Processional

Universes are the pages

Of that book whose words are ages;

Of that book which destiny

Opens in eternity.

There each syllable expresses

Silence; there each thought a guess is;

In whose rhetoric's cosmic runes

Roll the worlds and swarming moons.

There the systems, we call solar,

Equatorial and polar,

Write their lines of rushing light

On the awful leaves of night.

There the comets, vast and streaming,

Punctuate the heavens’ gleaming

Scroll; and suns, gigantic, shine,

Periods to each starry line.

There, initials huge, the Lion

Looms and measureless Orion;

And, as‘ neath a chapter done,

Burns the Great-Bear's colophon.

Constellated, hieroglyphic,

Numbering each page terrific,

Fiery on the nebular black,

Flames the hurling zodiac.

In that book, o'er which Chaldean

Wisdom pored and many an eon

Of philosophy long dead,

This is all that man has read:—

He has read how good and evil,—

In creation's wild upheaval,—

Warred; while God wrought terrible

At foundations red of Hell.

He has read of man and woman;

Laws and gods, both beast and human;

Thrones of hate and creeds of lust,

Vanished now and turned to dust.

Arts and manners that have crumbled;

Cities buried; empires tumbled:

Time but breathed on them its breath;

Earth is builded of their death.

These but lived their little hour,

Filled with pride and pomp and power;

What availed them all at last?

We shall pass as they have past.

Still the human heart will dream on

Love, part angel and part demon;

Yet, I question, what secures

Our belief that aught endures?

In that book, o'er which Chaldean

Wisdom pored and many an eon

Of philosophy long dead,

This is all that man has read.