A
DREAM OF THE PREHISTORIC
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NAKED
and shaggy, they herded at eve by the sound of
the seas,
When the sky and the ocean were red as with blood
from the
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battles
of God, |
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And
the wind like a monster sped forth with its feet
on the rocks |
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and the trees, |
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And
the sands of the desert blew over the wastes of
the draught- |
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smitten
sod. |
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Here, mad with the torments of hunger, despairing
they sank to
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their
rest, |
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Some
crouching alone in their anguish, some gathered
in groups |
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on the
beach; |
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And
with tears almost human the mother looked down
at the babe |
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at her
breast; |
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And
her pain was the germ of our love, and her cry
was the root of |
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our
speech. |
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Then a cloud from the sunset arose, like a cormorant
gorged with
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its
prey, |
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And
extended its wings on the sky till it smothered
the stars in its |
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gloom, |
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And
ever the famine-worn faces were wet with the wind-carried
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spray, |
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And
dimly the voice of the deep to their ears was
a portent of |
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doom.
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And the dawn that rose up on the morrow, appareled
in gold like
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a priest. |
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Through
the smoke of the incense of morning, looked down
on a |
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vision
of death; |
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For
the vultures were gathered together and circled
with joy to |
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their
feast |
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On
hearts that had ceased from their sorrow, and
lips that had |
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yielded
their breath. |
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Then
the ages went by like a dream, and the shoreline
emerged
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from
the deep, |
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And the stars as they watched through the years
saw a change on |
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the
face of the earth; |
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For
over the blanket of sand that had covered the
dead in their |
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sleep |
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Great
forests grew up with their green, and the sources
of rivers |
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had
birth. |
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And here in the after-times, man, the white-faced
and smooth-
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handed,
came by, |
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And
he built him a city to dwell in and temples of
prayer to his |
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God; |
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He
filled it with music and beauty, his spirit aspired
to the sky,
While the dead by whose pain it was fashioned
lay under the |
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ground
that he trod. |
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He wrenched form great Nature her secrets, the
stars in their
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courses
he named; |
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He
weighed them and measured their orbits, he harnessed
the |
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horses
of steam; |
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He
captured the lightnings of heaven, the waves of
the ocean he |
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tamed,— |
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And ever the wonder amazed him as one that awakes
from a |
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dream.
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But under the streets and the markets, the banks
and the temples
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of prayer, |
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Where
humanity laboured and plotted, or loved with an
instinct |
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divine, |
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Deep
down in the silence and gloom of the earth that
had |
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shrouded
them there |
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Were
the fossil remains of a skull and the bones of
what once |
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was
a spine. |
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Enfolded
in darkness forever, untouched by the charges
above,
And
mingled as clay with the clay which the hands
of the ages
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had
brought, |
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Were
the hearts in whose furnace of anguish was smelted
the |
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gold
of our love, |
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And
the brains from whose twilight of instinct has
risen the dawn |
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of our
thought. |
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But
the law, that was victor of old with its heel
on the neck of the
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brute, |
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Still
tramples our hearts in the darkness, still grinds
down our face |
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in the
dust; |
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We
are sown in corruption and anguish—whose
fingers will |
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gather
the fruit? |
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Our life is but lent for a season—for whom
do we hold it in trust? |
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In the vault of the sky overhead, in the gulfs
that lie under our feet,
The wheels of the universe turn and the laws of
the universe
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blend; |
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The
pulse of our life is in tune with the rhythm of
forces that beat
In the surf of the furthest star’s sea,
and are spent and regathered |
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to spend.
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Yet
we trust in the will of the Being whose fingers
have spangled |
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the
night |
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With
the dust of a myriad worlds, and who speaks in
the thunders |
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of space; |
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Though
we see not the start or the finish, though vainly
we cry for |
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the
light, |
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Let
us mount in the glory of manhood and meet the
God-Man face |
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to face. |
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