When the storm rack pales in the lightning’s glare,
Or the starlight sleeps in the sleeping sea,
We send our greeting through breathless space,
To our distant cousins, the nebulæ,
And catch in the comet’s misty trace,
But a drifting leaf from the tribal tree.
The song we hum is but one faint sound
In the hymn which echoes from pole to pole,
Which fills the domes of creation’s round,
And catches its key from the over-soul.