TIME
WHAT thought can measure Time?—
Tell its beginning, name
The void from which it first, faint-pulsing, came?—
Follow its onward going,—
A restless river without tumult flowing,—
Or with sure footing climb
Unto its unlit altitudes sublime?
What thought can trace the wonders it hath seen—
Time, the creator of all that hath been,
Giver of bounty where was dearth,
Bringer of miracles to birth:
Time, through whose office is the seedling sown,
The fruit up-gathered, the ripe harvest mown,
And beauty made to glorify the earth?
Before the land took shape and rose
Black and chaotic from the old, old sea,
Before the stars their courses chose,
Before the moon's most ancient memory,
Time to Earth's vision, veiled in night, appears
Back of the viewless cycles of the years.
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