COSMOS

Ernest McGaffey

COSMOS

ONE

I

Go search the æons an you will

Where withered leaves of Doubt are whirled,

And who hath solved this riddle, Life,

Or Death—that moves with sails unfurled,

Beyond the straining eyes of man

Marooned upon an unknown world.

II

Nor tongue hath told, nor vision caught

That paradox, Primeval Cause;

Each age has had some parable

Each age succeeding marked the flaws;

While shifted, with the calendar,

What men have termed generic laws.

III

Creed after creed behold them now

Like Etna on Vesuvius piled;

Till, scaled to earth by drifting sands

They lie in later days reviled,

And pushed aside by Time's rough hand

As toys are, by a peevish child.

IV

For Priest-made doctrine reads grotesque.

And earthly worship is but dross;

Whether it be your Brahm of Ind

Or squat and hideous Chinese Joss;

Or Jove, aloft on cloud-capped throne

Or the pale Christ upon his cross.

V

Why question still the blindfold graves

Or pluck the veil of Isis dread?

Over Death's icy mystery

A pall immutable is spread;

And never tear-wrung agony

Shall move the lips we loved—once dead.

VI

Why grope in labyrinthian maze?

Why palter thus with doubt and fear?

The Past is but the mollusc print

The Future looms, a barrier sheer;

The Present centers in To-day

The hope for men is Now, and Here.

VII

Believe no scientific cant

That man descended from the ape;

Gorilla-like once beat his breast

And grew at last to human shape,

To watch the flocks, and till the fields,

Harry the seas and bruise the grape.

VIII

For though enrobed in savage skins

And though his forehead backward ran,

The brute was not all-dominant

Some spark revealed a Primal plan;

His brain was coupled with his will

The hairy mammal still was man.

IX

And ever as the cycles waned

He came and went, he rose and fell,

At times transformed, as butterflies

That rise from chrysalis in the cell;

And oft through hate and ignorance

Sunk downward deep as fabled Hell.

X

But through it all, and with it all

How-e'er the upward trending veers,

He fought his fight against great odds

He peopled ice-bound hemispheres,

Endured the sweltering Torrid Zones

And stamped his impress on the years.

TWO

I

What romance hast thy childhood known

Of God-made world in seven days?

Of woven sands and swaying grass

And bird and beast in forest ways,

Of panoramas vast unrolled

Before a stern Creator's gaze?

II