That leadeth to the Father, and can find
No clue of that great Presence, once their stay,
And still as near; but sin doth make us blind,
And when it fastens on the soul, the Father fades away.

How wholly lost, when man cannot descry
One token of his Maker in the soul—
One step remains, the animal must die;
But death has superseded its control,
Since the immortal "Ego" is no more,
The spirit gone from its companion, dust—
The ashes are but animate in vain
When love, and light, have given place to lust
And conscience gives no puncture for its pain.

Thus were they gathered, in this day far gone,
So near the causeway of the almighty past,
That retrospect brings close, the thought of God—
We wonder that a cloud could overcast,
So primitive a people, that the Shepherd's voice
Should leave no lingering echo, for the ear, so tokened and so choice.

And they would build a city, and a tower
Whose top would reach the very verge of Heaven;—
The puniest arm, is puissent in power,
When to its grasp supernal aid is given;
But muscles may, like cordage, swell the arm,
And arteries, like rills of mountains flow.
Weak is the blood that breakers them to harm,—
The fires of passion but a moment glow.

They, as the infants play upon the rim
Of ancient Ocean, had been rocked to sleep
In the bare arms of Nature; she would trim
Her lamps for them, and patient vigil keep
Upon their slumbers; and Heaven, to them,
Was but a brilliant, close-spread canopy,
Or crystal dome, a sort of diadem
Just out of easy reach, and they could see
No reason why they might not build a tower
Would intercept it; and their foolish pride
Supposed this little caprice of the hour,
Through all the after age, would witness of their power.

They made them bricks, and steadily they reared
The spiral column heavenward; the Great Eye
Bent vigilantly on them, as they neared
The upper ether, silent as the sky
Draws round its garniture; into each soul
Crept the first rootlets of an unknown tongue;
Each household head placed under his control
The elements of intercourse, first flung
Together by the great Teacher; just before
When they had dropped from their exulting hands
The rough-made tools; they closed forevermore
Their mutual labor, though in other lands
They could resume their use, this was the last
Of the poor monument that they had reared—
The workmen stand in wonderment aghast,
Though they had wrought together, and had cheered
Each other in their task, each quivering lip
Breathed but confusion to the other's ears,
No more from common cup of thought they sip,
But forced to strangerhood for many, many years.

In what a school was fashioned our first thought.
How the poor soul is dumbed, and quivering,
When we conceive what the Great Master wrought.
How are we littled, what a nameless thing
"Is man, that thou art mindful" thus "of him."
Thou settest up, and pullest down, and we—
Our hearts are hushed, our vision is made dim—
Mites in the balance of imponderate destiny.

A camp in Central India, 'neath the palms,
And where the lap of nature is so full,
That all the world may beggar it of alms
And drink of its repletion; a mere tool
Of hungry Kingdoms, thirsty Dynasties—
The finger-tips of Alexander's arm—
The plethorite of the Augustan age—
The gilt that margins all the tapestries
Down through middle ages; and the charm
That lends a mellow fragrance to the page
Of her, the Island Queen, whose arm meets arm
In the embrace of earth, her borders refuge from avenging harm.

A journey into Egypt, with their flocks before,
And peaceful conquests back, an opening door
To vast historic truths, a Niobe
Moaning her children's travail in advance,
A restless nomad people, like the sea,
Stirred by involuntary force, whose billows dance
To music of the spheres, stern Autocrat, and yet a slave to its own mastery.