POETRY: A Magazine of Verse
Of life? As it were, I see You with a match,
As one in darkness lights a candle, and one
Sees nor his friend's form in the shadowed room
Until the candle's lighted—even his form
Is darkened by the new-made light, he stands
So near it! Well, I add to all I've asked
Whether You knew the cell born through the glint
Of that same lighted match could never rest—
Even as electrons rest not—but would surge
Over the crest of visible forms, become,
Beneath our feet, life hidden from the eye,
However aided—as above our heads,
Over the Milky Way, great systems whirl
Beyond the telescope!—become bacilli,
Amœba, star-fish, swimming things; on land
The serpent, and then birds, and beasts of prey,
The tiger (You in the tiger), on and on,
Surging above the crest of visible forms
Until the ape caste?—oh, what ages they are—
But still creation flies on wings of light!—
Then to the man who roamed the frozen fields,
Neither man nor ape?—we found his jaw, You know,
At Heidelberg, in a sand-pit.
On and on Till Babylon was builded, and arose
Jerusalem and Memphis, Athens, Rome,
Venice and Florence, Paris, London, Berlin,
New York. Chicago—did You know, I ask,
All this would come of You in ether moving?
[56]
