APPENDIX 407 



Should for some few years be a vocal man, 



Then turn to inarticulate dust again ? 



Look up. "Tis night. The ceaseless caravan 



Of stars innumerous across the plain 



Of heaven, we know not whence, we know not whither, 



In long continuous procession strain. 



Add glasses to your aching eyes, and wither 



The sense of seeing with perpetual toil : 



In those faint films a million globes together 



Stream onward ; deep by deep the skies recoil ; 

 And all the unpeopled gulfs with suns are rife. 

 Then ere your spirit falters, trim the oil 



In midnight lamps ; peruse the hidden strife 

 One drop of water, like a mimic world, 

 Constrains within its sphere ; the throbbing strife, 



The palpitating blood-beats. Life is hurled 

 Hither and thither reckless on the tide 

 Of Being : yet the basest worm encurled 



Within a tortured sinew hath not died 

 Save by some dread immutable decree. 

 Life's continuity no flaws divide, 



Nor lapse, nor languor. On the restless sea, 

 Whereof our souls are waves a little while, 

 There is no room for death : it cannot be. 



Here cease ; aspire no more ; seek not to pile 

 Dust of delusion on your heart's despair. 

 Faith, Instinct, Science, Hope, can but beguile 



Your ignorance with guesses light as air. 

 It may be, is your limit. Life may be 

 But Thought, your Thought, the terrible 



:e may oe 



the terrible and fair, 



Clasping the universe inviolably ; 

 And you, victorious in the overthrow 

 Of all that clogs and cramps mortality, 



May be as God. Him, knowing not, we know : 

 Him from the blackness of our self's abyss 

 We cry to, when the shadows round us grow. 



This hope is yours ; but ah, you know not this ! 



