The waving censer drops to earth—and lo!
The king of men, the ruler, girt with mirth,
Trembles before a shadow! Say not so!
—The child of dust, with guilt’s foreboding sight,
Shrinks from the dread Unknown, the avenging Infinite!
“But haste ye!—bring Chaldea’s gifted seers,
The men of prescience! Haply to their eyes,
Which track the future through the rolling spheres,
Yon mystic sign may speak in prophecies.”
They come—the readers of the midnight skies,