vast, mystic dawn of life he sings in the name of humanity. "I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I am an encloser of things to be. "My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs; On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps; All below duly travell'd and still I mount and mount. "Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me: Afar down I see the huge first Nothing--I know I was even there; I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon. "Long I was hugg'd close--long and long. "Immense have been the preparations for me, Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me. Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen; For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings, They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. "Before I was born out of my mother, generations guided me; My embryo has never been torpid--nothing could overlay it. "For it the nebula cohered to an orb, The long slow strata piled to rest it on, Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care. "All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight me; Now on this spot I stand with my robust Soul." Not in vain have they pierced space as well as time and found "a vast similitude interlocking all." "I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems, And all I see, multiplied as high as I can cypher, edge but the rim of the farther systems. "Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding, Outward, and outward, and for ever outward. "My sun has his sun, and round him obediently wheels, He joins with his partners a group of superior circuit, And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside them. "There is no stoppage, and never can be stoppage; If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces, were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would not avail in the long run; We should surely bring up again where we now stand, And as surely go as much farther--and then farther and farther." Not in vain for him have they penetrated into the substances of things to find that what we thought poor, dead, inert matter is (in Clerk Maxwell's words) "a very sanctuary of minuteness and power where molecules obey the laws of their existence, and clash together in fierce collision, or grapple in yet more fierce embrace, building up in secret the forms of visible things"; each stock and stone a busy group of Ariels plying obediently their hidden tasks. "Why! who makes much of a miracle? As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, * * * * *