Above, a deathlike stillness hung,
When lo! athwart the starless way
The rugged lightning-shafts were flung
And panting Earth in transports lay;
And burned the bright eternal sun
Upon his glittering fiery crest,
And Sirius and Orion
Gleamed in the confines of the West.
Now peered the faint and feeble moon,
A silver streak of crescent horn,
And through the heavens, diamond-strewn,
Sailed forth to wait the morrow morn;
And slowly rose the mantled mist
Above, the silent, shadowy bay,
And lo! the waters, sunlight kissed,
Leapt out of darkness into day.
Long rolled the billow in the deep,
Long waved the tide in ebb and flow,
Above, the hourly breezes sweep,
Now sign, now pant the depths below
Slow surged the shallow, sandy pile,
In Ocean's oozy bosom pent,
And now the sea-girt sunny isle,
And now the crowded continent.
O years of sightless solitude,
Of hourly loss and hourly gain,
Of wrath appeased and rage subdued,
Of fruitless toils and labours vain!
How many cycles of the sun,
Of lunar sorrow, tidal quest,
Before the mighty world was won,
And East was East and West was West!
But God moves not in vain, for know,
An age is but a day to Him;
He saw the continents below
And knew each ocean's utmost rim;
Stopped from His own ethereal way,
Smiled on the useless war and strife,
And where Earth's barren bosom lay
Breathed gently down the dew of Life.
Rolls yet the billow in the deep;
Waves still the tide on sea and shore;
We murmur and we fall asleep,
A sigh! then hushed for evermore;
Fleet as the arrows of the sun
Shoot their swift lightnings in the West,
God wheels His endless ages on,
And wafts His children into rest.
Title artwork by Kara-Jane Senior
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