Beneath the spandrils of the Way,
World's roll'd to-night--from night to day;
In space's ocean Suns were spray.
Group'd world's, eternal eagles, flew;
Swift comets fell like noiseless dew,
Young earths slow budded in the blue.
The waves of space inscrutable,
With awful pulses rose and fell--
Silent and godly--terrible.
Electric souls of strong Suns laid,
Strong hands along the awful shade
That God about His God-work made.
Ever from all ripe worlds did break,
Men's voices, as when children speak,
Eager and querulous and weak.
And pierc'd to the All-worker thro'
His will that veil'd Him from the view
"What hast thou done? What dost thou do?"
And ever from His heart did flow
Majestical, the answer low--
The benison "Ye shall not know!"
The wan ghost on the Hell-way sped,
Nor yet Valhalla's lights were shed
Upon the white brow of the Dead.
Nor sang within his ears the roll
Of trumpets calling to his soul;
Nor shone wide portals of the goal.
His spear grew heavy on his breast,
Dropp'd, like a star his golden crest;
Far, far the vast Halls of the Blest!
His heart grown faint, his feet grown weak,
He scal'd the knit mists of a peak,
That ever parted grey and bleak.
And, as by unseen talons nipp'd,
To deep Abysses slowly slipp'd;
Then, swift as thick smoke strongly ripp'd.
By whirling winds from ashy ring,
Of dank weeds blackly smoldering,
The peak sprang upward a quivering
And perdurable, set its face
Against the pulsing breast of space
But for a moment to its base.
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