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The beginning of things, the first of all men— It fascinates me, and I've wondered when And what and how the beginning of things.

Jehovah the first, and Jehovah the last, But the wisest must think very deep and fast, To fix in his mind the first of all things.

All creatures began in the heavens and earth; The sun and the moon and star had a birth; But when and where the beginning of things?

Not yet is the answer, but I hope somewhere, With Christ and his saints and seraphim fair, To know more about the advent of things;

To get better acquainted with Adam the first, To learn the true source of his deepest thirst, The wonderful truth of the beginning of things—

The beginning of thought, and the primals of love; How a reptile became the soft cooing dove, And whence the beginning of all present things;

The ape-grunt to a word, and that word a vast tongue, And whence the sweet music of mankind has sprung; Who struck the first note in the beginning of things?

'Tis an evolution great, and a marvel to me, But never have I prayed to our father up a tree; Aye, no man yet since the origin of things.

The Alpha, Omega, the First, Last and Whole, Who, from the small first, had foreseen the vast goal, He only knows now the beginning of things.

But will He not somewhere permit me to know, If I go on with Him in the eternal flow, The satisfying truth of the first of all things?

THE END OF THINGS

The aim of the heavens, the end of the earth— What a measureless sweep, what a mighty girth, From the far off first to the end of all things!

The end of the rose, which fades in a day, The purpose of the plant an age on the way— I dream of Beauty in the end of things.

The end of all men, and the end of myself, From the artist great to the smallest elf, Our thoughts and our deeds in the end of things.

The fate of the infants who die without ken, Of their growth and knowledge, God's super-men— What developments vast in the end of things!