4 8 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



In the great ocean of immensity, 

 Whose light, now reaching me across a space 

 Too vast for thought, commenc'd its viewless flight 

 Ere I had life, swift coursing through the years, 

 Through ancient time, through space abysmal, till 

 It cometh now where I (and what am I 

 In such a giddy dance of burning suns 

 And flaming systems ?) stand upon the earth, 

 And see the Past while living in the Now — 

 The star-clouds ! yea, and e'en this child of light, 

 That like a star adorns this bit of rock, 

 Are one with thee, great Mother of us all. 



The dewdrop and the sun have giv'n it life 

 In shady hollows where the dewdrop lies 

 Shy of his secret visits. Yet, 'tis thine. 

 'Tis thine as I am thine. It shares thy life, 

 This little thing that folds its tiny leaves 

 Against the drought of summer, and outspreads 

 Its beauty to the light when the chill wind 

 Distils the rain, or studs its leaves with frost. 

 'Tis anchor'd on a crystal. It is held 

 By crimson cables. Sheathing leaves arise 

 And hide each other's beauty, and I see 

 Not all I would. The cells are hidden here ; 

 But here, in checkered rows within a leaf, 

 With splendour shine a hundred tiny spheres 

 Dyed with the rainbow's green. 'Tis very young. 

 Its love-days are not yet. Its leaves are five ; 

 Five only, as I count their threadlike tips 

 One o'er the other rising. He shall know, 

 Who named it a cathedral, I have seen 

 And stay'd to worship, where the infinite 

 Goes inward till 1 stagger at the thought 

 Of matter still divisible within 

 The atom's bound. This little plant is one ; 

 One only ; all alone ; no fellow near. 

 Ten thousand millions mass'd upon a rock, 

 Close set as in a forest, might attract 

 The traveller's eye ; and then might he remark 

 " The rocks are green," and with a giant's stride 

 Incurious pass on. What mortal eye can see 



