Our thoughts, now half stunned, fly back across unthinkable starless intervals, back like a magnet to the phosphorescent gleam which is ours in the boundless ocean in which a universe is but a gleam. Nearer—nearer—nearer—the gleam has softened to a touch of mist, the mist has expanded to a definite shape studded with stars which are brightening, and widening apart. Now the shape has become an ethereal form, and before us rises a marvelous creation. As seen from this outer point, our Galaxy is neither a ring nor a wreath but is formed of huge spirals which reach far outward into the heavens. This cathedral of light, whose "lace-work" is of suns, covers an area so magnificent that a beam of light traveling 6,000,000,000,000 miles a year would require some 300,000 years to cross it! Around a modest, medium-sized star in the central cluster of this overwhelming and heroic structure, whirls a tiny planet named Earth, and on this Earth, the infinitesimal human being named Man, whose questioning mind thus flies from star to star.
That world of worlds His arm the Almighty wound;
The bright immensity He raised, and pressed,
All trembling, like a babe, unto His breast.
Thus always cherish ye, or all were vain—
Ye all would drop into your native void,
If by my hand ye were not held and buoyed.
To guide a sunbeam or create a sun—
To rule ten thousand thousand worlds or none.
Go, worlds! said God, but learn, ere ye depart,
My favored temple is an human heart;"
—Festus, Philip James Bailey.
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