Classic Poem

I . (humanus.)

Old world, where life was young,
And we first live, and not —
In soul — not there, whence sprung
Dumb races, long forgot!

Thine were the race divine —
The bards, who saw in air
And mountain-top the sign
Of higher presence there.

Thine were the song and lyre
And art, that first began,
From sleep and low desire,
To wake the god in man.

The grandeur of what line,
The story of what hand,
That is not part of thine —
Or written on the sand?

Old is the world called new,
But thine the mighty past,
And memories that in view
Stand like thy mountains fast —

And cast on earth the grand,
Unmoving form sublime
Of an invisible hand,
A shadow thrown on time.

To disappear at last,
When time itself shall be
A shadow of the past
Cast on eternity.

II . (terrestris.)

New world, by men called old!
The stars that hymned the birth
Of earth and heaven told
Of older heaven and earth.

And what if told to thee
That in the silent West
Deeper on earth and sea
Creation's shadows rest!

Thine are the gates of day,
Hills older than the morn,
Peaks that first caught the ray
In which the world was born.

What, if on new worlds rise
The sun that sinks from sight?
Thy offspring name the skies,
Thine is the world of Night.

And small, unnamed by thee,
The realm of Ocean old;
And ours, a nameless sea,
Had still for ages rolled:

When, lo! to Ocean's name
Thunders the world of waves,
In tides of which there came
No whisper to his caves.

But gloriam dei flame
The heavens; Him the seas,
Him, unawares, proclaim
Their pagan deities.