Before the first new dust of dream God took For making man and hope and love and graves Had kindled to its fate. Before the floods Had folded round the hills. Before the rainbow Born of cloud had taught the sky its tints, The Lightning Minstrel was. The cry of Vague To Vague. The Chaos-voice that rolled and crept From out the pale bewildered wonder-stuff That wove the worlds, Before the Hand had stirred that touched them, While still, hinged on nothing, Dim and shapeless Things And clouds with groping sleep upon their wings Floated and waited. Before the winds had breathed the breath of life Or blown from wastes of Space To Earth's creating place, The souls of seeds And ghosts of old dead stars, The Lightning Spirit willed Their feet with wonder should be thrilled. --Primal fire of all desire That leaps from men to men, Brother of Suns And all the Glorious Ones That circle skies, He flashed to these The night that brought the birth, The vision of the place And raised his awful face To all their glittering crowds, And cried from where It lay --A tiny ball of fire and clay In swaddling clothes of clouds, "Behold the Earth!" * * * * * * * * * * Oh heavenly feet of The Hot Cloud! Bringer Of the garnered airs. Herald of the shining rains! Looser of the locked and lusty winds from their misty caves. Opener of the thousand thousand-gloried doors twixt heaven And heaven and Heaven's heaven. Oh thou whose play Men make to do their work (_Why do their work?_) --And call from holidays of space, sojourns Of suns and moons, and lock to earth (_Why lock to earth?_) * * * * * That the Dead Face may flash across the seas The cry of the new-born babe be heard around A world. Ah me! and the click of lust And the madness and the gladness and the ache Of Dust, Dust! AN ODE TO THE TELEGRAPH WIRES. THE SONG THE WORLD SANG LAYING THE ATLANTIC CABLE The mortal wires of the heart of the earth I sing, melted and fused by men, That the immortal fires of their souls should fling To eaves of heaven and caves of sea, And God Himself, and farthest hills and dimmest bounds of sense The flame of the Creature's ken, The flame of the glow of the face of God Upon the face of men.