Page:The New Penelope.djvu/277

Rh What unknown conjunction of the pure etherial,

With the form and function of the gross material,

Gives the product mortal? whose immortal yearning

Brings him to the portal of celestial learning.

To the portal gleaming, where the waiting sphinxes,

Humoring his dreaming, give him what he thinks is

Key to the arcana—plausible equation

Of the problems many in his incarnation.

Pitiful delusion!—in no nomenclature—

Maugre its profusion—O ambiguous nature!

Can man find expression of his own relation

To the great procession of facts in creation?

Fruitless speculating! none may lift the curtain

From the antedating ages and uncertain

When what is was not, and tides of pristine being

Beat on shores forgot, and all, as now, unseeing.

Whence impelled or whither, or by what volition;

Borne now here, now thither, in blind inanition.

Out of this abysmal, nebulous dim distance,

Haunted by a dismal, phantomic existence,

Issued man?—a creature without inspiration,

Gross of form and feature, dull of inclination?

Or was his primordial self a something higher?

Fresh from test and ordeal of elemental fire.

Were these ages golden while the world was younger,

When the giants olden knew not toil nor hunger?

When no pain nor malice marred joy's full completeness,

And life's honeyed chalice rapt the soul with sweetness?

When the restless river of time loved to linger;

Ere flesh felt the quiver of death's dissolving finger;

When man's intuition led without deflection,

To a sure fruition, and a full perfection.