Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping some

thing new:

That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be ;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic

sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly

bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a

ghastly dew

From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central

blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind

rushing warm,

With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle

flags were furl'd

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

So I triumph'd, ere my passion sweeping thro' me left

me dry,

Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out

of joint,

Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point:

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping

nigher,

Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly

dying fire.

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose

runs,

And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,

Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,

And the individual withers, and the world is more and

more.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,

Full of sad experience moving toward the stillness of

his rest.

Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the

bugle-horn,

They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their

scorn:

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd

string?

I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight

a thing.

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain ·

Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd

with mine,

Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for

some retreat

Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to

beat;

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starred; I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.

Or to burst all links of habit there to wander far

away,

On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,

Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, droops the trailer from the crag ;

Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavyfruited tree

Summer-isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of

sea.

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,

In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.