Classic Poem

When all the ways the worlds have trod
are gather'd up in Brahm, who goes
homeward to silence, nor with God
the star-pierced night is faint nor throes,

then all this coil shall fall and sleep:
but then, when seven eternities
are lifted from the awaking deep,
shall then the ways be just as these?

— Wavewise the world is driven for aye,
each gulf the old renewing night,
and evermore each crest (they say)
flings dayward our unwearied might.

So: time should mumble, uninspired,
a crone's burthen, and the divine
triumph on other ways, untired:
that were the world's shame and not mine ...

nor anyone's: for none should come
again nor see what he had seen:
to have lived and treasured not the sum
in chemic mind is not to have been.

— A jest! — the world was never more
than one attempt if time should yield
some fruit of gold to the great store
or dung to enrich some happier field:

and this shall end and none regret:
hope still: the tranced abysms imprison
so many names unutter'd yet,
so many dawns that have not risen.