Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels

p. 124SIRIUS

‘Since Sinus crossed the Milky Way, sixty thousand years have gone.’—Garrett P. Serviss.

Since Sirius crossed the Milky Way
Full sixty thousand years have gone,
Yet hour by hour, and day by day,
This tireless star speeds on and on.

Methinks he must be moved to mirth
By that droll tale of Genesis,
Which says creation had its birth
For such a puny world as this.

To hear how One who fashioned all
Those Solar Systems, tier on tiers,
Expressed in little Adam’s fall
The purpose of a million spheres.

p. 125And, witness of the endless plan,
To splendid wrath he must be wrought
By pigmy creeds presumptuous man
Sends forth as God’s primeval thought.

Perchance from half a hundred stars
He hears as many curious things;
From Venus, Jupiter and Mars,
And Saturn with the beauteous rings,

There may be students of the Cause
Who send their revelations out,
And formulate their codes of laws,
With heavens for faith and hells for doubt.

On planets old ere form or place
Was lent to earth, may dwell—who knows—
A God-like and perfected race
That hails great Sirius as he goes.

In zones that circle moon and sun,
’Twixt world and world, he may see souls
Whose span of earthly life is done,
Still journeying up to higher goals.

p. 126And on dead planets grey and cold
Grim spectral souls, that harboured hate
Life after life, he may behold
Descending to a darker fate.

And on his grand majestic course
He may have caught one glorious sight
Of that vast shining central Source
From which proceeds all Life, all Light.

Since Sirius crossed the Milky Way
Full sixty thousand years have gone,
No mortal man may bid him stay,
No mortal man may speed him on.

No mortal mind may comprehend
What is beyond, what was before;
To God be glory without end,
Let man be humble and adore.

p. 127AT FONTAINEBLEAU

At Fontainebleau, I saw a little bed
Fashioned of polished wood, with gold ornate,
Ambition, hope, and sorrow, ay, and hate
Once battled there, above a childish head,
And there in vain, grief wept, and memory plead
It was so small! but Ah, dear God, how great
The part it played in one sad woman’s fate.
How wide the gloom, that narrow object shed.

The symbol of an over-reaching aim,
The emblem of a devastated joy,
It spoke of glory, and a blasted home:
Of fleeting honours, and disordered fame,
And the lone passing of a fragile boy.

* * * * *

It was the cradle of the King of Rome.