Shall that bright flower the countless ages toiled And travailed to bring forth--shall that rare rose, Whose bloom and fragrance earth and heaven unclose Their treasuries to enrich, by death be foiled? Its matchless splendour trampled down and spoiled? Shall that Celestial Love--who watched its throes Through centuries of long struggles and of...Learn More

All honor to that keen Promethean soul Who caught the prismic hues of Jove and Mars, And from the glances of the dædal stars, And from the fiery sun, the secret stole That all are parts of one primeval Whole, -- One substance beaming through Creation's bars Consent and peace, amid the chemic wars Of gases and of atoms. Yonder roll The planets;...Learn More

O solemn portal, veiled in mist and cloud, Where all who have lived throng in, an endless line, Forbid to tell by backward look or sign What destiny awaits the advancing crowd; Bourne crossed but once with no return allowed: Dumb, spectral gate, terrestrial yet divine; Beyond whose arch all powers and fates combine, Pledged to divulge no secrets of...Learn More

With streaming pennons, scorning sail and oar, With steady tramp and swift revolving wheel, And even pulse from throbbing heart of steel, She plies her arrowy course from shore to shore. In vain the siren calms her steps allure; In vain the billows thunder on her keel; Her giant form may toss and rock and reel And shiver in the wintry tempest's...Learn More

In boyhood's days we read with keen delight How young Aladdin rubbed his lamp and raised The towering Djin whose form his soul amazed, Yet who was pledged to serve him day and night. But Gutenberg evoked a giant sprite Of vaster power, when Europe stood and gazed To see him rub his types with ink. Then blazed Across the lands a glorious shape of...Learn More

If death be final, what is life, with all Its lavish promises, its thwarted aims, Its lost ideals, its dishonoured claims, Its uncompleted growth? A prison wall, Whose heartless stones but echo back our call; An epitaph recording but our names; A puppet-stage where joys and griefs and shames Furnish a demon jesters' carnival; A plan without a...Learn More

In the old void of unrecorded time, In long, slow aeons of the voiceless past, A seed from out the weltering fire-mist cast Took root--a struggling plant that from its prime Through rudiments uncouth, through rock and slime, Grew, changing form and issue--and clinging fast, Stretched its aspiring tendrils--till at last Shaped like a spirit it began...Learn More

Beyond the low marsh-meadows and the beach, Seen through the hoary trunks of windy pines, The long blue level of the ocean shines. The distant surf, with hoarse, complaining speech, Out from its sandy barrier seems to reach; And while the sun behind the woods declines, The moaning sea with sighing boughs combines, And waves and pines make answer,...Learn More

Fleeter than time, across the Continent, Through unsunned ocean depths, from beach to beach, Around the rolling globe Thought's couriers reach. The new-tuned earth like some vast instrument Tingles from zone to zone; for Art has lent New nerves, new pulse, new motion -- all to each, And each to all, in swift electric speech Bound by a force...Learn More

The small enlarged, the distant nearer brought To sight, made marvels in a denser age. But Science turns with every year a page In the enchanted volume of her thought. The wizard's wand no longer now is sought. Yet with a cunning toy the Archimage May hear from Rome Vesuvius' thunders rage, And earthquake mutterings underground are caught, Alike...Learn More

Phoebus Apollo, from Olympus driven, Lived with Admetus, tending herds and flocks: And strolling o'er the pastures and the rocks He found his life much duller than in Heaven. For he had left his bow, his songs, his lyre, His divinations and his healing skill, And as a serf obeyed his master's will. One day a new thought waked an old desire. He took...Learn More

Whirling along its living freight, it came, Hot, panting, fierce, yet docile to command -- The roaring monster, blazing through the land Athwart the night, with crest of smoke and flame; Like those weird bulls Medea learned to tame By sorcery, yoked to plough the Colchian strand In forced obedience under Jason's hand. Yet modern skill outstripped...Learn More