Egypt's adopted child might tell of lore They taught him underground in shrines all dim, And of the live tame reptile gods that wore Gold anklets on their feet. And after him, With fairest eyes ere met of mortal ken, Glorious, forgiven, might speak the mother of men. Talk of her apples gather'd by the marge Of lapsing Gihon. 'Thus one spoke, I stood, I ate.' Or next the mariner-saint enlarge Right quaintly on his ark of gopher wood To wandering men through high grass meads that ran Or sailed the sea Mediterranean. It might be common--earth afforested Newly, to follow her great ones to the sun, When from transcendent aisles of gloom they sped Some work august (there would be work) now done. And list, and their high matters strive to scan The seekers after God, and lovers of man, Sitting together in amity on a hill, The Saint of Visions from Greek Patmos come-- Aurelius, lordly, calm-eyed, as of will Austere, yet having rue on lost, lost Rome, And with them One who drank a fateful bowl, And to the unknown God trusted his soul. The mitred Cranmer pitied even there (But could it be?) for that false hand which signed O, all pathetic--no. But it might bear To soothe him marks of fire--and gladsome kind The man, as all of joy him well beseemed Who 'lighted on a certain place and dreamed.' And fair with the meaning of life their divine brows, The daughters of well-doing famed in song; But what! could old-world love for child, for spouse, For land, content through lapsing eons long? Oh for a watchword strong to bridge the deep And satisfy of fulness after sleep. What know we? Whispers fall, '_And the last first, And the first last._' The child before the king? The slave before that man a master erst? The woman before her lord? Shall glory fling The rolls aside--time raze out triumphs past? They sigh, '_And the last first, and the first last._' Answers that other, 'Lady, sister, friend, It is enough, for I have worshipped Life; With Him that is the Life man's life shall blend, E'en now the sacred heavens do help his strife. There do they knead his bread and mix his cup, And all the stars have leave to bear him up. Yet must he sink and fall away to a sleep, As did his Lord. This Life his worshipped Religion, Life. The silence may be deep, Life listening, watching, waiting by His dead, Till at the end of days they wake full fain Because their King, the Life, doth love and reign. I know the King shall come to that new earth, And His feet stand again as once they stood, In His man's eyes will shine Time's end and worth The chiefest beauty and the chiefest good, And all shall have the all and in it bide, And every soul of man be satisfied. THE BEGINNING.