Processional

Universes are the pages     Of that book whose words are ages;     Of that book which destiny     Opens in eternity.     There each syllable expresses     Silence; there each thought a guess is;     In whose rhetoric's cosmic runes     Roll the worlds and swarming moons.     There the systems, we call solar,     Equatorial and polar,     Write their lines of rushing light     On the awful leaves of night.     There the comets, vast and streaming,     Punctuate the heavens' gleaming     Scroll; and suns, gigantic, shine,     Periods to each starry line.     There, initials huge, the Lion     Looms and measureless Orion;     And, as 'neath a chapter done,     Burns the Great-Bear's colophon.     Constellated, hieroglyphic,     Numbering each page terrific,     Fiery on the nebular black,     Flames the hurling zodiac.     In that book, o'er which Chaldean     Wisdom pored and many an eon     Of philosophy long dead,     This is all that man has read:--     He has read how good and evil,--     In creation's wild upheaval,--     Warred; while God wrought terrible     At foundations red of Hell.     He has read of man and woman;     Laws and gods, both beast and human;     Thrones of hate and creeds of lust,     Vanished now and turned to dust.     Arts and manners that have crumbled;     Cities buried; empires tumbled:     Time but breathed on them its breath;     Earth is builded of their death.     These but lived their little hour,     Filled with pride and pomp and power;     What availed them all at last?     We shall pass as they have past.     Still the human heart will dream on     Love, part angel and part demon;     Yet, I question, what secures     Our belief that aught endures?     In that book, o'er which Chaldean     Wisdom pored and many an eon     Of philosophy long dead,     This is all that man has read.