I

I WATCHED the heavens while I stood
Beside a new-made grave;
I saw the galaxying flood
Of lights around me wave;
The palace of Infinitude
Was opened to its height,
Its floor with starry chaplets strewed,
Enroofed with cressets bright.

II

Mortality's remains were flung
Around my feet in their decay;
I stood the worms and dead among;
Each skull beneath me had a tongue,
And told me I must be as they:
I felt in me the wakened spirit,
That knew the doom it must inherit;
The death it must obey.

III

Ambition beckoned to the sky,
And told me I was great;
Faith spake of immortality,
A purer, loftier state;
That I should flee from star to star
In infinite progression, joined
With things that everlasting are,
By God enshrined.

IV

The aspiration passed; a chill
Stole upward from the earth,
I felt that I was mortal still;
I looked, and saw my birth
Was from the dust beneath me lying;
Whate'er my soul might dare,
Its hope and faith with heaven allying,
My grave and cradle there;

V

That all the great and mighty things
We boast of men are vain,
Conceit of our imaginings;
That, if he soar on Angel's wings,
He sinks to earth again;
He dares the heights he cannot reach;
The words of wisdom he doth preach
His daily deeds arraign.

VI

Yet hath he striven, since time began,
His impotence to hide;
Yea, preached the dignity of man,
Self-reverence and pride;
The stoic will to bear, the mind
To mate itself with powers on high,
In impulse fickle as the wind,
In weakness cradled but to die.

VII

But, if immortally we live,
Who kneel, and dare such faith avow
'Tis thou, Eternal One! canst give
The boon, and deathless life allow.
Stars body forth from their decay
New life, and leaf-like, recreate
Themselves; shall man, less blest than they,
Alone become annihilate?