Where are the roses of the years, Ere Mother Eve knew mother's cares? Where is the clang of Tubal-Cain's First brass, and where are Jubal's strains? Where is the rainbow Noah saw And heard a law, or thought a law? The rainbow fades, the beauty lives; The creature falls, the race survives. ...*...*...*...* They tell us that the brain is mind, Or the mind enters through the brain, Even as light that is confined And colored by the window pane. The act is fashioned by the head, And thus man does or cannot do; Through the red glass the light is red. Through the blue glass the light is blue. They do not urge their world-machine To sounder progress, nor explain The difficulties that were seen And felt before--pray what _is_ brain? All undiscoverable, how Can they resolve the Whence or Why Man grew to being in the Now, Or what is his Futurity. ...*...*...*...* Down the world's steep, dread abysmal, Icy as Spitzbergen's coast, Through the night hours, long and dismal, Ghost is calling unto ghost; Crushed is every fairer promise, And the good is taken from us; Sorrow adds to former sorrow, And, with every new to-morrow, Some expected joy is lost. But I will not shrink nor murmur. Though a spectre leads me on; Now I set my footsteps firmer, Face me now, thou skeleton! Trance me with thy fleshless eyeholes-- But I move to other viols Than the rattling of thy bones, As we tread the crazy stones, For I see the risen sun. With my face behind my shadow Thrown before the risen sun, Life I follow o'er the meadow, And an angel thrusts me on. Every little flower below me Seems to see me, seems to know me; Every bird and cloud above me Seems (or do I dream?) to love me, While the Angel thrusts me on. Where the turf is softest, greenest, Does that Angel thrust me on; Where the landscape lies serenest In the journey of the sun. I shall pass through golden portals With him, to the wise Immortals, And behold the saints and sages Who outshone their several ages, For an Angel thrust them on. ...*...*...*...* The poem of the Universe Nor rhythm has, nor rhyme; Some god recites the wondrous song, A stanza at a time. Great deeds he is foredoomed to do, With Freedom's flag unfurled, Who hears the echo of that song, As it goes down the world. Great words he is compelled to speak, Who understands the song; He rises up like fifty men-- Fifty good men and strong. A stanza for each century! Now, heed it, all who can, Who hears it, he, and only he, Is the elected man. ...*...*...*...*