Classic Poem

I muse and read, from day to day,
Of human thought's far-widening sway.
Its gradual exodus I note
From shadowy periods remote.

I see false faiths in ruin lie,
Whose thronging towers once cleft the sky.
I mark, amid the past's renown,
Colossal bigotries flung down!

And yet from history's feeblest youth
I watch in joy how deathless truth
Has striven to make, with stoic breast,
Her immortality manifest!

And now, since they that love her strive
To strip the last barbaric gyve
Off limbs that such rude furrows mar, —
A century's pain in every scar, —

At length from her glad lips may fall
Some holy oracle to appall;
Some priceless utterance that shall cause
A world to tremble with applause!...

Moments are mine when heaven's blue scope
Seems throbbing with mysterious hope,
And earth's great circuit seems to less
Thrilled by miraculous presages!

I seem to hear, on each new breeze,
Vague yet stupendous prophecies...
Deep awe possesses me...I feel
Stanch reason impotently reel...

Where Science flies, with robes that shine,
Afar on embassies divine,
Dare we to dream her foot will press
Eternity's unknowableness?

Dare we to dream her hand will lay
Finality as bare as day,
And bring, for all dark doubts that brood,
Some lovely and mighty certitude?

Ah, who shall say?...The immense age waits;
Veiled are the faces of the fates;
While all things bode, in dread portent,
Some luminous and sublime event!