As through the portal dark I gazed, close hid:

L

E’en like as one who sits expectant, dumb,

At gaze before some world’s proscenium,

When rolls the curtain from the painted stage,

To see life’s play,—Past, Present, and To Come;

LI

The drama of the earth before me rolled,

The war of good and evil, new and old,

The fight for very life, for space, for air,