With us back untold periods they trace
The issuing of the common race,
And one with us to-day they too embark
With each new moment as upon the crest
Of time's great tidal wave
Down the amazing venture of the next
Invisible moment, even as we, perplexed,
With us still humanly brave
To affront the unimagined, self-possessed.
The fellowship of mystery is ours,
The confraternity of nakedness,
Huddling together in the cosmic cold
No bond we hold
Like that of earth's duress
And common awe before the blank that lowers,
The mute Before and the unanswering After,
The fiendish laughter
Of all the mindless powers
And wild insensate storms that with their lulls and swellings
Rave round our human dwellings.
Illiterate or scholar, Celt or Slav,
No tie we have
As when we stand before the enigmatic grave.
Their ill is ours;
Life in all creatures suffers violence,
Existence is attainted in the scourge,
Night gains upon the light-redeemèd hours.
Our lives so merge
With all who share the dower of sentience
Their pain reverberates through the universal sense
And wakes far-prompted spasms
Of unaccountable pain,
Even as their distant triumphs move obscure enthusiasms,
The swift contagion of their spiritual plague
Breeds in us nostalgias vague
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