
 Weighed and used them — one as material, the other, 
 
 Force; he found their strength and energy; he 
 
 Searched their relations and began his work; 
 
 In crucible dissolved a fragment; read 
 
 The elements of stars with prism and found 
 
 The unity of worlds; with sight unhelped 
 
 He saw the living things; he wrought a lens 
 
 That showed an unseen world of life that was. 
 
 Apparently, but to destroy, thus close 
 
 To matter finding life that up had worked 
 
 Through higher forms to mind with power to read 
 
 Its history in unity, unseen to seen. 
 
 Where nature stopped his art he took and wrought 
 For self; his skill grew with his years; he fought 
 For life; he fought for supremacy; he toiled 
 A slave; he toiled to live; his chiefs, his kings. 
 Were gods — for them he lived; no need he had 
 For thought, no need for wealth; they told the one, 
 The other took! The halo of the gods 
 Wasted away, the purple faded dim. 
 But they in being left their trail, and seemed 
 Like a hallowed memory to live again. 
 The dream of liberty came like the blend 
 Of evening 'twixt the day and night, a thing 
 Of life, to woo from sightless realm, on earth 
 To be enthroned, to change the natural 
 To an ideal world. The ages made 
 The form and wrought it to live; but no hand 
 Could chisel in marble seat of life, and breathe 
 Into it a living breath. Around cold stone 
 A mental halo gathered; men to it 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 215 
 
 As the living bent, and for a time it seemed 
 
 To smile on them the boon for long they sought. 
 
 Their tracks were in the dust — years came to sift 
 
 Again and level the place where they had been. 
 
 The germ suggesting the image lived — the stone 
 
 Was but its type and though that on the Tiber 
 
 Or Aegean crumbled, it but slept 
 
 While the ages were dark to quicken on the Weser, 
 
 Retouched in isles of the sea to pass on 
 
 And bloom in the Republic of the west. 
 
 The prophet's chariot of fire then passed 
 
 To commonplace of life; the voice that hushed 
 
 On shores of the sea now spoke around the world; 
 
 The creed lines broke beneath the influences 
 
 Of free institutions, the barriers 
 
 Of nations melted away, and races were 
 
 As one in the republic of the mind. 
 
 Man took from nature's hand his needs to feed 
 While yet his years were young and wants were few; 
 But when his numbers were as sands of sea 
 He ate the world's supplies and used the wealth 
 Prepared; he then turned to the hidden laws 
 To build anew, and wrought materials 
 Time only could waste, called a silent force 
 To break the cold, and turn the night to day. 
 Impatient of growth in nature's chemistry. 
 He made a laboratory of his own, 
 And from the raw materials he took 
 The elements of food, combined them then 
 To feed the world; and from the waste he drew 
 The fiber, thus to clothe the millions too. 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 The world is not to last forever; its lines, 
 Eccentric drawn, have yet their time; the cast 
 May have a last mold, and as the sun burns 
 A waning fire, time gathers the frosts of years 
 And o'er them turns a mellow light, as if 
 To gild them in a dying sun's farewell. 
 The golden hours are gone; the air the earth 
 Hath drawn within itself; the waters sunk 
 Away, and the stars shine from a cloudless sky. 
 The mountains are bare, cold they stand and grim — 
 Sentinels, yet silent as the grave. 
 The plains are crisp and brown, no foot treads them; 
 Above no birds sing; no mists darken; to play, 
 The lightning has forgot; the thunder has 
 No tongue to speak; the forests are unclothed 
 And black — they are dead; rivers run no more; 
 No waves roll on the ocean's bed, the fires 
 That burned within have died away; the cold 
 Of space twined round a dying world hath sealed 
 In fetters that break not in time. 'Tis doomed 
 To rest and silence, a dark and pulseless earth. 
 
 The sun still burns; the smoke of embers rests 
 On the surface, darkness steals round it like night, 
 Prophetic of woe; storms that swept it, felt 
 By worlds afar, no longer speak across 
 The space, nor touch in brightness lands once fair. 
 Nor kiss the snowy mountain tops in gleams 
 Of twilight beauty. Its work of time is done. 
 Like worlds whom birth it gave it sinks to rest. 
 The glory of its prime is now no more. 
 And it no longer speaks, a star, to star. 
 Uncrowned it takes its destined course, in silence 
 Bears onward, in darkness speeds away; its long 
 Eccentric orbit, tracked among the stars. 
 Crossed ages in the flight, and wove around 
 The morning sun a coronal of worlds. 
 It numbered on a calendar its days, 
 Read only by the light of stars, then one 
 
 216 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 217 
 
 By one it drew them near and nearer till 
 
 Part were seen as moons, and part as wandering stars 
 
 On brighter firmament awaiting its 
 
 Fulfilment in the years unnoted to come. 
 
 In night itself, its moons in night, they were 
 
 But dead attendants on the cosmic field, 
 
 To shine again only when the sun grew bright 
 
 In borrowed light from its own parent sun. 
 
 The slow pace of the ages, as it turned 
 
 In the long axis of its curve, wove threads 
 
 Of glory then to crown the world with life. 
 
 No chart, no fire, no light, the stars far, far 
 
 Away, it turned on its poles to roll down the years. 
 
 Uncounted, working water, air, and rock, 
 
 And molding life to build and to destroy. 
 
 In circles storms swept it; the earthquake broke; 
 
 Of folding crusts the mountains were born; bays 
 
 By eddies formed; the ocean surged and stilled 
 
 To rest; the rivers ran swift to the sea; 
 
 The continents did quiver in balance like 
 
 Leaflets, between the light and ocean's bed. 
 
 And dark was space; the sun was dark; it had 
 
 Spread deep and long o'er them a veil as if 
 
 To ease them down a noteless time, and iced 
 
 Its fingers to seal unbroken nature's tomb. 
 
 The constellations fade away in the skies, 
 
 And stranger stars come from another deep. 
 
 To feel but not to see the messenger 
 
 Uncrowned now gliding down uncharted seas 
 
 Untroubled; waves did yield, in silence bore 
 
 The herald to announce a cosmic waif. 
 
 Now shorn of beauty and returning to 
 
 Realms of its birth. The throbs of time were felt 
 
 And one by one traced on the dial whose span 
 
 Crossed the years and broke at eternity. 
 
 Stars sunk in distance; in their orbits turned 
 
 The burned out suns; worlds hung as specks unseen, 
 
 As tighter drew the cords to quicken pace. 
 
 And others linked on as it swept down the miles 
 
 Till moments were as naught while space passed by. 
 
 No eye the zenith penetrated; no 
 
2i8 THE COSMOS 
 
 Line fathomed below; the east was unmeasured; 
 The west, unknown; behind, how far? before, 
 Where? Silently the toils bind round; the waves 
 Of ether roll deep as the sun plows its seas; 
 Meteors burn a moment on the sky; 
 Stars hang away as in a dream the while 
 Ages are caught in meshes of the hours 
 To fold the train away; each had its stone 
 That numbered its time; rocks for its foot prints. 
 Beyond waste sealed. The years of stone and dust 
 Hid them, and fathoms deep the ages sunk 
 Them, nature's books and fated for their day. 
 The darkness broke; the fetters cold unloosed — 
 'Twas day. The dead sun was a world, the worlds 
 Were moons, each dead, but silvered o'er to track 
 The night and hung away among the stars, 
 Dead watches niched in steps to count the time. 
 
 The sun, a speck whose light scarce crossed the deep 
 And dimmed, a star burned out, was light or dark 
 As night or day on the horizon rests. 
 And each a year as the world told the time — 
 'Twas like a scale to measure earth and sky. 
 Hills were as mountains, valleys, as the plains; 
 Rills run like rivers, lakes like oceans spread. 
 The mountains pierced the clouds; and seas were as 
 A firmament — clouds spanned them, storms swept them 
 In lightning's gleam, and thunder spoke them well. 
 The sparks it dropped on the worlds of its birth 
 Had burned to ashes forms they wrought, and were 
 In space now kindled again to watch the life 
 Akin that later grew to work the mite 
 In myriad shapes, each one an upward step 
 To fight its way and, lured by aspirations. 
 Win crown in higher types, eternal day. 
 
 The hour Is struck; the castings sleep to wake 
 No more. Their elements are in the toils 
 Of Ice-cold fate. On the horizon the dirge 
 Yet lingers. Air and ocean sink to rest. 
 Dead matter is all that's left. The life It loved 
 Is gone; Its place In sky is taken away; 
 Its crown, too. Is dropped in the ages past. 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 219 
 
 A borrowed light hangs round the wreck to silver 
 
 Fading hours. The drapery of woe is dust, 
 
 The tomb is crumbled — all, all is dead! The work 
 
 Is done, though forms it had in space still wait 
 
 The hour, the last that time shall beat. The world 
 
 Will run to the sun to wrap it round in flame; 
 
 Itself to hasten on, sun on sun as each 
 
 Is called, to turn a spiral path and drop, 
 
 A burning brand, in parent sun glowing 
 
 In the intenser heat, to fill again 
 
 The space and give to time another birth. 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 In birth of matter was the germ of life; 
 Though that life saw the casement die and break 
 To dust, it held within itself the deed 
 And seal, surviving worlds and time, to wake 
 In realms of fairer skies. The passing hours 
 Cling tenderly round the fading world to drop 
 A tear at time's farewell, while on its vision 
 Brightening is radiance of world to come, 
 Till the echo of the one dies away 
 In deeper diapason of the other. 
 
 To live! No seal is set in death! To be — 
 No power can melt to naught; when once begun 
 It is forever. There is no casket, set 
 In pearls, to hang unchanged on finger of time. 
 No form has promise; waves that ripple life 
 On world or universe are weighted with 
 A mote that heavier grows as days and years 
 And ages pass, and writes of each its page 
 Of changing history. To-morrow's sun 
 Will rise, but then to-morrow will become 
 To-day; as future drifts to now, the now 
 Drifts to the past — in endless line they pass. 
 Each bears its light or woe, with each the voice 
 Of hope or moan of despair, and between them seems 
 To glide the substance and the shadow, in tints 
 Deepening, numberless as drops in the sea. 
 On them we came; on them we lived; from them 
 We dropped at last into Eternity! 
 They had their day; we used them; time used us. 
 As worlds or suns, in mists dissolved, they are 
 Part of the mighty whole and wheeling on 
 The circuit, tending to another point 
 To mingle in a greater conflagration. 
 
 The spark of life that dropped its clay, unhinged 
 From gravity, and hung above to see 
 The world pass on — unchained from it, unbound. 
 It woke a life dreamed of, but still untried. 
 From matter free, yet of it; to walk the air 
 
 220 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 221 
 
 Of space with step of earth; to see with eyes 
 
 Of other mold, the waves of mortal sight 
 
 Lingering still; to feel the deep, the nerves 
 
 Of being quivering yet; to touch the harp, 
 
 Eternity, tremulous with notes of time — 
 
 The ties of earth and melody of heaven, 
 
 One with the other interlocked in chain 
 
 Continuous, the links from first to last. 
 
 Each to each succeeding, again and again. 
 
 The life current flowing on and upward till 
 
 In memory they fade away — yet space 
 
 Is here, the elements, here, and here, the /, 
 
 A conscious mite, that thinks a way to shape. 
 
 And from its stepping stone to float a wave 
 
 That rolls forever; this the end of time! 
 
 And this eternity! All, all are here 
 
 As specks on boundless plains and colorless 
 
 As air; the myriads continue life 
 
 And its battles, ken and make-up little still. 
 
 Around are clouds of earth, but light, beyond. 
 
 In infancy of world, untamed some come 
 
 In semblance of man, in passion strong, and quick 
 
 Of eye, alert, but weighted with the dregs 
 
 Of earth, translated pioneers of the skies. 
 
 They left their children a progressive world 
 
 To watch and tend, to grow and follow on. 
 
 But fed with hope that the way of the grave was 
 
 To life beyond. Of varied being born. 
 
 And compounded by law, they spun the threads 
 
 Of life in knots and flaws, but left the skein 
 
 Unbroken from beginning to the end. 
 
 From hunt and bush and lake came promised feast. 
 
 Above the war-cry smiled the image, peace; 
 
 And from a cloudless sky a famine walked 
 
 The earth, and pestilence; religions sent 
 
 Their victims, each one helpless; pushed across 
 
 The line, each had a vision in the far 
 
 Away, and each a dreary sentence voiced. 
 
 And as each walked the plank of cosmic ship. 
 
 In wonder each could study mote or beam 
 
 Of self or neighbor, and weigh the deeper things 
 
222 THE COSMOS 
 
 An errant vision, half in truth, half false, 
 
 In image flung composite on world and sky — 
 
 The only chart, because they saw it such, 
 
 To 'scape the ills and fill the cup of life. 
 
 A narrow ken still lingered; the bane that hung 
 
 In woe and curtained self in closets here. 
 
 Would build the walls in cloistered cells and ring 
 
 Down the gates of eternity; the rays 
 
 Of a larger sun they'd shield with an iron roof 
 
 And case their hearts in ice to turn back all 
 
 The waves of human love; they'd stay the hand 
 
 Of the Infinite in gathering the waifs 
 
 Of time, and turn to stone the voice of compassion. 
 
 The Eden of the earth is at its close. 
 
 The budding of life, the grave; its fiower, 
 
 The fragrance, and the fruit were wooed on plains 
 
 Of Cosmos gemmed with ruby and the pearl. 
 
 And with the waters of immortality. 
 
 Above is star of hope caressing hill 
 
 And wood and dale, but floating like a dream 
 
 To lure and win; eluding touch it burns 
 
 With steady light to sift and melt the dross. 
 
 Drop it away in elements restrewn 
 
 In native purity for other work. 
 
 As things are imaged on the brain, and speak 
 To conscious life, so elements bear imprint 
 Of things of which they are a part, figured 
 On themselves and worlds that are dead; suns gone 
 Live on in atoms piled like vapor, schooled 
 To form, repeating in long cycles of time 
 The vanished treasures, as thought resets its gems! 
 The murmur of rills, the music of the sea. 
 The cadence of worlds, still sing or echo deep 
 In cosmic harmony; the morning tinge, 
 The noon-day brilliance, the sun's retreating light, 
 Their colors hang in clearer vision, and gild 
 In richer tracery the passing hours. 
 The moss that velvets the rock, the grass that feeds 
 The life, the rose in beauty and fragrance, oak 
 And elm and evergreen, recast in living 
 Ideals, blend and form the vistas fresh. 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 223 
 
 Topaz and amber with emerald and gold, 
 
 The diamond as a dew-drop hung, or as 
 
 A tear, rekindle as in their native beds. 
 
 The plains now stretch away in softer lines 
 
 Of hill and dale, instinct with varied life 
 
 And dotted with human toil; the summer's green. 
 
 The autumn's brown, and winter's frosts alike 
 
 Their beauties trail as nature gave them skill 
 
 Their art to ply within the trend of time. 
 
 Piled were the mountains and all dressed in gray. 
 
 Belted in mists, their rugged peaks snow-crowned. 
 
 The sea sings, the air whistles, the lightning 
 
 Mellows to softer glow as thunder speaks 
 
 In tones of sweeter harmony; clouds fleck 
 
 The sky and break in tints, as if to answer 
 
 Back in tongue its own native melodies. 
 
 Back, back in time is scroll of night, now dim 
 
 In distance, extending in spiral form 
 
 And weaving one below the other, yet 
 
 Continuous from the beginning where forms 
 
 Of life and matter meet a way to build 
 
 In serial form from mite and atom through fish 
 
 And fowl and flesh, to people ocean, earth 
 
 And sky, instinct with mineral life, sense, thought. 
 
 Where each one fell the bony wrecks are strewn. 
 
 And sealed in nature's picture their story. 
 
 Decay and death yet living on above — 
 
 That life, transfigured and retouched, now speaks 
 
 From birth of time. Its murmurs first, its cry 
 
 Of pain, its plaintive call, its cooing, then 
 
 The tones of wrath or fear, still play in that 
 
 Morning hour; the voice of command, the hush 
 
 Of submission, the beat of song and poesy. 
 
 The tongue of eloquence, each in its age 
 
 Distinct and clear, now blend in closing hours 
 
 To tones like music of the skies; and guesses. 
 
 The errors fancy wrought, dissolving views 
 
 That intertwine as fleeting clouds to sink 
 
 Away, re-form to darken earth and sky 
 
 In dreary repetition; the acts of men 
 
 In peace and war, emotions, passions, faith. 
 
224 THE COSMOS 
 
 Untrained and fringed In myths — a tangled mass 
 
 Of eddies, streams, and whirls they form, uncertain. 
 
 Fitful, each playing In crossing, recrossing 
 
 The sinuous tide, yet pushed on by time's 
 
 Resistless flow with here and there a check 
 
 And blend, all working to the deep, unknown 
 
 Composite — nature's whole, now fit to run 
 
 Into the ocean of eternity, 
 
 Each In the picture to time accessory. 
 
 The motions still live, bearing marks of age; 
 Scarce slacked, they throb with energy of old. 
 Repeating themselves when bearing suns and worlds 
 In mystic play whose brilliance marked their course 
 And timed the speed. Force was before they were. 
 Smiled at their birth and tossed them, light as air. 
 To spin their fabrics and unravel when 
 Their work was done. A ball of each, confluent. 
 Was deftly turned and spun In a larger 
 Revolution to track an orbit lost 
 In distance of unnumbered miles, yet poised 
 At ease, a cosmic guest and one among 
 The universes, whose year would cross the birth 
 And death of time, Itself unworn, unaged. 
 
 The sun himself was busy with his life; 
 He had his laws, his energy, his art; the flush 
 Of morn was on the horizon, but unfulfilled 
 The higher promise, for nature waited his birth 
 As world to live a sun for his attendants. 
 The first was Mercury, the youngest born. 
 Typical of Its years, with Venus next. 
 In richer though softer beauty than when. 
 An evening star. It trailed the sun to rest. 
 Beyond was Mars, its mystic changes still 
 Unsolved; and Jupiter across the space 
 Of fragments, painting on the elements 
 The history, midway In time to open 
 The book Illustrated by artists whose 
 Pencils traced varied aspects now to unfold 
 Sublimer evolution on the sky. 
 Like star-dust Saturn hung as in its prime. 
 Its moons and rings existent still as gems 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 225 
 
 And circlets to a mystic diadem. 
 
 Away in distances dimmed to the eye 
 
 As haze, were Uranus and Neptune, verged 
 
 On stellar depths; they sung their music chording 
 
 With cosmic harmony, unnoted save 
 
 By meteor or comet flitting by. 
 
 In elements each fitted to its place. 
 
 Expanse distinct did mark, as rounding out 
 
 The years to make a world to waste and die. 
 
 No fleck or glint from Shasta's crest, no flame 
 From Coto's Peak, no gems by Incas blest. 
 Or pearls in depths of sea, could give one tint 
 To paint beyond these emeralds of the sky. 
 
 No light, no darkness waked to toil or lulled 
 To sleep; no bell to toll the hours, no marks 
 To count the years, still on in ceaseless flow 
 The tides of cosmic ocean swept, with worlds 
 Unweighted now, but dotted with shades of life 
 As yet confined in lines of space as time 
 Did measure them when matter crossed its way. 
 The senses, quick to read the history, each 
 Event in memory pictured, grouped and stored 
 Away, to be recalled in finished work. 
 Acts, laws, thoughts, and emotions took their place 
 And fitted to the work nature assigned. 
 
 Uncounted millions tread that mill of life. 
 Unequal in toil, in pay unlike, no voice 
 Decreed them like at birth, or smoothed the way 
 In that ascent; each earned his step, coin paid 
 Of value full, and in the casket dropped 
 To build the way; and they themselves must make 
 The niches — each was cut in sweat and blood. 
 Slaves' moan, the heralds' cry, the martyrs' doom. 
 Echoed up granite walls, while carving way 
 For myriads to come with step and song. 
 The crimson foot-prints and the dripping rock 
 Did test the nerve and temper, grew the soul 
 In passing time to higher worth and weal 
 To front sublimer work, in vision coined 
 Beyond the grave, the millions wait to do. 
 
 The bond was broken and the life was free; 
 
226 THE COSMOS 
 
 It touched the plain, the hill, the crag, or rode 
 
 The cloud where thunderbolts are forged and hurled. 
 
 The years were gone — time was, but is no more, 
 
 Though matter is in elements as then, 
 
 And moved by forces old as Cosmos now. 
 
 The woes that bled the life and wrung in pain 
 
 A tear, seen now as nature's way to build. 
 
 Were printed here in hazy light, and sin 
 
 That scarred the fairer way — a deadly weight 
 
 To blur the conscience and the thought, to blight 
 
 And mold the flower, 'twas dross the soul did heave 
 
 To cast away; a refuse it lies, the path 
 
 To mar, dissolving now to taint no more. 
 
 The shadow and the sunshine play as in 
 
 A world of time to cloud or feed the sense. 
 
 To hide or light the thought, to weigh, or speak 
 
 In drag or hope, delay or urge the steps 
 
 In dream or toil out on the cosmic field. 
 
 The art of time, its science, morals, its 
 Religions, the state, each, each in nascent form 
 To echo music of life, intertwined 
 With natural law, did bridge the rents and chasms 
 Of years, gave each a special significance 
 In cosmic work, and pictured them to live 
 Beyond time's requiem, that mind must see 
 And feel them e'er it crossed the higher way. 
 
 The circles touched within, without they touched 
 Again from sun to planets, on in space 
 Where planets lived to stars that gave them birth, 
 Now dead to older forms, but pictured waves 
 In matter, serial histories, and life's 
 Persistent work, to mold in value, wake 
 In beauty fit for other, brighter skies, 
 And emphasize, to die is change, a drop 
 Of fetters, links used and worn, of value once. 
 But nothing now. Thus planet to planet touched, 
 And planets to the sun, each blended in 
 Assimilation, and each to the other brought 
 Its ofi^ering, a common treasure in the field 
 Where life enlarged its ken and ideals 
 Inspired upon the border land to wake 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 227 
 
 From vision or dream to something that lies beyond. 
 The myriads of plant life now did pass 
 In interchange, and lines from planet grew 
 To measure the fields of the universe. 
 The stars that lighted skies with worlds attending 
 Had toiled the years away and brought to light 
 Each different work in matter, form, and mind, 
 With essence of life and being the same, 
 But grown in varied conditions multiple 
 In complexity, completed on a scale 
 Whose magnitude aspirations to sublimer 
 Truths woke and deeper concepts of existence, 
 Recalled the measuring unit for that 
 Cosmic table the universe computes. 
 From it but not a part of it; in it, 
 But not of it; with an ear tuned to its 
 Melodies, a touch to its pulsations, 
 An eye that searches out its hidden depths, 
 A consciousness to garner in its wealth, 
 The old has dropped its treasures on the steps 
 Of Infinite, the new turns on its way 
 To fill again the skies. Its constellations 
 Of suns and worlds rebuilt of sublimated 
 Materials and wrought in transit long 
 Of ages, bring back to the altar gifts 
 Unlike the old; repeating again and again 
 In endless succession unworn and unwearied, 
 The cosmic mandate that gave it being, life. 
 And motion, and impelled its destiny. 
 Deeper than matter ether was, a force 
 That coextensive with it, registered 
 Its music, thus to sing its harmonies. 
 It spoke from world to world; it touched to link 
 The temple and the throne, and matter, life. 
 The mind and soul; the laws of nature took 
 In transit, whispered them to human ear 
 Till consciousness to their touch woke and thrilled 
 To cosmic symphonies, imprint of years 
 Recalled, and listed wave reflex that came 
 To time from out eternity; it played 
 With elements of matter in repulse 
 
228 THE COSMOS 
 
 And tension; weighed the atom and the world; 
 
 But deeper than it is reason; on its mission 
 
 It called it; used it in its work; it asked 
 
 The properties of things; to us revealed 
 
 Their existence, and their relations told; 
 
 Traced them in their simplicity, watched them 
 
 In action and in interaction, building. 
 
 Destroying, working up to that sublimer 
 
 Form, habitation of the living, till 
 
 They stepped as from an arch to higher life. 
 
 Thus leaving it to waste, a cup of dust. 
 
 Honored and sung an hour, forgotten, lost 
 
 In the world's crucible in other work. 
 
 Reason sought to traverse cosmic depth, grasp its 
 
 Material and scan its laws; as it 
 
 Built build, in mental vision, from elements 
 
 To worlds till crowning structures filled the sky; 
 
 And schooled to finer sense, it touched the force 
 
 That, underlying, rippled gravity. 
 
 Electricity, heat, light, incident 
 
 To tension and, seen by transfigured mind, 
 
 In action varied it came, as by winds 
 
 And heat disturbed waves of the sea are crested 
 
 In foam, in vapor lifted to clouds, or flecked 
 
 In snow and ice to melt and run again. 
 
 Themselves to loose, or mingle in that deep. 
 
 As these thought saw, so deeper consciousness 
 
 Felt in the beginning possibilities 
 
 Of life, and turned to whisperings beyond 
 
 The grave, and grew, as years to ages grow. 
 
 An element of soul that etched its way 
 
 In light and shade, and wove in narrow ken 
 
 The good and bad that each may have of life 
 
 In dual form, and dared to break the one 
 
 Or other on the wheel of destiny. 
 
 Life's plaints, life's hopes, hung in the glamour of 
 
 Unseen, in interest attest — a woe 
 
 Crossing and recrossing the fitful dream 
 
 Of human existence till morbid gloom 
 
 Passed each in exile — forever doomed! 
 
 Or till unrolled in brighter vision the kin 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 229 
 
 Of man and magnitude of the universe. 
 But deeper far than all is that Unseen 
 Whose touch existence is — whose law is fate. 
 In it is matter, force plays, and life dwells. 
 The mote, the crystal, color, motion, thought, 
 Evoked from chaos, fling back on their way 
 A gift, from each a charm in beauty lights 
 The niche to tell Its origin and way. 
 Existence is not a waif, unanchored, unsung. 
 But from the first a creature of power, law. 
 That's bound by nature to obedience. 
 It did not ask to be, or choose its form. 
 Number its elements, but came at call 
 To fill the Cosmos with its wealth and song. 
 Complete in Itself, rich in gifts of life. 
 Of matter, force, when touched by an unseen 
 Power It woke and moved to beat of time. 
 The simple then became involved till work 
 And melody pressed to the infinite bound. 
 
 It was the Poet dipped first in the fount 
 Of life and sung of Immortality; 
 While others waters stirred in murky depths. 
 He tuned his harp to melody divine; 
 They keyed the notes to an unearthly woe; 
 When thus the mingled plaint he heard, the wild 
 Passions In darkness saw, revenge to him 
 Was music — then the dirge he sung. In gloom 
 His vision hung a chaos to evoke, 
 To cross the years till ember and the lance 
 Was glow and glint of way. The years passed on; 
 The darkness melted, light the earth did gird 
 Around In sunshine, and the gladness came; 
 He touched the strings again In notes to sing 
 That blend with cosmic waves whose melody 
 Rolls deep, the worlds In harmony with its lyre. 
 
 In that deep, measureless, profound, 
 Where constellations move uncrowned upon 
 The cosmic field, the 'laws of nature tie 
 Each to each and one to all in Impulse 
 Silent, pervasive, faultless, and complete. 
 Unawed by depths, unstayed by heat or cold. 
 
230 THE COSMOS 
 
 Their waves roll tireless, weighted, though, with suns 
 
 Or worlds, and charged with fate of universes. 
 
 There time that measures duration of worlds 
 
 Leaves on the dial of existence scarce 
 
 A trace, and matter ripples as a mote 
 
 In sunbeam floating on, unnoted, unseen. 
 
 No measure distance has, the clock no end. 
 
 It is — not of itself; it moves, but of 
 
 A Power beyond; it has no sun for day. 
 
 No night for rest, as its light is its own; 
 
 It works uncalled and tireless forever. 
 
 But deeper than time, matter, force, or space, 
 
 Deeper than feeling, thought, or reason there lies 
 
 The Infinite, and nature is but its 
 
 Expression that in nascent form did feel 
 
 Its touch and gave it law; the life felt it 
 
 And called in conscious being the finite, link 
 
 In chain to Infinite — touch of one throbs 
 
 Through passing years of life material; 
 
 The Other tinges with a glow that colors 
 
 Time to its beauty, speaks Itself to soul 
 
 Of man and bends it in devotion — calls 
 
 The living from the Cosmos to the shores 
 
 Of Time and Eternity, unfetters 
 
 Them to a higher law, and speaks them well. 
 
Lines To Asia 
 
 O Asia! Lift high thy imperial brow and dream 
 
 Of those bright, halcyon days whose piercing glance 
 
 Swift leaps the broadening chasm of time and shines 
 
 With a far softer radiance than of yore. 
 
 Cherish it ever for it is thine all. 
 
 Thine all.'* And can a nation live but once.^ 
 
 The fire of youth, the vigor of manhood, 
 
 And inspiration of age, when once touched 
 
 By palsying hand of death, must the dread sleep 
 
 Be deemed eternal.^ Has the fiercer breeze 
 
 From yonder mountain top locked thee in its 
 
 Embrace as changeless, passionless, and cold 
 
 As the lofty, snow-clad peak that sparkles in 
 
 Defiance of mid-summer's burning heat.^ 
 
 Arise and from thy fettered limbs let fall 
 
 Degeneracy's garb; and from thy hand 
 
 Let barbarism's tattered emblem drop. 
 
 Again draw one breath of the fancied prime; 
 
 Ask but one moment for the daring step 
 
 To tread at Sinai's base; perchance the spell 
 
 That Moses, thy leader, cast may yet be there. 
 
 The shining pebbles and the blooming flowers 
 
 May teach the words so long forgot; had they 
 
 But tongues, how sad, how drear a tale they'd tell 
 
 Of life that's quenched and burdened woe; and this 
 
 Refrain be caught by feathered songsters, then 
 
 Prolonged in notes half living and half dead 
 
 As though all partly conscious of the hour 
 
 When the bold spirit of the Lawgiver 
 
 The fire of Heaven seized; and then amid 
 
 The murmuring at salutary law, 
 
 Forth sounded joyous, long, and loud the notes 
 
 Of Israel's apostate idolatry, 
 
 Ascending to the cloud that hung so dark 
 
 And heavy o'er that peak, and mingling with 
 
 The thunders, it then broke upon the ear 
 
 Of that lone, startled prophet whose clear eye 
 
 With the luster of mighty genius shone. 
 
 (These lines were found in an old manuscript of the first pages of The Cosmos but 
 omitted in the later copies.) 
 
 231 
 
SHORTER POEMS 
 
 To My Mother 
 
 Though far away, I see thy bier 
 
 And on it drop a tear. 
 I know the little spot, a bed, 
 Holds yours and mine, the treasured dead; 
 
 It needs no earthly prayer. 
 None now that they have laid thee there. 
 
 Of all thy children only one, 
 
 And that the younger son. 
 Upon whose breast thine aged head 
 Dropped at the summons of the dead, 
 
 Was near to clasp thy hand 
 And list the echoes of spirit land. 
 
 It mattered not then when it came. 
 
 To thee 'twas but a name. 
 For the cloud that darkly veiled thine eye 
 Veiled not the portals of the sky. 
 
 Nor yet had passed that day 
 Till the sun's clear beams had bridged the way. 
 
 Somehow of world to us has grown. 
 
 From seed thus early sown. 
 The faith that those who've gone before 
 Will wait us on a better shore. 
 
 Mother, near or afar. 
 For us will shine no brighter star. 
 
 [And o'er the dark and murky tide 
 
 The bark of hope will ride; 
 Then she will paint with light and trace 
 In sweetest smiles the mother's face. 
 
 Who then from fairy land 
 Will reach to us a helping hand.] 
 
 232 
 
TO MY MOTHER 233 
 
 But soon the bell of Time will toll, 
 
 Numbering us on the roll, 
 Yet no hand of his will erase 
 The memory of thy sainted face, 
 
 Nor yet can steal apart 
 The yearnings of a mother's heart. 
 
 They tell us there's something above 
 
 Deeper than mother's love; 
 But this we know, of infant bliss 
 There's naught so sweet as mother's kiss; 
 
 To us it comes at birth 
 And lingers then, the last of earth. 
 
 As time exacts remorseless fee 
 
 Of all that aspire to be, 
 How much of life will it take to pay 
 The shattered wreck of many a day, 
 
 And on the senses bring 
 The silent touch of angel's wing.^ 
 
 The days die, seasons and the years, 
 
 So often wet with tears; 
 The feelings follow in the train 
 To beat of music's mournful strain, 
 
 And funereal cast of earth 
 No promise gives of Phoenix birth. 
 
 Life flows in deeper, clearer stream, 
 
 Beyond the prophet's dream. 
 And far away from mystic pyre 
 It wakes the touch of sweeter lyre 
 
 That softens and silvers o'er 
 The light and shade of mundane shore. 
 
 In the dim of the Primal Deep 
 
 We look where races sleep. 
 The work of Time's relentless hand. 
 That thus has left them on the strand 
 
 To fill the gap of years, 
 And on whose graves were shed no tears. 
 
234 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 Oh! were it given us to wend 
 In the valley's lonely trend, 
 
 When there the last, the last sad view 
 
 Thou hadst to bid the world adieu 
 And cross Cimmerian night 
 
 To mountain tops of gilded light! 
 
 Could we but droop with thee the wing 
 To taste of Alarah's spring. 
 
 Or peer afar with eagle eye 
 
 To watch the flush of morning sky, 
 Oh! how we'd soothe the way 
 
 From darkness to supernal day! 
 
 But no! the waves that o'er us roll. 
 
 Break on the finite shoal. 
 And the pearls that gleam in the sand 
 Light backward only from the strand; 
 
 And then the line, the line- — 
 This side, the man, beyond, divine! 
 
 'Tis not enough that thus we say. 
 
 The first shall pass away; 
 That nature made a wondrous law 
 To cast results without a flaw — 
 
 The flag of death unfurled 
 Will wave above the spirit world. 
 
 But nature, too, had made the tie 
 Before she voiced, — "to die," 
 
 And wove the fibers of the heart 
 
 To bleed at call to part, to part 
 The mother and the child. 
 
 And wing the grief in accents wild. 
 
 In long ago Time spun the thread 
 
 Around the silken head 
 To twine the fingers in the tress 
 And link the heart in sweet caress, 
 
 Flinging o'er each the glow 
 That will survive the wreck below. 
 
TO MY MOTHER 235 
 
 We view with cold eye their estate, 
 
 To voice the echo, "'tis fate." 
 What else then is death but the birth 
 To complete the cycles of the earth 
 
 And turn us round the way 
 To break the dawn of endless day? 
 
 How much of life is in the link 
 
 That presses on the brink 
 To give the cold and lifeless clay 
 The light of the eternal day, 
 
 Or mingle with our woe 
 The brighter dreams of long ago? 
 
 The long, long ages that have fled 
 
 Have strewn the earth with dead. 
 And marked the grander course of Time 
 With suns, or stars, or worlds sublime — 
 
 When they and we are gone 
 Will all, all then dissolve in one? 
 
 Or is that little spark of lire 
 
 Kindled from electric wire 
 That, strung all round on human polls. 
 Exacts from each both touch and tolls. 
 
 To waken in the breast 
 Promise and fulfilment of the blest? 
 
 How oft with thoughts that breathe and burn 
 
 We've lingered round Poet's urn 
 To cull with him the gold or gems 
 That he has plucked from crystal stems 
 
 To flash on human sight 
 One ray of the immortal light! 
 
 Thou hast with more than common ken 
 
 Scanned the works of subtler men 
 Who gave the cold damp clods of earth 
 A curious form of mystic birth — 
 
 Their fancy led them wild. 
 As wisps decoy the prattling child. 
 
236 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 When first the tears like rain will fall 
 
 Upon the funeral pall, 
 And memory hang the years away, 
 Dark, dark as on the fatal day. 
 
 Till, consecrated, bloom 
 Celestial flowers around the tomb. 
 
 The last will feel the sacred tie, 
 
 A mother's love — to die? 
 The months, the years will pass away, 
 To memory clings the hallowed day; 
 
 The loss no gem can give 
 In recompense to those who live. 
 
 They built for thee a house of earth. 
 
 Far from thy native hearth; 
 For when thou wert a little child, 
 This was then but a western wild 
 
 Where one could hear no more 
 The waters on the sea-girt shore. 
 
 From place to place, from life to death, 
 From death to life — the breath 
 
 We give the day, the tomb the night 
 
 We give — no eye can see the light 
 Nor scan the beams at play 
 
 In splendors of eternal day. 
 
 The hush of earth is in the grave; 
 
 Beneath the sand or nave 
 We see them scattered far or near; 
 The voices too we seem to hear, 
 
 Or is it my dream high. 
 To end in nothing but a sigh.'^ 
 
 The stars beyond, beyond in depths 
 
 Where trace no mortal steps. 
 Beyond them there where thought nor glase 
 Nor light of ages seem to pass. 
 
 Our sense, ourselves we lose 
 In darkness of the stellar ooze. 
 
TO MY MOTHER 237 
 
 Is this the line, the ocean strand, 
 
 Across, the other land 
 Faintly shadowed in vision here. 
 The last analysis of a tear? 
 
 Or is this of hope the last. 
 To end as ends successive past? 
 
 Or is this only form of night 
 
 That ends our line of sight 
 Beyond where suns and worlds shall make 
 Another universe and take 
 
 The circle and the space. 
 Themselves on a larger map to trace? 
 
 Of myriads, one upon a field 
 
 That countless millions yield. 
 Where each has its own circle of light 
 To end like ours in deeper night. 
 
 Then to repeat again 
 Where never once an end hath been? 
 
 Can there be an infinite deep 
 
 Beyond where naught can sleep, 
 A distance fixed and filed away 
 Without a dream of stellar day. 
 
 That nothing to define. 
 And fixed and scrolled without a line? 
 
 Is it thus we shall live again. 
 
 Our universe in chain 
 Shall traverse link by link to go 
 From each to each in endless flow, 
 
 Ages to pass away. 
 That night to cross — another day? 
 
 Change we in form from earth to sky 
 
 To live and then to die? 
 Pass we from star to star on the roll 
 To list us each upon the scroll? 
 
 Is this in nature's art 
 To grow to us and leave a part? 
 
238 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 From universe to universe 
 Will we then this reverse? 
 
 Or shall we parry wreck and storm, 
 
 To live and grow in grander form 
 And count them in the past, 
 
 No number ever be the last? 
 
 Within the earth the germ doth lie 
 That says that it must die; 
 
 Is there naught in clustering stars to free 
 
 From nature's infinite decree, 
 Or grant them life or grace. 
 
 Only to change from place to place? 
 
 We cannot tell beyond our ken. 
 
 We cannot read the glen 
 Within our reach that lies so near. 
 Nor can we read the hope and fear; 
 
 We live a little day 
 That's bounded by a narrow way. 
 
 We look beyond the earthy bed, 
 We think we see the dead; 
 
 They cross the line to us, we feel 
 
 Them on our life's revolving wheel; 
 We would be glad to know 
 
 If they are free to come and go. 
 
 We dream and think and waste our day, 
 We hear what people say. 
 
 To find ourselves within the trend — 
 
 We know we are, but not the end 
 By thought or reason here, 
 
 But think within, a nameless seer. 
 
 In dreams we cross both to and fro. 
 
 Or try to think it so, 
 That we may find in sylvan bower 
 One gleam of that prophetic hour 
 
 When Time shall close the day. 
 But first hath passed us all that way. 
 
TO MY MOTHER 239 
 
 We're bound by nature's stern decree, 
 
 The use we may not see. 
 We asked of her no earthly state — 
 She fixed us hand and foot to fate; 
 
 She uses us her fill 
 And gives no reason for her will. 
 
 We take her treasures as a gift 
 
 To pass them in the sift 
 And oft to murmur at her blows, 
 Or magnify them as our woes; 
 
 The sum of life they make. 
 For all are proffered,- — we must take. 
 
 She will not harken to our cry 
 
 Or give returning sigh. 
 We can fault her in this, our way. 
 She does not answer yea or nay, 
 
 But moves with tireless force 
 Along her own appointed course. 
 
 Beneath the yoke we bend to grow, 
 
 'Tis nature's way we go. 
 She gives the life, the hope, the joy. 
 And mixes with them her alloy. 
 
 We may not feel it loss. 
 Nor can we wash away the dross. 
 
 We take the gift she has assigned 
 
 Of matter and of mind. 
 Of us, nine-tenths are hers — then ours 
 The rest to mingle with the flowers. 
 
 We may not know the why. 
 But then we have to take and try. 
 
 We take the flush that's in the bloom. 
 
 The cloud that hangs in gloom; 
 We mix and mingle as we may, 
 To serve our purpose for a day; 
 
 But little is our ken — 
 We may not know what we have been. 
 
240 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 [The cycles come to kiss the hours 
 Nestling in sylvan bowers, 
 
 Away, upon the nameless deep. 
 
 To lull them in eternal sleep 
 And bear within the waste 
 
 Ourselves and works in silent haste. 
 
 We'll sing no more in fitful strain, 
 Lest our tears fall again. 
 
 We linger here as at the tomb, 
 
 In chill and mantle of its gloom; 
 We cling with bated breath 
 
 To shadow of the temple of death. 
 
 The pain we feel, the bell we hear, 
 The cortege draweth near, 
 
 And deep and dark the shadows fall 
 
 Across the funeral hall; 
 
 Earth to earth, dust to dust — 
 
 Farewell, we yield thee to the just. 
 
 (The stanzas in brackets were found among the notes, but omited from the final 
 copy.) 
 
In Memory of Mrs 
 
 The dead are gone — where? We grieve — why? 
 The grave — Is that all? We ask the earth — It 
 Closes round, dust to dust and — silence; dead 
 As the form It covers, sealed, It fills the years 
 To pass away; on it the flowers grow 
 And bloom to seed and die; they come again. 
 But give no promise. Nature speaks in them 
 As In us, only to renew for time. 
 Not for eternity. Each birth and life 
 Is to dissolve In elements to form 
 Then Into something else, perchance, and live 
 Again when worlds and suns have left the skies. 
 
 Life goes out; we see it not; It leaves 
 No trace; if it stays it will not speak; if 
 It goes away it takes Its secrets too. 
 Long as we may to see it here, or cross 
 The line, still In the darkness of the night 
 The cloud hangs over us — that we would pierce. 
 To the eye it is blank, to grief, a pall. 
 It yields to reason not, nor lists to prayer. 
 Though skies are bright and dreams are fair, the song 
 Is for to-day; we question, the senses have 
 The answer — dead! With life, force passes sight, 
 Absorbed to quicken again; they do not speak 
 To us, we cannot speak to them; as such, 
 Perchance, they live folever — that Is not 
 What we seek; it stays no cry, eases no 
 Grief, gives no hope; thought, feeling, consciousness 
 In flecks of silence sink away, unknowing. 
 Unknown. We look around, they are not here; 
 We scan the earth, no trace is found; the air 
 No treasures has to give; a wild seems space, 
 Cold, dark, and fathomless — no resting place 
 We find, for world on world and star on star 
 
 241 
 
242 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 But speak to us of birth and death, theirs, too, 
 
 A simple cycle rounding out their time, 
 
 And deepening the mystery of to be. 
 
 But little is ours; a ken in narrow lines 
 
 We may not pass, though suns numbering millions 
 
 Are set as milestones in the distance, whose 
 
 Light only ages bring to us. Beyond 
 
 The eye or glass myriads yet may be, 
 
 Then what.'* In the south the Magellanic clouds 
 
 Hang darkly on the sky, a dreamy opening 
 
 In stellar walls where darkness broods and life 
 
 Is not, and that is finite still^beyond 
 
 The line, do the dead cross it.^ In the depths, 
 
 How far.^ Ages away, the speed of thought 
 
 May not trace it, and life may chill in that 
 
 Waste on which time dies and eternity 
 
 Begins. The beam, lost in meshes of fate. 
 
 May wander afar and sink in fathoms untold, 
 
 No tidings bring from the unknown to cheer 
 
 The eye and light the path for us to go. 
 
 The chain of links the mind may seek to break, 
 
 But clouds of distance settle round, and dark 
 
 As night they hide the sun thit shii beyond 
 
 Its ken; as large as self may ^^eem, "de 
 
 In space its compass, when fro'- >urn 
 
 It dwindles to a speck thatV- .a. .g. 
 
 Dream it may, image the oth sid ..ids 
 
 In substance of the real, then, ,lf- jceived. 
 
 It calls it something else. To lis the bound 
 
 Is narrow, the call unheeded ;,.:Tie wings droop 
 
 In visions afar and nature seems a grave. 
 
 Its pall the night; but in that ;^loom a spark 
 
 Is kindled to light the world and shine beyond. 
 
 It touched the race in infancy and warmed 
 
 Its life; it wrought in forms uncouth and wild, 
 
 And built in fancy courts and cells; it gave 
 
 What it had not and promised more; it dimmed 
 
 Its beauty, clouding the sky to mar the world; 
 
 It spoke to hope and castles built, the dreams 
 
 Translated as messages of the skies. 
 
 Its offering was not of itself — dim 
 
IN MEMORY OF MRS. 243 
 
 It rested in unknown depths; if it spoke, 
 
 It was unheard; it sung to live; it tuned 
 
 The ages to visions of the unseen, hope gave 
 
 It wings, and dreariness of earth then glowed 
 
 In raptures of the world to come; but the dead 
 
 The senses gave no life, and reason sought 
 
 In vain to build from the grave to Paradise. 
 
 Yet something to them unknown, elusive as 
 
 The mists of the rainbow, grew to arch the chasm 
 
 Whereon the souls might pass from death to life. 
 
 Unvouched, unwilling at first to trust itself, 
 
 It made the gods in human form to talk 
 
 In human speech and give the world of men 
 
 The secrets of the skies; they brought the myths 
 
 To cloud the simple story, garnished robes 
 
 To deck, and harps to charm, or flames to roll 
 
 Like billows fast and far across the gulf 
 
 Whose end may never come. Its simple faith, 
 
 Uncouth and mystic, touched the childish mind 
 
 To woo the skies, and untrained, wreathed them in forms 
 
 Material, just beyond themselves — in this 
 
 They followed nature's way. Close to the earth, 
 
 They could not bui' ar. Half real, half 
 
 Castle, the float" s w*"—^ scarce above 
 
 A dream and c '^" ^ts pass; weird, too. 
 
 As fancy and l ne- -acery 
 
 In legend shows, pi "c • -. world 
 
 To come — a special cas^c an deep as life 
 
 Itself, to grow from it r s worlds grow from 
 
 The clouds of space. We d.iiik of that spring — drink 
 
 Of the beginning fresh as the morning dew, 
 
 Like plants, and rooted in the foundations 
 
 We grow, as they grow, flower from stalk and leaf, 
 
 To fill the world of mind with earth and sky. 
 
 An entity in imagery of m.yths 
 
 And truths — the myths to wane and pass away. 
 
 No fault of man it is he does not know 
 It all. An atom, scarce more, in the universe, 
 With but a moment here in time to call 
 His own, he gathers now and then a speck 
 To build and pass away. The dream was first, 
 
244 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 And then the fleck, as drops before a wave. 
 
 To make the rock there was a simple law. 
 The plant had life complex in way and work 
 That filled the world with grass and shrub and tree. 
 To make a form self-moving nature wrought 
 In higher art, and trained herself through long 
 Cycles of time, completing only to build 
 Again, and tied them each to each by laws 
 Untiring and self-executing till 
 Her year shall pass. To each she gave a place. 
 And with it power to fill. She gave that life 
 To touch and work the world, the smell to tell 
 Its odors, the ear to hear its sounds, the tongue 
 To taste, the eye to see, the nerve to feel, 
 But deeper than these, consciousness of each, 
 Itself in world distinct and last. Shall it 
 But pass away.^ She gave the reason, too, 
 To grasp the semblance of things and formulate 
 Their laws, imagination to picture them 
 In colors rich as nature paints to fill 
 That life with beauty wrought in art to dim 
 The rougher side, and weird in tracery 
 To round them all in brighter glow and charm. 
 Were one lost, life it gives were gone; were all 
 To die, the outer world would be a blank, 
 And consciousness less than a dream^ — these touch 
 The things of earth and speak to mind the word 
 And thought naught else may give. Alone each voices 
 Its special message, brings to a common vault 
 The treasures all may share — beyond themselves 
 They cannot go. The niche they fill, the work 
 They do, in lines of narrow bound is fixed 
 By laws they cannot break; laws made by that 
 Same Power that made them, tied by links that death 
 Alone may break, and that may leave a — blank! 
 
 The ways of nature are not smooth; her laws 
 Complex, that cross and recross, build in forms 
 That multiply with years and, added to 
 By the hand of man in structure secondary. 
 Attest his skill to work by law to fill 
 His place in nature; the flint for arrow head. 
 
IN MEMORY OF MRS. 245 
 
 Or axe of stone to chip, or arch that spans 
 The mountain pass, or armor forged for ships 
 To dominate the seas; the chapel or 
 Cathedral, moat or castle, or glass and tube 
 That penetrates the secrets of the skies 
 Whose magnitude and numbers leave our world 
 A measurable quantity, a speck 
 Remote in space, a mystery still unsolved. 
 
 We build from unit to the tribe; from tribe 
 To state, and state to nation. We build not as 
 We will, but in spirit and type of race. 
 Reflex of nature's laws. A little we 
 May bend, but more we drift, controlled we know 
 Not how or why, yet moving on by that 
 Resistless Power which uses us to fill 
 Its needs and wing its destiny. Stay it 
 Our hands cannot nor turn its course; hidden is 
 Its birth; of it we know to-day; we feel 
 It for an hour, sink in its bosom, with dream 
 Of its to-morrow still far beyond our ken. 
 We people grotto, cave, and glen, the air 
 We people too, with fairy forms, we know 
 Not what; we compound living entities 
 To fill the skies and worship them in praise 
 Or prayer; in plain or grove we speak them well. 
 To guard or bless; we build them temples filled 
 With images like themselves; altars too 
 We make whereon we place our offerings 
 To placate wrath, for our sins to atone 
 And pleasure buy, with gift of world to come. 
 We sing in simple chant, beyond the earth 
 To v/00 the skies; we dream, and think they talk 
 To us, we talk to them. What pearls we see, 
 What gems of Paradise, what thrones and crowns 
 Of gold, what gleams of light, what airy forms, 
 And moving up what gods we see. On stair 
 Of earth and sky we go; in fancy then 
 We build in weft of naught, and walk them up 
 And down, as on the path the dead may walk. 
 
 We do not think, no thought is here — the gem 
 Is fancy's touch — across the dark to fling one ray 
 
246 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 Of light to multiply in myriads 
 
 And fill the world with visions wrought to glow 
 
 In open day and be as if they were, 
 
 Instead of semblance of a world, unreal, 
 
 And living on, though fading to the cast 
 
 Of stern realities of years to come. 
 
 Of all that was, of all that is to-day, 
 Of all that is to be, is there naught fixed 
 To life, not lost in wreck of myths, to stay 
 The hopes and guide the destiny of man? 
 No foundation whereon we build, untouched 
 By years of waste, to anchor life's estate? 
 No touch of time and of eternity? 
 No voice to speak of unknown depths? No voice 
 To speak from the mystic deep to us when life 
 Is passing to the gate of death? No light 
 To cross the darkening hour and gild the way 
 Through gloom to skies unknown where life will build 
 To higher ken? No rift to closing eye 
 In the dense veil, only the shadow dark. 
 And deepening to the tomb? Is this the purpose, 
 The end of life? One conscious hour of pain 
 And pleasure mingled, toil and rest, of dream 
 Or hope a momentary gift, by art 
 In fancy lured, but only to deceive? 
 
 The earth itself is but the ashes of 
 A sun. How many forms invisible 
 Have come and gone? How many plants have lived 
 And died? How many genera, of self 
 Once conscious, each for a time in ascendant, 
 Have passed away? They filled their hour and died, 
 Refining only for the one to come. 
 Then we succeed, on ruins of them to grow 
 Our day. Are we the last in nature's gift, 
 To be sealed in an ice-girt tomb when the sun 
 Himself shall die? Or are we, like those gone 
 Before, a stepping-stone in nature's work 
 To build beyond? To sight, all, all is gone 
 And reason gathers the wreck to stop at the tomb. 
 
 We know time is; we know space is; no touch 
 Of sense or reason give them reality. 
 
IN MEMORY OF MRS. 247 
 
 Without a form, they seem, a void; without 
 
 Resistance, nothing; ask as we may, they 
 
 No answer give. Thought, feeling, sight, or sense, 
 
 Confined in natural limits, speak to us 
 
 What they know. The imagination builds 
 
 Its worlds in figments of the real; its 
 
 Creations are but molds of things that are. 
 
 It speaks no new existence — works the old 
 
 In newer forms, to call them then its own. 
 
 It makes from something, unreal though the cast 
 
 May seem; it blends with art and fact, it blends 
 
 With fiction too; its dreams are shapes of weft 
 
 Another power hath made, though mystic gloss 
 
 The substance hides while over us the spell 
 
 Is cast till reason fades away. The much 
 
 Is gone; the little left is sifted in 
 
 The ages to remain, for it is coined 
 
 In nature's mint, imperishable as time. 
 
 And piled away; its foundations are deeper 
 
 Still than the earth, and though it stops with it 
 
 For time, it builds by charts of nature's make 
 
 To skies unknown-^it builds for eternity. 
 
 Religion builds for itself — deep in the soul 
 Of man its consciousness lies, voiced in life 
 Its essence, speaking purpose, office, end. 
 The other faculties of themselves speak; 
 Its world is its own, without it that world 
 Could not be. If it were not, no trace of it 
 Would be found. Simple in its being, strong 
 In its emotions, it colored every 
 Element of life from the beginning and 
 Constrained them to its service. Art has planned 
 Its structures; brush and chisel have adorned 
 Them; poetry and music blend in one 
 To voice it; sculpture images it in stone. 
 Earth, water, air, and sky in consecration 
 Were called to serve it; altars glow beneath 
 Its aureole; life thrills to its melodies; 
 The dead pass into shadow under its 
 Arch only to live again — all these are 
 Because it is, were it not, they would not 
 
248 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 Be. No eye, no light there is; no ear, no sound; 
 
 No reason, no link of cause and effect. Man 
 
 Is conscious part of existence only 
 
 By virtue of that consciousness. If one 
 
 Speaks truly, why not all.^ for each affirms. 
 
 Could he build worlds of art and song on naught.^ 
 
 Or conquer earth and hold it, if he were 
 
 A myth.'* Would nothing act on him, direct 
 
 His life and make him build through the ages 
 
 Monuments in attestation of nothing.'' 
 
 Could he dream one faculty not his own and dot 
 
 The years with its work, evidence it was, 
 
 Yield to it, and then deny that it is.^ 
 
 We touch time, we touch space, not as we touch 
 
 The forms of matter, but with faculties 
 
 Of ourselves whose link is from us to them, 
 
 And centered in consciousness, affirms they are. 
 
 No effort of ours can set them aside, no reason 
 
 Turn them to myth or substance nor tell us 
 
 What they are; no word from on high, lest it 
 
 Change us, can tell us more. They touch us, we 
 
 Know it, but not how — without them we could 
 
 Not be. Their origin like ours lies too deep 
 
 For mind to fathom — only that they are 
 
 We read in simple faith and stop the line 
 
 Where nature checks our ken. As we touch time, 
 
 We touch eternity; and as we touch 
 
 The finite, we touch the Infinite; as we 
 
 Touch life, so we touch immortality. 
 
 Each is an element of being deep 
 
 As its essence, mystic to reason; far 
 
 From its forms and without its realm; it speaks 
 
 For itself only as nature bids it speak. 
 
 Each has voice coined within, and from it there 
 
 Is no appeal — the ultimate for us 
 
 Of consciousness is link of earth and sky. 
 
 The fancy in mystic streams of unreason 
 Has woven a thousand forms to read the why, 
 The object, and the compass of our lives, 
 Each only to dim in maturer years. 
 But leaving elements of truth, alike 
 
IN MEMORY OF MRS. 249 
 
 And common to all. These are gifts we take 
 
 From nature's hand — the gems to light the way. 
 
 The clouds may come and shadows fall, ourselves 
 
 May dim till substance passes as a dream, 
 
 But freaks of sense and unreason are spots 
 
 On the sun of life to fade on the waste. 
 
 Without a trace to tell that they have been. 
 
 Seek not to build by them or follow where 
 
 They sink away. We live where consciousness 
 
 Persists; we take its truths in simple things 
 
 Because we must; we pass by graded steps 
 
 To higher forms — to us the links are fast. 
 
 It stops at no shadow, nor sleeps in a dream. 
 
 Its cast is life — we take that cast to live. 
 
 No vision can fade it, no art void it. 
 
 It is the base of sense, the element 
 
 Of thought. To it all tests must come and all 
 
 Conclusions on it rest. Beyond it there 
 
 Is no voice to speak it, no vision of 
 
 The earth or sky to picture it to us. 
 
 The clouds that hang round it are not of it. 
 
 Nor did they come at its call. Brooded in 
 
 Mystic guise, darkened in the night of time, 
 
 And fitful, it clears with the light of advancing 
 
 Years by the slow processes of time from 
 
 Its first shadings till with authority 
 
 It speaks of asserted self from basis to 
 
 The crown of life. Beneath it earth takes new 
 
 Meaning; above, skies deepen on the scroll. 
 
 To fathom mysteries uncounted is 
 
 Not of it; a depth there is that it does 
 
 Not reach, a wisdom not for it; it rests 
 
 Within the limits nature made, but builds 
 
 With purpose high not thrones or crowns, not for pearls. 
 
 Or gold, not for gems of earthly make; all these 
 
 May lure the fancy but feed not the life. 
 
 Perception may turn from itself to seek 
 What lies beyond; the depth explored is far 
 Within its own lines, only dreaming that 
 It's gone away; and reason may stray to paths 
 Forbidden, only weaving myths to hang 
 
250 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 On time to drop in the alembic where 
 
 Fancy gathers illusive gems that play 
 
 In sunbeams all her own. We school ourselves 
 
 To them, and as they fade she plucks to fill 
 
 Again. Each in its hour as substance we 
 
 See, then it wastes in memory to a shade. 
 
 It is a glow that winds around a truth 
 
 To hide it, we forget it in the mists 
 
 That break the light into colors shining bright 
 
 As day, and following the track of cloud 
 
 Like a rainbow, then to pass, a fleck, in years. 
 
 We may look, but the distance deepens; we 
 
 May reason, but the elements are lost 
 
 To its ken — only in intuition we fathom 
 
 The mystery; while other faculties 
 
 Stud it with gems of passing worth, it breaks 
 
 The fetters — unbound to eternity. 
 
 In fame men have imaged themselves as gods 
 In essence and in form — to woman gave 
 In skies no counterpart. The message wrote. 
 Cold, stern, and more — and silence then for her. 
 'Twas well. No woman would bend over grave 
 Or cradle, with a tear or smile, and write 
 As they have written; no hand of hers would light 
 The flame and seal the bolt forever there. 
 The prophet, sexed for battle and for death, 
 In vision saw the heavens rent in twain, 
 And fixed the weal or woe of man. Himself 
 Untrained to earth, its form, its laws unknown, 
 The limits of the finite broke to tell 
 The secrets of the skies; himself he saw 
 As center and object of creation; for him 
 The gods and devils fought; the skies turned dark 
 As legions battled there; the earth was red. 
 
 Unasked men came; unfitted took the task 
 Of life; on them the burden rested. Laws 
 Unknown were broken, laws unknown, untold, 
 Obeyed. The treasures of the earth were hedged 
 In work; on them the sun and shadows fell. 
 The toil was ceaseless — age on age it spun 
 
IN MEMORY OF MRS. 251 
 
 Around the mote to grow a world it did 
 
 Not know! Who dug the clod that gave the straw? 
 
 Who fed the hand that hurled the dart or strung 
 
 The bow? Who plucked the brand of night and nursed 
 
 It into day? Who stood by the fount of life 
 
 And watered it that it might grow? Who grew 
 
 The vine that twined in wreaths of fame around 
 
 The head that planned the deeds of blood? Who schooled 
 
 In nature, moral law? Who built the shrine, 
 
 Wet in gore, that burned to heaven? Who stands 
 
 To-day the crowning gem of earth? Silence 
 
 Her voice, the walls will be mute; lift her hand 
 
 From the altar, it will fall; turn her steps 
 
 From the portals, the consecrated pile 
 
 Will crumble into dust. The marble she 
 
 Chiseled in human form; the canvas touched 
 
 Until it speaks; morals she has conserved, 
 
 And breathed to heaven the purest aspirations. 
 
 If from above a halo shall drop, on her 
 
 Brow it will rest, a harbinger of weal. 
 
To the Forest 
 
 Gendered in elements beyond the reach 
 Of thought, from mist and foam, from fire and rock, 
 From dust and water — weird in life thou hast 
 Come midway in the mystery of things 
 That are, to play a part and pass away. 
 Least in the early dawn, then thou didst feed 
 And drink from mold that stone and plant had made. 
 Unconscious of the stately growth the years 
 Would give and a duration ages on 
 Ages might challenge, though thy roots were gnawed 
 By time and e'en thy branches drooped in grasp 
 Of giant power. 
 
 One by one till told 
 Only by sands of the sea, thou hast moved where 
 The sunshine wooed and danger lurked, the plain 
 Thou hast spread, hills climbed and the mountains, till 
 Staid by the frosts or turned back by the rocks. 
 Niagara thou hast twined round to hide 
 Its mists and drown its roar, grown by the sea. 
 And melted in the wave. Rent was the earth. 
 It opened to receive thee. Storms have laid 
 Thee on earth's bosom to sink thee in dust. 
 Fires have swept thee to blacken and to kill. 
 All, all thou hast defied, for life thou hast — 
 A gift, and mystic — to quicken where thou 
 Hast been, to live again from rootlet or 
 From seed, and summon dust of self to grow 
 And image thee as thou wert in thy prime. 
 
 The music of the years has been for thee 
 And thine; the dirge in deeper recesses 
 Has followed thee as young and old have gone 
 Down to their last sleep, and yet thou hast closed 
 O'er them in fated hour, a lifeless mass, 
 
 252 
 
TO THE FOREST 253 
 
 And in decay; the moan is with thee now — 
 
 The requiem, another's and not thine. 
 
 'Thine hath been the conquerer's march — the weak, the strong 
 
 Alike have felt it as on thou hast gone earth 
 
 To take and, careless, strewn it with the dead. 
 
 With thee the birds have come and nested, and gone. 
 Genera that live only in skeletons 
 The rocks entomb, were with thee once to live 
 And die, each for its time; its memory, 
 A wreck that traced in stone its life and age 
 In semblance fixed, and wired to life, the grave 
 To speak its secrets to reveal, and bid 
 The earth her staid and wrinkled years to tell. 
 They sleep in peace^thou heedest them not; theirs 
 Was but a day compared to thine; the clod 
 Scarce above, they did serve an hour, to feast, 
 To fight, and die — in worth above our ken. 
 We fault them now, no drapery wound them round, 
 No care by kindred — no word to praise, no tear! 
 Them nature brooded in the night of time, 
 Cared for them, used them, killed them — turned to dust. 
 Why earth .^ Why myriads.^ Why life and — death .^ 
 
 In myriad forms thou hast been, twig or tree. 
 Fair, gnarled, or slim, with frond or thorn, with bloom 
 And fragrance, urged beyond thy ken to grow 
 As cedars of the east or coniferae 
 Of the west, to clouds aspire, the centuries 
 To bow as one by one they pass to die. 
 Stately and rugged as the rocks they adorn — 
 Their life in crystal beauty set, and thine 
 In cells the flowing currents touch to feed — 
 Ages on ages come and go yet they 
 Remain — but time will waste them, and no hand 
 Will write of them, "Farewell," as writes of thee. 
 
 On space thou hast in wonder looked, and seen 
 Its depth, where bounds such as thine would be but 
 As naught in it, unseen, unnamed, unknown, 
 A speck, and lost, a waste where a Pleiad 
 Might smile — no magnet draw to guide or moor! 
 Yet stars, lone or in clusters, look on worlds 
 'The night to brighten and to cheer, doomed e'er 
 
254 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 Like thee or the dead to live on in light 
 A meed of years for, far from place it came. 
 Beyond is space, and limitless, and there, 
 An all pervading Power to touch with life 
 The elements, to build in systems suns 
 And worlds, to trail in glory the Milky Way, 
 And woo the mind, lost in the wondrous depths. 
 To seek, to love, and to adore — perchance 
 Imaged in eternal mind, scrolled on 
 The Cosmos while time is and life shall be! 
 
 To eye of man thou wert in majesty 
 And beauty clothed, in wealth, and richer far 
 Than Cascade mines of gold — a treasure-house 
 Unprized, to waste, and used to fill the needs 
 A life might ask; or cumber ground that life 
 Did seek to spread in multiple of thine. 
 To rival thee, a prior right to plead — 
 Divine himself, the first in grace bestowed. 
 The knell was tolled! Thy skirts it touched in tones- 
 Of simple sound and intermittent beat — 
 Its echo, a wail, to cling to departing years, 
 A presage then, and told by lapse of time. 
 
 In regal splendor thou hast stood beneath 
 A dome no mortal hand had reared, to vie 
 With ocean in its grandeur, roll and roar 
 To imitate, as storms beat, lashing thee. 
 Thou hast smiled as smiled the sun upon thee, 
 Or frowned as mountains frowned the avalanche 
 To spurn, and whelm with snow, ice, earth, or rock. 
 Or cast a liquid fire whose touch was death. 
 These were but flecks on tide of time, or seams 
 And scars, scarce traced with nature's facile pen. 
 
 Born to a heritage of boundless realms, 
 Wert thou a seer with visions to bid the past 
 And future read to thee an optic scroll 
 Of dreams, a web of threads archaic looms 
 Did weave in mystic fight of Iran's gods, 
 Crowns to win — earth, a wreck, from chaos tossed, 
 A mingled blend of darkness and of light, 
 Scenes stranger would unroll than fancied strife 
 Of man-made gods that startle sleep and wake 
 
TO THE FOREST 255 
 
 The phantoms, worlds unseen to fill with sin, 
 And man to doom in woe, a pigmy fixed 
 Between contending gods whose cohorts strive 
 In space, in air, and earth for larger fold! 
 
 In birth of worlds from mists by law, the earth 
 Was bubbling flame, and then a crust of rock. 
 The topmost part, thy birth place, where the long, 
 Long day the sun caressed thee, and the moon 
 In softer colors dipped, as the stars came 
 From depths unknown to kiss the night away. 
 And then the clouds, deep and dark, black as death. 
 With bolts of flame, to tell a closing age. 
 Deep the waters, deeper yet the snow, and ice 
 On ice was fathoms deep, a frozen stream. 
 To drive thee back, the hills to smite and rocks 
 To grind, to reign for long in zero cold; 
 With cooling fires, the shrinking crust in folds 
 The mountains rears, bleak, shapeless, dread, sublime. 
 The heavens to meet; above, the clouds; beyond 
 Where silence broods, the sun gilds, or the night 
 Mantles, they peerless reign to front the cold 
 Of space and echo back the thunders forged 
 In storms that surge to rend their sides. 
 But broken and discomfitted, to sink 
 Away, and drive the forests in unequal strife 
 To wrest a hopeless and a conquered way. 
 
 The toil of mountains, ice, and sands was in 
 But narrow fields and yet, prophetic then. 
 And spoken in tenser strain, a tomb that waits 
 The life, a waste and cold where time will write 
 Its script on winding sheet as hour by hour 
 It spreads o'er earth to compass land and sea. 
 
 Of man 'twas written, as of thee — like thee 
 Born close to earth, and harmless then- — he took 
 The shade and cave, and fed from thee to grow 
 A simple and an artless life, to wake, 
 A foster child and strong, himself unawed. 
 Untrained, a stranger to the destiny 
 Inexorable law decreed, recked thee 
 Little, a mind inwrought and pregnant with 
 Conquest of the world — a mite beside thee now. 
 
256 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 In whose hand, a branch fallen or torn, a club. 
 
 Beginning of the art to lay thee low. 
 
 Thy empire take, and then the diadem. 
 
 A creature of a higher mold and type, 
 
 His childish years to roam, an age to waste. 
 
 In fitful dreams less of earth than of sky. 
 
 He lived as phantoms spoke and omens told. 
 
 A hand of power, of nations, and a world, 
 A day, and finite, then in sorrow broke, 
 Or held a night of waste and death, to warm 
 In glow, the wave to crest; the land to bloom 
 Above thy grave where millions live and die 
 To sink in dust — a charnel house; with thee. 
 To thee and thine, the last; to him an hour 
 In memory till another hand than his shall 
 Come, the mound and monument alike 
 In common level blend, where time may list 
 In vain one cry from them, the dead, to hear. 
 On thee no voice will call to live again, 
 Yet life thou hast, to cover still the earth 
 In beauty, wealth to give, and then to die! 
 The hand that took thee and the world, a mind 
 Did guide that builded high the arch of heaven 
 To groin; unrested here, it left to time 
 The dust it yearned to take to eternity. 
 
 Lines on the Civil War 
 
 Solitude is the genius of the hour. 
 With flecks of silence strewn, to wake the power 
 That flits in shadowy dreams, to call from the deep, 
 To fix in forms, to image in the sleep 
 The parts of unnumbered shapes called into one. 
 As piece by piece they blend like rays of the sun. 
 And even then forget the tie of earth 
 To seek the clouds above, a heavenly birth; 
 A mist in robes of white, a life we give 
 The wanderer here, and strange, an hour to live, 
 With tongue to speak and feet to walk, to fly 
 
LINES ON THE CIVIL WAR 257 
 
 With wings — a gift, it seems, of gods on high 
 
 To cleave the ether and to float in air, 
 
 A vision of beauty, soft and sweetly fair, 
 
 A something that steals the fancy and the faith 
 
 That later times hath turned into a wraith, 
 
 That was real then, the misty shape of old, 
 
 More precious far then mints or mines of gold, 
 
 For it gave two worlds, one in glow of night, 
 
 The other in the mix and whirl of sight, 
 
 In day to color, myriad in play. 
 
 Around the wood and in the far away. 
 
 The earth had rock and glen and plains so fair, 
 
 While many a nook in green was planted there 
 
 Where peace and plenty reign in hallowed charm 
 
 That seemed a gift and free from toil or harm. 
 
 Where existence was replete with all we ask 
 
 To fill the measure full, without a task. 
 
 But 'tis a dream in fancy wrought to build 
 
 A paradise, and forfeit here, a guild 
 
 Unstained, untainted in the hour of birth. 
 
 To live and in translation pass from earth; 
 
 For nature was not made that simple way 
 
 To wait and work, a toy, in adverse play 
 
 Turned in an infant hour from destined course 
 
 To wander recreant from diviner source; 
 
 But militant was written first and last 
 
 To hang its glories, battle flung, on the past, 
 
 Inherent in the law of mist and cloud — 
 
 A strife in elements whose clash was loud. 
 
 That spoke within by thunder tones of ire. 
 
 As it hurled its bolts with chemic force in fire 
 
 To sift the brooding darkness wrought by fate 
 
 And give the light as voiced by Increate — 
 
 Inheritance, the earliest in prime. 
 
 And valid as are matter, space and time. 
 
 Co-equal in its work and worth— a name 
 
 That's built in splendor with the cosmic fame — 
 
 A gift with suns and worlds that from mist we traced, 
 
 Which were cast to center in the fields of waste 
 
 And run in ellipse, as held by seeming need, 
 
 The countless miles with time and startling speed 
 
258 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 In their appointed place, and glow on high 
 
 As clusters gemmed in an infinite sky, 
 
 But held in chains and girt with bands of steel. 
 
 With power to build in thought, with nerve to feel 
 
 And answer to the ages' varied call 
 
 And live till ushered in the hearse and pall 
 
 Made in the weft of space and knit by time. 
 
 In measure full to the promise of its prime. 
 
 To fit the wearied and the worn the way 
 
 Backward to take, it came to make to-day. 
 
 And this they knew of old, their dreams were true, 
 For man as lost, in penitence was due. 
 As seers, in visions crossed the lines of space 
 In flight where human footsteps never trace. 
 To pass the realms in bounds of finite mind 
 And seek beyond, the Infinite to find. 
 In presence there of glory and of peace 
 When from their mortal chains is given release; 
 The promise is we take the way to fly the rift. 
 And then accept, in crown, immortal gift. 
 
 Beneath the arch of that eternal throne. 
 We're taught that aught of evil is unknown; 
 But pride had wrung the loins of one on high 
 To seek the tiara and rule the sky. 
 And in the whirl the creature turned the tide. 
 Whose ebb the Creator would set aside. 
 Gathered the legions then with spear and shield, 
 With plume and armor bright, upon the field 
 Of heaven, to test in battles' fierce debate 
 And fix in glory then immortal hate; 
 To ruin world unmade, and thus of yore. 
 Ages e'er man was, doom was fixed in store, 
 Him to contend between the dual strife, 
 A mite, imputed wrong, to live a life 
 Borne on the tide an hour in ebb and flow 
 As pushed by each contestant, weal or woe. 
 Long years of moral night that speed away 
 To wait the coming of millennial day 
 To end the turmoil; then the spirit might 
 Subdue the cause of evil and stop the fight. 
 And man transfigured on a sinless earth. 
 
LINES ON THE CIVIL WAR 259 
 
 Would taste the glories of original birth. 
 
 In lengthening vision of prophet's or poet's dream, 
 The things of earth may not be what they seem, 
 But we find in every law of race, the pact 
 Inwrought by nature's hand, the sterling fact 
 That whirling earth is type of restless way 
 And burdens every atom the livelong day, 
 For war, in savage or in sainted breast. 
 Was written there by a divine behest. 
 The sun and moon, the story tells, saw still. 
 The day prolonged, the earth with blood to fill. 
 As India's child, Vishnu's self, did call 
 The anchorite from contemplation's sleep 
 With faction's action, in the common deep 
 To blend their creeds diverse, in eastern light. 
 And summon clans of sleep with, "We must fight." 
 While church, and militant, of Christian birth. 
 Hath carried sword of Christ around the earth. 
 And Islam's, "Tribute, conversion, or death," 
 Has stifled in red blood the human breath. 
 And has waxed wild to take by Allah's way 
 Till stayed by Hun and Frank, and held at bay — 
 Deducing thus, in nature's self we find 
 All living fixed in law's control, to bind 
 Each age in fiery track, for good or ill. 
 To work its way, by divine or human will. 
 From low estate where man, w^ith scarce a grasp. 
 From hunt to hand had found the way at last. 
 He warred with nature, great and small, by art. 
 And grew in pride to take the better part; .-^ ./^ 
 The strong, the proud, for self did take by might — 
 For him and his, whatever was, was right. 
 Unblamed he was, for he in rougher mold 
 Was cast, and they, or he, would take to hold. 
 He had no doubt, no gift of thought, or fear, 
 For in the higher things, a child of a year. 
 His breast, a surging tempest of an hour 
 With warring dreams of battle, place, and power 
 Till his needs grew in wilder, wider range. 
 And as the tiger plays with victim strange, 
 He held his hand, with ax uplift, to save 
 
26o SHORTER POEMS 
 
 And make, and hold his captive for a slave, 
 
 Turning the current of life as it ran, 
 
 A menial then, a cringing, lesser man, 
 
 Whose life was toil in unrelenting cast. 
 
 The lines we trace in all the ages past. 
 
 To grow in field and flower — in art, a name — 
 
 In sculpture, music, poesy — a fame; 
 
 To store in mental and in moral urn; 
 
 To wax, inspire, and as a flame to burn 
 
 Till the hand pliant grown, strong, harsh, and bold. 
 
 Turned wealth and power the countless ages told, 
 
 And made the serf that was held under ban 
 
 To dream, to think, to wake, himself a man 
 
 Whose art had formed, whose hand in toil and weld 
 
 World's fortune made, and then unjustly held; 
 
 Empires must wake and thrones must fall or reel 
 
 For him in interest of the common weal. 
 
 Then millions gather in a fitful stream, 
 
 Uncertain as a flood; in bayonet gleam 
 
 Onward in full tide they rush in their haste, 
 
 With havoc and destruction lay in waste 
 
 The garner that in sweat and blood they stored 
 
 In years of toil and peace — it was the hoard 
 
 That gave the town its beauty and its charm. 
 
 And spread broad acres' treasures on the farm, 
 
 Till they, when nurtured well and pushed by fate, 
 
 Aspired the laurels, then to take the state. 
 
 Those wild storms tracked on mountain side and plain, 
 Or heaved the billows, sunk or swelled the main. 
 To fix or lose the record of the strife 
 In ebb and flow of liberty and life. 
 As lost or won in fitful, fearful fray. 
 In gloom or light of that on-speeding day, 
 Crimson with blood; it chilled the life or soul. 
 To see and count the myriads on that roll, 
 As each the centuries in glory led. 
 The blazonry of horrors in the dead — 
 Perchance the bravest and the best the land 
 As offering could give to war's reeking hand, 
 Hurled into splendor of the battle flame 
 To win the power, gold, or doubtful name 
 
LINES ON THE CIVIL WAR 261 
 
 That shrinks or shrivels, wastes from chime to cHme, 
 
 Is strewn to naught by unrelenting time 
 
 Whose work will often bury in the dust 
 
 The transient mold, and then the marble bust — 
 
 A darker history this within the plan 
 
 To build from lesser to the higher man 
 
 Whose better nature only is enwrought 
 
 On stubborn field where priceless gifts are bought, 
 
 And millions of the ages come and go 
 
 In toil and strife to sink, in ebb and flow. 
 
 Beneath the colder, darker wave of fate 
 
 O'er which oblivion casts the veil of state 
 
 Whose gorgeous empire then a fairer flower 
 
 Had hung, in tinsel, in diviner bower. 
 
 Defiant splendor seemed, from early prime, 
 
 To live despite the wasting hand of time, 
 
 Aspired to keep the garland and the crown 
 
 Forgetful nature had predestined frown 
 
 That follows garnish of enraptured bloom 
 
 To desolation that may end in doom. 
 
 Though hope had woven around it the spell 
 
 Such as fairies make in enchanted dell. 
 
 To waste in dreams that lure with visions' bright. 
 
 That glow and dance in radiance of light. 
 
 But who can see all nature in her plan. 
 With gifts co-ordinate her works to scan. 
 To measure, limit, fix, and then define. 
 Exact in marks to trace her every line.^ 
 The errors brand unerring in each fault. 
 And flawless count the treasures in her vault. 
 While others mixed a blend various in hue. 
 With some alike, some more, and some too few. 
 And each and all in poise, so we may trust. 
 Exact the balance and severely just. 
 Correct to-day, to morrow fixed its way 
 As toys are fixed for children at their play.^ 
 
 Is it ours with sublimer art or skill 
 To limit nature in trancendent will. 
 And with the mortal hand to change or bind 
 The working law of an Infinite Mind.^ 
 
262 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 When all was still and dark, who made the earth 
 To rock and reel in pangs of solar birth? 
 Who sped the bolt to pierce and fire the path 
 And shake the world in vengeance of his wrath, 
 When o'er Judea's hills the consecrated light 
 In awful splendor burst on human sight — 
 'Twas there, where once Jehovah's face did shine, 
 A gleam on heaven's own anointed line? 
 Who sent the strife to mingle death and flame 
 And Salem all in ashes piled — save fame? 
 Or Rome with trophies of a captive world. 
 Whose legions proud, with pennons all unfurled. 
 Laid waste the towns and nations, toil of years — 
 No pity melts though fed by founts of tears — 
 Herself to see the fated hand of door 
 That sunk her pride and glory " ^he -^^^ 
 
 The gifts we have we take, -^rave, 
 
 With liberty, the lordship of 
 Ourselves to clear, in natur- 
 And then to mend it with • 
 Forgetful there may be a 1 
 Than runs in sinuous way; 
 And as he eyes with flickc 
 That flashes intermittent c 
 The past and future destin 
 Across the ages, 'tis traced 
 Seen, but seen only on com 
 
 The free, the bond, th 
 Commingling in stains on th" 
 On frescoed walls where godd 
 The flag of liberty o'er a ma" 
 
 Approved by conscience, by U. cate, 
 
 Decreed in nature by oracles o: 
 Won from the depths where th< e led 
 
 To talk to the living as schook dead. 
 
 And fix a permanence in charte- c .., 
 Linking the sun to darkness of the xnght 
 Where brooding, sterner nemesis will wrke 
 And ne'er her thirst for vengeance will she slake. 
 Until the trickling streams of runr' Tg blood 
 Quench it from beakers filled with ^ crimson flood: 
 
LINES ON THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 263 
 
 Nor will vicarious nectar ease the way, 
 
 A sparkling draught, to soothe the dying day; 
 
 For high in air there floats the banner wild. 
 
 As hung the centuries in darkness piled. 
 
 And rooted deep in the soil of human life, 
 
 Defiant, and in passion reckless, rife 
 
 To front the heaving wave whose curling crest 
 
 Would sink to ruin oppressor and oppressed. 
 
 Nor heed the signs that fate had written high, 
 
 That scrolled exaction in full on the sky. 
 
 For wrongs a smiling land had wooed in store, 
 
 Waiting that wave to wash it from her shore. 
 
 Ushered in with the dread knell and dark pall. 
 
 That sounded in iron hail on Sumter's wall. 
 
 The clouds that hung deep and dark on that day, 
 
 Unfringed, unlined wi"" one -^leam of that ray 
 
 Such as we are to!'' 
 
 Shone brightlv 
 
 To hide -' 
 
 And 
 
 .diem tale 
 silver veil 
 ce 
 ful race, 
 day and night 
 ^ight, 
 twin birth 
 iinless earth, 
 d, on high 
 " sky, 
 J in blend, 
 ^;nd, 
 unlay. 
 
 ^L that syl\ 
 Garnished witn 
 That wiles the fai 
 May mix with gifto 
 And summon sprites 
 To change the fairy 
 
 bowers, 
 . rpled flowers, 
 ? mind astray, 
 spirits' play 
 the senses creep 
 of the deep. 
 
 No trophies are e't , , : high and hardly won. 
 And glowing in the bright light of the sun 
 But that they pale in vision of future weal 
 That bears a higher than a human seal. 
 To stay the worse than 'y's work in strife 
 
264 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 And fix In glory worth and wealth of life. 
 
 But on that day, unseen in depths afar 
 
 Was crimson light that told an adverse star 
 
 That sparkled on the waters of the rill, 
 
 To rest a mark high on that crested hill 
 
 And droop in grief as if to tinge the scene 
 
 And hallow the mound in the fringe of green, 
 
 That love hath built above the sacred dust, 
 
 Where they have laid with more than human trust, 
 
 The last of earth, with pain, with hope, and dread. 
 
 In solemn rites — all, all that's left — the dead! 
 
 To rest in faith in that cold, dark deep, 
 
 And waste away the ages as they sleep, 
 
 Unseen, unnoted, the wringing hands and tear. 
 
 Mute sign, a gem, a token to heart most dear; 
 
 The last sad drop we give, affection's moan. 
 
 As we turn from where we leave them alone; 
 
 We crush back a sigh as the light sinks dim 
 
 And darkness closes the cup to the rim. 
 
 A marble shaft with simple words points high. 
 
 Remembrance and a messenger of the sky 
 
 That speaks of others as ours will one day. 
 
 As one by one we drop to pass that way. 
 
 One in that myriad train thus called and passed 
 
 With countless millions, numbered to the last. 
 
 There where no ruder hand should touch or mar 
 
 The ground apart and hallowed by that star. 
 
 No voice should speak in tones of hate and fear 
 
 To break the stillness or oiTend the ear 
 
 And there, beneath the sod, there sleep the dead; 
 
 Above with hurrying step of martial tread. 
 
 Came men in silence strange — no word can tell — 
 
 Dark as a cloud, and like a pall it fell. 
 
 Lengthening the hours in deeper, tenser strain 
 
 Until they covet the dead in their sleepless pain — 
 
 Then awoke to speak in ten score tongues of flame. 
 
 To vie with thunder in its voice and name. 
 
 And word that was told, here and there, to still — 
 
 Deceptive lure — to run along that hill; 
 
 With cannon's open mouth and bated breath 
 
 Waiting to scourge the earth with besom of death — 
 
LINES ON THE CIVIL WAR 265 
 
 They came In lines three fold with valor high, 
 With pride, unconscious, to tempt a fated sky. 
 'Tis done! the dead, the plain, the smoke, a cloud 
 That wept in blood, the night, and dark — a shroud. 
 They fell, to die; and on that gory sod 
 To pass from earth to the empire of God ! 
 
 The life we touch with pleasure and with pain. 
 Its soft, sweet music and its sad refrain, 
 A glowing Image hallowed with joyous tear. 
 Chased by the cold, dark cast of spectral fear 
 That hangs o'er earth, a wreath in vision of light, 
 To wane and shade to drapery of night, 
 Or weaves within us that still stranger spell. 
 To hail the hour of birth and weep the knell; 
 Unsated here we turn to lisp the word, 
 Uncertain list and hope beyond 'tis heard 
 To guide a floral path, in radiance bright 
 Unfolding In rapture on immortal sight 
 And clear to you as that flag in reverse. 
 Drooping to follow in rear of the hearse 
 As silent and slow, with that solemn tread 
 You're borne to the last resting place of the dead — 
 In bliss may it be yours to see from afar. 
 Burning In splendor, the national star 
 And that flag In all its beauty unfurled, 
 Undlmmed in purity to lead the world. 
 
 Lines On Lincoln 
 
 Columbia was proud of her son. 
 Where others failed, there he had won. 
 She wrapped her mantle round his bier, 
 And o'er his grave she dropped a tear. 
 She took from his hand the gift — a scroll. 
 And bore away the sacred roll. 
 'Twas his, his last, his gift to time 
 Of deed heroic and sublime. 
 
266 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 Then high upon the Temple of Fame, 
 Above them all she wrote his name. 
 Like the embodied passions of men, 
 Stalking through each glade and glen 
 To blast and scatter with a breath 
 The seed and the harvest dire of death — 
 This then was war in its ebb and flow, 
 With portents pregnant all of woe. 
 But sweetly, sweetly Lincoln slept, 
 As o'er his corse the soldier wept, 
 And the nation only found relief 
 In tears, from the bitterness of grief. 
 Each hour was freighted with the gloom. 
 As the people gathered around his tomb 
 With tear-wet eyes strained in the night 
 To catch one gleam of electric light 
 Flashing through the clouds of the sky. 
 Like Lincoln the nation might not die. 
 
 Lines 
 
 We bend to-day, a nation in grief. 
 Mourning over her fallen chief, 
 We bend, but not as once in fear 
 We bent o'er Lincoln on his bier. 
 When joy was peeling through the land 
 He fell by the assassin's hand. 
 None knew then what relentless fate 
 Had treasured in misery and hate 
 To turn the Bird of Freedom in its flight 
 To the realms of anarchy and night. 
 Then Grant lived. His was the strong hand 
 That held the sword to guard the land. 
 The heart was full. The light and the fire 
 But gleamed in specter along the wire. 
 (Unfinished) 
 
The Black Man's Complaint 
 
 We are black — it is a sin! Who made us so? 
 Is it fault of ours? The blight is color fixed 
 To us for life. No hope, no chance, and bound 
 By a decree fate will not change, then must 
 We live on with this badge of shame to tell 
 Our tale of woe? Yet we are millions, gifted 
 With elements of manhood — bound to earth 
 By ties we may not break. Is justice dead? 
 Is liberty but a name? The moral law, 
 The laws of nations, laws of religion. 
 To others give a primacy as men, 
 But us except! Why is it so? Who gave 
 The right to wrest from us the chance to fill 
 A niche that nature made? So must we then 
 Not breathe? Must we not eat? Must we not tread 
 The way that nature points? Must others live 
 For themselves, and we only for them? Dead 
 To every use but service? No, the right 
 To us was but a stolen right. Ambush, 
 Feud, war, the slaver's trinkets, tempter's gold. 
 Were the price of our liberty; the chain 
 And lash, our captor's greeting; sea and ship. 
 Our grave or transit. Each alike to us 
 Was Afric's farewell. Kindred, home, the land 
 We loved, the gods we worshipped, all were gone. 
 Totem or fetish, sprite or fairy, each 
 A charm or type of worship, welcomed us 
 To the skies. No grief or tear the slaver's heart 
 E'er touched. Our value was not that of men 
 Or women; only as toil or shame gave them 
 Dollars or pleasure, price for us went up 
 Or down. A meek and inoffensive race, 
 Our hearts were glad for kindness. We were doomed 
 To something else. The hours, the days and years, 
 
 267 
 
268 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 The generations, we gave to bondage have 
 
 Burdened us with a grief we may not tell. 
 
 Had we been warlike, cruel, 'twould not have been. 
 
 Our hands in blood we would have stained — revenge 
 
 Have beckoned us on. Tame to injustice, we sunk 
 
 In degradation. Slaves we lived and slaves 
 
 We died. With scanty garb, cabin of filth, 
 
 And bread but coarse, we were at Master's call. 
 
 His will was law to us. For him the land smiled; 
 
 His house we gave him, acres too; wealth, fame, 
 
 His education, luxury, his ease. 
 
 Refinement, were but fruits of our unpaid 
 
 Toil, and were used but to perpetuate 
 
 His rule. As he used us he grew away 
 
 From us, ungentle and ambitious, threw 
 
 His snare around the white man of the North 
 
 Till he sung the justice and divinity 
 
 Of our enslavement. Blind he seemed to our 
 
 Suffering. Careless of our welfare, he 
 
 Would have us in chains forever. But chains 
 
 They forged for us were chains political 
 
 Of his submission. That did hurt his pride, 
 
 His conscience touched, till voicing liberty 
 
 For himself, he voiced it for us. He wrote 
 
 The charter in the stress of civil war. 
 
 When his blood flowed like rivers on the field 
 
 Of battle, and his treasure poured like rain. 
 
 When storms beat and the battle was on, we 
 
 Stayed by the old plantation, cared for wife 
 
 And child with a fidelity the world 
 
 Admired. We fed the armies whose success 
 
 Would leave us and our children slaves. Yet we 
 
 Looked at the star of the North, for liberty 
 
 We prayed, while healing wounds and tending the sick. 
 
 Our hearts bled in the strife, and when the day came 
 
 That broke our fetters, we felt that the God 
 
 Of war had heard our prayers, given us the boon 
 
 We asked, secured beyond the reach of art 
 
 Or accident, and we could turn our steps 
 
 The way the white man travels; the South owed us 
 
 A blessing we had earned; the North the care 
 
THE BLACK MAN'S COMPLAINT 269 
 
 A ward may need, Untrained, unused to life. 
 
 They gave us help we needed. Of stripes we had 
 
 Enough, of the bloodhound, our fill. We asked 
 
 The peaceful, simple way to life's estate — 
 
 'Twas ours by right of toil in wealth we gave; 
 
 In manhood, ours, in law, by chartered rights. 
 
 We have been warned; in the jungles we have 
 
 Been hunted; we have been killed; we have wept 
 
 At the graves of our kindred; prayed the white 
 
 Man and his God for justice, but to-day 
 
 Our rights are gone, our faces bleached in sin 
 
 Of the white man and on us a blight is 
 
 Settling. Whose hand shall stay it, or brush it 
 
 From us now.^ The white man was born here, but 
 
 His fathers were not. Our fathers were born 
 
 In distant lands — we were born here. This is 
 
 A home, by us unchosen^given to us 
 
 By birth. From it there is but One escape. 
 
 Extinction. Slaves, we were sought, but no hand 
 
 Beckons us as freemen, and no land will give 
 
 Us an asylum. Here then must we stay. 
 
 Is the flag ours.^ Is the constitution ours.^ 
 
 The rights of man, are they ours.^ Must all pass 
 
 From us — we suffer in peace.'' North and South 
 
 Alike, oppressors.^ Makers of wealth, we 
 
 Are counted in the Congress of the nation 
 
 And in the Electoral College against 
 
 Ourselves. Ten millions in the political 
 
 Scales that weigh us ciphers in manhood, will 
 
 The North sell our undoing.^ Rights of others 
 
 In the same charter, sacred will they be. 
 
 When ours are gone.^ Some suffer, restless, till 
 
 Their hour strikes. Swords have been their pens, and dipped 
 
 In ink of crimson tide, they wrote their will 
 
 In freedom's charter, tingeing with its glow 
 
 The ages that come. Is there no chance in life 
 
 Unless won on the field of battle.^ Has peace 
 
 No gifts to light the way.^ The cold, the dead. 
 
 The moldering earth, have marked the path and echoed 
 
 The cry when chains were broken. Requiem 
 
 And song have blent by grave and birth 
 
270 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 Where a race might die or live. Is this the cost 
 
 For us? To sink as serfs, or grow in strength 
 
 As white men grow, and carve to halls of state? 
 
 Long years hath peace and blood alternated 
 
 To dot the world. The weak have felt the hand 
 
 Of iron and sunk away. Others with nerves 
 
 Of steel have climbed the gory steps to fame, 
 
 And left a heritage to crown their race. 
 
 Our fate, who can tell? Peace or degradation 
 
 Or war? In whose hand the gift? Or who's the seer 
 
 To lift the veil that hides the good or ill? 
 
 What e'er is ours we must our loins gird, take 
 
 The proffered hand, and tread the mill of fate. 
 
 General Rusk 
 
 The strife is o'er. Lay him away 
 In the dying hours of an autumn day; 
 Carpet the ground for the solemn tread. 
 And bear him on to the house of the dead; 
 Carve him a bed deep in the earth; 
 Fold in the flag of the land of his birth; 
 Let his comrades the ensign wave 
 As the cannon speaks last at his grave. 
 
 The hand that scrolled in blood on the sky, 
 Beckoning the nation to fight or to die. 
 Kindled the spark waxing bright in the flame 
 That lighted the pathway through carnage to fame, 
 Till thousands gathered from hamlet and lea. 
 He led the van of the North to the sea. 
 And the moan that was heard on the wave 
 Presaged the requiem of foeman's grave. 
 
GENERAL RUSK 271 
 
 There far away in silvery light 
 Rested the guns shotted and bright 
 When the line, as eagles in flight, 
 Seemed to glide up the mountain height. 
 Like phantoms the palisades they pressed 
 Around the works on burning crest, 
 To see in sun's reflected glow 
 The scattered troops in flight below. 
 
 The phosphor glow that lighted the crest 
 Was blush of the morn on the night of the west. 
 The track of war was black on the land 
 Till the serpent was strangled by its iron hand. 
 And the legions trampling the earth as a shroud 
 Hailed with gladness the rent in the cloud 
 That rolled back o'er frosts and afar 
 To vision of the seaman's bright star. 
 
 The vision that spread in the night 
 A baleful film o'er human sight. 
 To lay the corner-stone of state 
 On Afric's weird and burning fate. 
 Saw not in time the fitful loom 
 That plied the thread of coming doom. 
 Nor o'er the dead and beaming afar 
 The hallowed light of the Northern Star. 
 
 No gift of his, by stern decree. 
 Could win the hand of minstrelsy. 
 In war and in the civic strife 
 He gave the purpose of his life, 
 And took from each the meed of fame, 
 To give the roll an honored name. 
 Though marble casement may not tell 
 The nation's Hail! and Fare thee well! 
 
England 
 
 England, thy fraternal smile 
 Fondly greets from sea-girt Isle. 
 Children born beyond the sea 
 Proudly turn and look to thee, 
 Bearing the ark from freedom's hand; 
 Glorious gift, your goodly land. 
 Won in strife by sterling worth. 
 Given your sons by right of birth. 
 
 Other nations take time to trace 
 Doubtful records of their race, 
 Clinging to some root or vine 
 Leading on ancestral line. 
 But we look to Queen of the Seas 
 To whom nations bend their knees 
 When in darkness clouds pass by, 
 No bow of promise arches the sky. 
 
 England, stretched across the strand. 
 Gladly we take the proffered hand. 
 Pressed in nature's tie we drop the past; 
 Throb for throb beat our hearts at last. 
 Affection hath assumed its sway. 
 Brightening each succeeding day. 
 May it shed the purest light 
 That e'er fell on the nation's sight. 
 
 Kansas 
 
 In darkness once lay Kansas land 
 
 Where sunshine burned and hot winds fanned- 
 
 A promised desert turned to waste, 
 
 'Twas thus adjudged in dreary haste, 
 
 Unfit for beast, unfit for man, 
 
 Only to wander, a roving clan. 
 
 With heat to scorch, with blizzards rent — 
 
 In quick succession each was sent. 
 
 272 
 
KANSAS 273 
 
 The curling storm in swifter flight, 
 Kindling in wrath at approach of night, 
 Awoke in travail of its birth, 
 An hour to spin upon the earth, 
 To laugh — a fiend — in fearful trek, 
 A fear before, behind a wreck, 
 Or spurn afar the clouds that fly, 
 Itself to lose within the sky. 
 
 In genius of the man is drift 
 
 To scan the cloud in search of thrift, 
 
 And hail the sign in the far west 
 
 Of promised haven there of rest. 
 
 Where he can dream and pluck to live. 
 
 He sees in nature purpose to give, 
 
 And takes from her thrice generous hand 
 
 The bounties of a fruitful land. 
 
 But she like others makes the test 
 That where he is her burden must rest. 
 And all the glint in sunlight beams 
 She rusts, to soil the fancy's dreams, 
 Or fixes in the type a worm 
 That varies in the cult and form 
 To wake the elements of strife 
 That work to vex and fret the life. 
 
 The arm of iron drove back the hand 
 
 That would fix in law the slave-toiler's brand. 
 
 Turned to steel in passion's fervent heat, 
 
 For sterner conflict there to meet 
 
 The strife and toil of battle grim. 
 
 To taste the cup full to the rim. 
 
 Where screamed the eagle then that flew 
 
 O'er ghastly fields glistening with dew. 
 
 Ungaged was the soft mother earth. 
 Long forming in the mold a worth 
 Ages alone could keep in trust. 
 To give in time, as give it must, 
 
274 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 Treasures unsought, a dream now found, 
 Richer than gold — Aladdin unbound — 
 To fling from dust a pearl of light, 
 Like flash of sun in dead of night. 
 
 Bright grew the vision flecked on the sky. 
 Flush in its beauty, a glow on high, 
 To turn the dial time had hung 
 To tell the hours of night, and flung 
 A veil to hide, as wont of old. 
 In darkness, as a story untold. 
 The gem it screened, of countless worth, 
 And stay the ages that gave it birth. 
 
 Unvalued then was soil of earth. 
 Concealing the mint of its worth; 
 Ungaged the cloud, flooded in tears, 
 To garner in wealth the fleeing years 
 And ring back in music of its chime. 
 All hail! the memory of its prime 
 That chased the dread phantom away 
 And turned to myth the burning ray. 
 
 No gem e'er garnered from the mines. 
 
 Flashing in circlets or in shrines, 
 
 Could tell of wealth it left in store, 
 
 Such as the plains of Kansas bore. 
 
 Or give from fleck or from its gleams. 
 
 Built in the castles of its dreams, 
 
 One tithe the gladness that shone in eyes 
 
 That first saw the light 'neath Kansan skies. 
 
 The warmer sun then fondled, in green 
 To transfigure, a cloud in sheen. 
 The plains unsung and lift on high 
 A moment to hang on the sky. 
 Enmeshed in loom as threads of mist, 
 Broidered and weird as phantoms list 
 To woo and win and promise give 
 Of home where millions yet may live. 
 
KANSAS 275 
 
 The seal was wrought in print of gold 
 And fixed to tracts in fold on fold, 
 In simple fee, traced on that waste 
 Once spurned that grew in finer taste, 
 Where culture, wealth and beauty find 
 The stores and tomes to fill the mind, 
 To win themselves a higher art 
 That builds in life a nobler part. 
 
 'Tis this that's wrought a genius here 
 In varied forms, not cold, austere, 
 But warm and rich, in nature's strife 
 To blend all elements of life. 
 To touch, to taste, to take its charm 
 In weal, to list the luring harm. 
 To then recoil and turn away 
 From dreams of night to clearer day. 
 
 In youth we list the fancy's play 
 And plead a freakish blood astray 
 That's rich in promise — all we ask 
 Is years to steady to the task. 
 The age to give a firmer hold 
 And build a choicer, finer mold 
 With wreaths entwined and gem on gem 
 To stud a possible diadem. 
 
 The fleeting touch of a darker ray 
 Was lost in gleam of sweeter day 
 And music of the years that pass 
 In fullness of glories now en masse. 
 An empire to the world's amaze, 
 And floating like a dream in haze 
 To fill the years and write a name 
 In genius, honor, worth, and fame. 
 
 No flowers in fullness of their bloom. 
 No robes, the richest from the loom. 
 Will deck in beauty or in grace 
 The aspirations of a race 
 
276 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 Whose cloy is easy, self is much — 
 That breaks the worth with longing touch 
 To take the glint that shines afar 
 Unsteady as a pseudo-star. 
 
 The Poet 
 
 'Tis the Poet's right to tread the heath 
 
 To cull the flower and twine the wreath, 
 
 Then sprinkle with consecrated dust 
 
 And fling it round the marble bust. 
 
 Then bend himself to the crude shrine 
 
 Till the stone glows in beauty divine. 
 
 And even the insensate sod 
 
 Echoes to the tread of a god. 
 
 The Idol he treasured at such a cost, 
 
 Yes, it was shattered and 'tis lost 
 
 With its beauty so rich and rare. 
 
 Vanished like a dream on midnight air. 
 
 The years are dead. But as time glides along. 
 
 The Poet lives in music of his song. 
 
 We hear the murmur of the wave and the roar 
 
 On the far away Aegean shore. 
 
 And see the phosphor light on the crest 
 
 As onward it rolls from the East to the West, 
 
 Bringing the treasure of Grecian lore 
 
 An offering on Columbia's fairer shore. 
 
 The Montenegrin 
 
 On the Black Mountains a flag was unfurled 
 To fling its folds o'er heroes of the world; 
 The Montenegrin planted it with his hand, 
 An emblem of his faith and of his land. 
 
 The sturdy rocks that kindly nature piled 
 Have stood uplift, uncleft in storm, and smiled 
 On centuries that slowly glided by 
 And marked them one by one on charts of the sky. 
 
THE MONTENEGRIN 277 
 
 They gathered there, a true and hardy band, 
 With prayers upon their lips, with sword in hand, 
 When signaled from peak to peak the beacon fires 
 On sacred spots as kindled by their sires. 
 
 The Turk had come from the land of the date, 
 Inspiring legions with the voice of fate; 
 They seized the sword and book that Allah gave, 
 The infidel to conquer and to save. 
 
 Thus Cross and Crescent each in deadly hate 
 Was flung above the legions of the state 
 To symbol deeds of vengeance and of strife 
 That marked the tide of battle and the life. 
 
 Stand by your homes, your mountain and your crag. 
 And spurn the chain forged you as slaves to drag. 
 Let others lisp the strain that numbers tell. 
 But no misfortune can your spirits quell. 
 
 The sun of Glory imaged in your prime 
 Must bear no future stain on the roll of time. 
 But leave the shrine above your fathers' grave 
 A heritage that they w^ould die to save. 
 
 Twilight 
 
 There is a spell by nature cast, 
 Inwrought in beauty in the past. 
 To giide down years with magic power, 
 And give to twilight the sweetest hour. 
 
 It comes like a vision soft and pure. 
 
 And steals o'er us when the senses lure, 
 
 Till the dark and sad shall roll away 
 
 Like clouds that dimmed the brightening day. 
 
 It has its charms of crystal light, 
 And flings its veil across the sight, 
 And thus we tread enchanted bowers 
 In pathways strewn only with flowers. 
 
278 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 We muse on the tide that sweeps along 
 And heed but the music of her song 
 She took when nature gave her birth 
 To tread the tinted meads of earth. 
 
 In the stream of time we loose our hold 
 And drift again in human mold. 
 We heard the song she sweetly sings 
 To taste ethereal joys it brings. 
 
 And yet 'tis sweet when memory plays 
 In the gloaming of the by-gone days. 
 Then it is this, though sad to tell, 
 Only this and a long farewell. 
 
 My Angel 
 
 Floating up, a cloud of silver gray, 
 Hanging lightly o'er the earth like spray, 
 Flecked as foam on a wavy crest. 
 Lifting above when the sun had sunk to rest, 
 Decked in purple, with a setting of gold. 
 Studded in gems like frosts of polar cold. 
 
 Winging its way with an airy grace. 
 
 Free to track unmeasured realms of space, 
 
 Yet it seemed to pause in its daring flight. 
 
 Visiting the earth in the stellar night 
 
 To leave a chain with lingering gleams 
 
 Such as tinge the hours of midnight dreams. 
 
 Poised above like a castle in the air 
 
 With a lansdcape beautiful and fair. 
 
 Decked with flow'rets glittering in dew. 
 
 Vanishing each moment then to renew 
 
 Like the bow on the track of the storm in flight. 
 
 Arching in beauty on that semblance of night. 
 
MY ANGEL 279 
 
 It went not alone on its airy way, 
 
 The buffet or sport of the winds at play, 
 
 But it glided on held in its place, 
 
 For its course was watched by an Angel face 
 
 Peering from its folds as ripple of snow, 
 
 Wintry drifts on cruder world below. 
 
 She had dropped on the cloud as it flew 
 And enwreathed in mists her robes of blue, 
 While unsandled she trod the carpet of spray 
 That looked like a fragment of the Milky Way, 
 Studded with the stars that shine like gems 
 Flashing from the costliest diadems. 
 
 Back from the snowy brow her hair was brushed. 
 With a delicate tinge her cheeks were flushed, 
 And her flexile features sweetly in play. 
 Lighted and glowing with eyes of gray. 
 Blending love and intellectual light. 
 Pure as ever flashed from human sight. 
 
 She moved on that cloud with artless grace. 
 She was a Jewel precious and rare. 
 Coined in nature's mint with especial care. 
 The one, the choice of the favored few 
 Weaving in the life the vivid glow 
 Such as we dream in heavenly vistas to flow. 
 
 A Wedding 
 
 When Cupid comes in glee 
 And finds the world at sea. 
 Treads soft the sylvan bower 
 And seeks the choicest Flower, 
 To touch and bend the bow 
 In sheen of silvery glow 
 To aim and speed the dart 
 To pierce a lady's heart. 
 He twines in wreaths the arch, 
 Then plays the wedding march, 
 
28o SHORTER POEMS 
 
 Where we meet to greet the hour 
 Long foretold in Elfin Tower. 
 The groom we greet — the bride 
 In flush of joy and pride! 
 We chase upon the floss, 
 The rice from our hands we toss, 
 Nor fail the shoe to bring — 
 It with a will we fling, 
 Greeting all — in that and this 
 Runs o'er the cup of bliss. 
 
 Lines on Life 
 
 Life is not what it seems — 
 I live again in youthful dreams 
 When Cupid culled the enchanted grove 
 And me a flowery chaplet wove. 
 
 I asked no pledge, I took no seal, 
 For then I felt my senses steal 
 Mysterious in softer thrills. 
 Remembrance now my heart distils. 
 
 The snow that in the crystal drop 
 Is hung again from mountain top. 
 In banners streaming cold and white. 
 Like gleaming frosts of polar night, 
 
 Those flecks are beat and ground and drift 
 
 Until in dust by winds are lift 
 
 And idly floating up away, 
 
 On pinions list the tempest's lay. 
 
 The weft of life my fancy took 
 To fold in leaves a floral book 
 Whereon should fall no drop of rain 
 Its pages to waste or damp or stain. 
 
 I've dropped down from the skies of love 
 As flakes have fallen from above, 
 
LINES ON LIFE 281 
 
 And tossed In storms and strife 
 By cold realities of life. 
 
 And yet shall I as pure as they 
 Be hung again in sunlit day? 
 Or must I see the pages turn 
 The coloring my cheeks shall burn? 
 
 Could then but strike from the dark link 
 One spark that in my soul might sink 
 To well in sympathy and feed 
 To grow, perchance, the plant I need. 
 
 I stooped and drew a glittering prize. 
 To find it writ all o'er with lies! 
 I'd give it all — fling it away— 
 For one glimpse of a brighter day! 
 
 But no! the softer music I must hear 
 'Twere sin for me to listen near, 
 Yet sweeter yearnings of the soul 
 Will wander at times beyond control. 
 
 The Lady of Murany 
 
 The days of chivalry have cast 
 
 A halo o'er an age that's past. 
 
 And made the men of iron frame. 
 
 Begirt in armor, panting for a fame 
 
 That's only won when clouds are red 
 
 And hovering o'er fields of the dead. 
 
 They charged on horse with shield and spear, 
 
 Nor shrunk from death, nor paled in fear. 
 
 But like the savage held in dread 
 
 The name that's dropped on woman's head. 
 
 Its softer luster, purer light 
 
 Once wreathed around a hapless wight. 
 
 Tore from his manhood's brow the stamp 
 
 Of worth and drove him from the camp 
 
 L'nsexed, unfitted for deeds that tell 
 
282 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 On hallowed spots men fought and fell. 
 
 His life was past. No crime could stain 
 
 Like that. 'Twas penalty and pain 
 
 That followed nature's freak to wrest 
 
 From meaner clay the savage breast. 
 
 But woman dared to fling away 
 
 Her sex and mingle in the fray; 
 
 To mount her steed and lead her men 
 
 Through forests and o'er hill and glen, 
 
 As if to reillume the sky 
 
 In glory flashing from her eye, 
 
 Or stand within embattled walls, 
 
 Her banner flung above her halls 
 
 In proud defiance to the clan 
 
 In arms to place her under ban. 
 
 High on this roll of chivalric fame, 
 
 Inscribed by deeds, was Maria's name, 
 
 The Lady of Murany, who sought 
 
 To save the lands once won or bought, 
 
 A gilded castle to defend 
 
 Against the dangers that impend 
 
 When there is heard the clash of steel. 
 
 Where opposing men are made to feel 
 
 That creeds demand that they must tread 
 
 The solemn marches of the dead. 
 
 Around her walls in days of yore 
 
 Had run the streams of human gore. 
 
 While dark specters flitted in sight 
 
 Across the fitful dreams of night 
 
 To hail with song of bracing cheer. 
 
 Or startle with their notes of fear. 
 
 Here thrived both royalty and treason. 
 
 Each uppermost a fitful season. 
 
 And here receive the chart of state 
 
 Or protect the rebel from his fate 
 
 As the one bright vision crossed their line 
 
 Or gleamed the clouds with threatening sign, 
 
 (Unfinished) 
 
Lines on Religion 
 
 Affection's plaint from inspiration's store 
 
 Is culled, a proffered gift, in regal lore 
 
 A gem that's dropped from skies by hands divine, 
 
 Whose luster, light, and warmth shall touch the clime 
 
 Where doubt and darkness gloomy broods have reared, 
 
 To tread in solemn march, like sprites appeared. 
 
 And trail in long, dark lines around the world 
 
 Beneath black bunting as a flag unfurled. 
 
 The furious sin hath harrowed and hath sown 
 
 With suns to raise a crop that's all her own. 
 
 The prophet and the priest the story long 
 
 Have told and bards have reset it in song 
 
 Till 'tis played in air like music of spheres. 
 
 And yet the world, forgetful, never hears 
 
 A brother's cry, if by that brother's hand 
 
 Is borne the standard of an alien land, 
 
 The emblem of a faith that we decry. 
 
 Although it lights for him the way of the sky. 
 
 Each eye hath turned above a mortal's gaze 
 
 And watched the opening heavens all ablaze 
 
 Until the very scroll is seen that God 
 
 Hath writ to tell how holy men have trod 
 
 The treacherous path of sin and shame to shun, 
 
 And followed the lonely track, an only one. 
 
 A'len ever dreamed it thus to go the way 
 
 That leads from night to everlasting day. 
 
 They walk in faith as they have seen and think 
 
 That every man should see the fatal brink, 
 
 All heedless that the luring path they go. 
 
 Perchance, but leads too quick to direst woe. 
 
 In early dawn the men imbibed the thought 
 
 That gods and demons fierce and furious fought, 
 
 So Brahma sends his angels plumed for fight, 
 
 Jehovah strikes to break the league of night 
 
 And Christian loves his millions to inspire 
 
 283 
 

 284 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 And drinks the magic of their martial fire, 
 While Allah, latest born, his prophet sent 
 To preach in peaceful mission, full intent 
 To watch and wait until the hour was rife 
 In promise, to send his angels in the strife. 
 No wonder hordes of men with gods of war 
 Have sniffed in breeze the battles from afar. 
 The days of centuries come and gone have left 
 Their fitful traces in seams that had been rent 
 For blood in rivulets to run and stain 
 With purple coloring nature's fair domain. 
 To earth is linked in lengthened line the sky 
 To bind us all as one in kindred tie. 
 But men in crimson have marked at last the one, 
 While gods above have winked and seen it done. 
 The azure, glorious in blue, their brow 
 Around, reflects a tainted image now. 
 Can man forget the past, wipe it away 
 And usher in the millenial day? 
 Shall Christian drop the cross from fields of fame.^ 
 The Turk no Crescent record or his name.^ 
 I fear we love it now, the world we think 
 So wrong, and would not break for aught the link 
 That's multiplied in endless chain and, through 
 Our fathers' reins, in us uncoiled anew. 
 We cull the texts, we preach, our blood remains 
 Mysterious as flowed along their veins. 
 And wild, barbaric thrills on chords of time 
 We echo, varying in youthful prime, 
 To add, if favored, but one note of song 
 In the mighty current that now drives along. 
 The Russian has his priest to tell of love. 
 That God hath made and sent from realms above. 
 (Unfinished) 
 
 The Reformer's Dream 
 
 Hail, all hail, ye hosts of sin, 
 We gather you, we gather you in. 
 They thought to find in ballots a flaw; 
 
THE REFORMER'S DREAM 285 
 
 Our courts, they made it a law. 
 
 It is decreed the wheels of state 
 
 Shall be oiled by the entrails of fate; 
 
 Tossed on the fire-water's ebb and flow 
 
 We'll fling a line and take you in tow. 
 
 We need you, our burdens are sore 
 
 And now they press us more and more. 
 
 Our debts the saloon is willing to pay 
 
 And keep us straight then day by day. 
 
 Our streets from ruin we will save 
 
 By a tax on i\\q femme du pave. 
 
 The card, the dice, the gambling den. 
 
 Where many men are schooled for the "pen" — 
 
 We'll protect you in your fine trade — 
 
 Who cares for law the cranks have made.^ 
 
 For we who live an honest way, 
 
 We note a failure on each day. 
 
 With Bacchus we will take a turn 
 
 To drop our fingers in his urn. 
 
 And if the Puritan casts a sneer. 
 
 We'll drown it in a mug of beer — 
 
 Our fathers drank and gambled, they say. 
 
 We will follow the good old way 
 
 And tax those husky children of men 
 
 For what their fathers before have been. 
 
 Whatever then has addled our brain. 
 
 We must not seek for glory in vain. 
 
 We hear the revels and see the light 
 
 Whose gleams flash out upon the night; 
 
 Will no compunction o'er us steal 
 
 From music of that midnight reel 
 
 W^here honor dies and virtue is sold 
 
 To fill our mints with lumps of gold.^ 
 
 No visions when we figure in sin 
 
 To haunt us — we weary of the din — 
 
 No conscience to ring down the call. 
 
 We lure the steps of others to fall.^ 
 
 No sigh at the dying refrain 
 
 Where manhood is bartered for gain.^ 
 
 Alone shall we linger at the gate — 
 
 The last look, the last words, too late! 
 
286 SHORTER POEMS 
 
 And fed from the foam not a fleck 
 Is on us from the remains of the wreck? 
 We hear the mother's broken sigh, 
 And listen to the infant's cry; 
 For on our being they will trace 
 With a burning iron their disgrace. 
 Our fathers listened to the tread 
 Of ghosts of the unhonored dead. 
 At night they come out in the gloom, 
 In silence circle round the tomb. 
 Recruiting from the inebriate dead 
 To march, ice-cold, across our bed. 
 As their eyeless sockets seem to blink 
 With nod and leer they take a drink. 
 Chilled we see the ghastly file 
 Marching out to their lonely Isle, 
 And the last shroud in phosphor light 
 Reeling away in darkness of night. 
 
 Lines on Politics 
 
 (These lines were written in connection with the Populist wave that swept over 
 Kansas some years ago.) 
 
 Turn backward, oh. Time, in thy flight 
 
 And make me populist at sight. 
 
 The long years schooled to thy beat 
 
 Turn in wild rout a world's defeat, 
 
 The wisdom of ages break as a fleck 
 
 And scatter in fragments, a wreck. 
 
 For years have spun in the wrong 
 
 To sink in darkness the heralds of song, 
 
 And o'er the pangs of the old earth 
 
 Flung as a pall the chaos of birth. 
 
 And works of the Infinite I scan 
 
 Pale to the wisdom of newer man 
 
 Whose knowledge beyond the primal source, 
 
 Nature will lead in a truer course. 
 
LINES ON POLITICS 287 
 
 Oh Time! we loved thee in the years so bright, 
 
 Shining in the sun's diviner light, 
 
 And thank thee thou hast given us to see 
 
 The contrast on the hallowed lea, 
 
 And ne'er had dreamed thou hadst used us so sore. 
 
 But now we tell thee we need thee no more, 
 
 And for thy sins thy last trail of light 
 
 We'll hail as it sinks in the night. 
 
 In gladness transformed we feel not as of yore, 
 
 But live in treasures of populist lore. 
 
 As fancy lures us, as a child, on the plain 
 
 To build in splendor our castles of Spain, 
 
 For we know they will grant from "peoples" den 
 
 More than the dream of the prophet's ken. 
 
 And turn us a halo in newer birth. 
 
 Brighter than e'er gilded the fated earth, 
 
 And we view the saints high on the mount, 
 
 As we number them — on our fingers we count — 
 
 On the trail of that ill gotten wealth 
 
 Hunted or sought in the purloin of stealth. 
 
 And ambition, that weird sister of fate. 
 
 Smiling so sweetly, beckons from halls of state — 
 
 Twin relics of that lost and baser world^ — 
 
 I saw them as from the rugged top hurled 
 
 Down into that dark and deepening abyss. 
 
 They might not come to our world of bliss, 
 
 And yet me-thought I saw a thread 
 
 Spun from us down the festering dead. 
 
 But I fear it is wrong to tell 
 
 The strange workings of its magic spell. 
 
 Like that comes from nether realms so hot 
 
 To link us lost — humanity's lot! 
 
 A moment this dark ray on the range, 
 
 A glint in heaven so pure, and strange 
 
 It comes, a mar on beatific light 
 
 To haunt our fancy — a speck on the sight, 
 
 And curious, it speaks that our boast 
 
 Is the old form of the dance of the Ghost! 
 
314-77-9