THE AWAKENING

THE steam, the reek, the fume, of prayer

Blown outward for a million years,

Becomes a mist between the spheres,

And waking Sentience struggles there.

Prayer still creates the boon we pray;

And gods we've hoped for, from those hopes

Will gain sufficient form one day

And in full godhood storm the slopes

Where ancient Chaos, stark and gray,

Already trembles for his sway.

When that the restless worlds would fly

Their wish created rapid wings,

But not till aeons had passed by

With dower of many idler things;

And when dumb flesh demanded speech

Speech struggled to the lips at last;—

Now the unpeopled Void, and vast,

Clean to that uttermost blank beach

Whereto the boldest thought may reach

That voyages from the vaguest past —

( Dim realm and ultimate of space ) —

Is vexed and troubled, stirs and shakes,

In prescience of a god that wakes,

Born of man's wish to see God's face!

The endless, groping, dumb desires,—

The climbing incense thick and sweet,

The lovely purpose that aspires,

The wraiths of vapor wing'd and fleet

That rise and run with eager feet

Forth from a myriad altar fires:

All these become a mist that fills

The vales and chasms nebular;

A shaping Soul that moves and thrills

The wastes between red star and star!