O imperturable and silent years,
That reck not all the riot of our time
Whose fevered feet, with inharmonious rhyme,
Royster around thy high phantasmal tiers!
How mean our mockings of the silent seers
To read the riddle of th’ Eternal Soul!
We list’ the thundering life within thy bole,
And count the hidden harvest that anears,
And dream our dreams, and smile to see them wrecked!
Oh, vain insurgence on the unrevealed:
Enough to map the paths our fathers tracked
Not, mother-like, kiss yet the face concealed.
Age ages not the elemental law,
And we are thou in hope, thou we anew,
And still beneath are depths whence Shakspere drew,
And still above are stars that Milton saw!
Somewhat of Autumn’s splendour round her lies;
Yet deem not thou ’tis preface of her death,
For there is that within her heart which saith
This word that buds and blossoms in her eyes:—
“Reck not the portent of the season’s skies,
Nor deem yon darkling clouds aught but a breath
Sundrawn from half a world that offereth
Its votive incense to the year that flies.”
The hand that bevels down the shortening day
Is one with that which quickens leaf and wing,
So prophecy of pregnance in decay
Thou hast, and in thine Autumn germs of Spring;
To vindicate these lips, that late have said:
“They dreamed a lie who deemed thee wholly dead!”
FOOTNOTE:
...Put a Girdle round the earth
In forty minutes.