Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/80

FIN DE SIÈCLE Free though in bonds, foredestined to progress,—

Ever, and ever still—the soul, the soul:

The unvexed spirit, to whose sure intent

All else is relative. Or large or small,

The Afrit, cloud or being, free or pent,

Enshrouds, impenetrates, and masters all.

No grain of sand too narrow to enfold

The spirit's incarnation; no vast land

And sea, but, readjusted to their mould,

It deems Atlantis scarce a grain of sand.

Time's intervals are ages; planets sleep

In death, or blaze in living light afar;

Thought answers thought; deep calleth unto deep

Alike within the globule and the star.

Ay, even the rock-bound globe, which still doth feign

Itself inanimate, itself shall seem

From yonder void a bead upon the train

Of heaven's warder rayed with beam on beam.

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