I

Eternal Being! in thine eyes the thought
And hope of man are vanity; yet Thou
Look'st down upon the work that he hath wrought,
Or with the mind o'ertasked, or sweat of brow;
Thou watchest o'er the atom in its birth,
The germ of life in its first infancy,
The filaments that bound it to the earth.
Thy prescience knew the paths that he would tread;
Thou gav'st the impulse that his spirit led
To pluck the blossom from the knowledge-tree.

II

I have but trodden in the paths I made;
A Priest ordained by Nature, I have stood
Within her shrine, my law of life obeyed.
I entered with my locks like blossoms flung.
Around my brows; I left, their tinge subdued
With grey; the forehead in its ardent mood
Once hopeful raised, as thoughtfully was hung;
For I, through life and time unmarked, had strung
The harp; its chords responded from a soul
That had each passion proved by its control.

III

And then I paused awhile in the great race;
And when I contemplated work that filled
The rolling years, dissolved like melted breath,
Vanished in air and left behind no trace,
I ceased on human memories to build,
Or fame drawn from the future: but calm faith
Felt in the formative verse a spirit dwells
That shares not man's mortality, that tells
Its inspiration, in the living breath
Lit with ethereal flame, renewed by death.