Classic Poem

Who first brought man the morning dream
Of a world's hero? Whence the gleam
Which grew to glory full and sweet,
As the wide wealth of waving wheat
Springs from one grain of corn?
What drew the spirits of earth's grey prime
To lean out from their tower of time
Tow'rd the small sound of Hope's far chime
Heard betwixt night and morn?

First it was sung by heaven; then scrolled
By the scribe-stars on leaves of gold
In that long-buried book of Seth,
Which slept a secret deep as death,
Unknown to men forlorn,
Till a seer touched a jasper lid
In a sand-sunken pyramid,
And out the oracular secret slid,
Betwixt the night and morn.
Zarathustra, Bactria's king, next said:
" When in the sky's blue garden-bed
A lily-petalled star shall fold
A human shape, the gift foretold
Shall blossom and be born:
Then shall the world-tides flow reversed,
New gods shall rise, the last be first,
And the best come from out the worst,
As night gives birth to morn. "