166
A PASSING YEAR.
"I passed yon radiant crowd
Of constellations, and there knelt beside
The Cross upon whose like a God has bowed;
I met the mourning Pleiades, and cried
To their lost sister in the unanswering tide
Of night; I struck weird music from the Lyre,
And humbled old Orion's sullen pride,
Who leaned against his scimitar of fire,
And, with submissive reverence and mute,
Acknowledged my imperious salute.
Of constellations, and there knelt beside
The Cross upon whose like a God has bowed;
I met the mourning Pleiades, and cried
To their lost sister in the unanswering tide
Of night; I struck weird music from the Lyre,
And humbled old Orion's sullen pride,
Who leaned against his scimitar of fire,
And, with submissive reverence and mute,
Acknowledged my imperious salute.
"Look, look—for all his deeds
Must pass before the sight of him who dies;
Mine crowd the infinite spaces—but man needs
Not to be told of those whose scenery lies
Beyond the bounds he knows, for his dim eyes
See but the things I have around him wrought;
He will not hear the dirge that soon must rise
For me in all the myriad realms his thought
May visit only by the hazy route
That glimmers round the reeling sails of Doubt.
Must pass before the sight of him who dies;
Mine crowd the infinite spaces—but man needs
Not to be told of those whose scenery lies
Beyond the bounds he knows, for his dim eyes
See but the things I have around him wrought;
He will not hear the dirge that soon must rise
For me in all the myriad realms his thought
May visit only by the hazy route
That glimmers round the reeling sails of Doubt.
"The shadow of his world,
Like a dark canvas spread before me seems:
There hides the hermit West, with cataracts whirled
Among the rocks, watching their foamy beams;
Like a dark canvas spread before me seems:
There hides the hermit West, with cataracts whirled
Among the rocks, watching their foamy beams;
