To law material, immutable—
That Power immense, mysterious, intense,
Unseen as our own souls, but which must be
Like them the home of thought, with will and might
To stamp on mindless matter the soul's will.
Yea, in these souls of ours triumphant dwells
Some segment of the large creative Power—
A thing beyond the things of sight and sense;
A strength to think, a force to conquer force.
One are we with the ever-living One."
DESTINY
(AFTER READING A WORK ON ASTRONOMY)
I see it all; my soul the dregs hath drunk
Of man's last, helpless, hopeless destiny;
Born of the primal ooze, where slow light sunk,
And climbing to the secrets of the sky;
Through countless million years the spiral mounts
Till nature, a companionable slave,
Bows to man's bidding; lo, then, the deep founts
Run gradual dry, earth turns its own chill grave:
The insatiate desert marches on the sown,
The sea exhales, the very air is gone,
And, gasping in the silent void, the race
Dies with the planet.—But not this the doom
Of man's outlooking soul; that hath no tomb,
Being quenchless as the law and lord of space.
THE OLD FAITH
On that old faith I will take hold once more—
Now that the long waves bear me to the shore
And life's brief voyage is o'er;
