Poems (Henderson)/A Glimpse of the Aftertime
A GLIMPSE OF THE AFTERTIME.
Oh! moon, round moon, I woo thee, As ever a lover his love;And none ever knew and loved thee, As I in thine azure above.I have lain on my restless pillow, Tossing in fever and pain,Till thy dim light coaxed and kissed me, And soothed me to rest again.
Oh! moon, I know and love thee, I would know thy children too,And if they endure and suffer, As God's earthly children do.Oh! rare rich jewel of light, What wealth in thy jeweled shrine,Lieth hid in thy caverns of glory, For the student of after-time.
For e're the firmament rifted, Together shall tremble and roll,And the glory of Jesus descending, Shall quiver from pole to pole, The eye of Science shall scan, Thy page and thy mystical plan,And all the wonder of heaven, And the secrets of the rain.
Yea, there lieth a wonderful book, And its pages are centuries old,But eye hath not read, nor philosopher shed, A ray of its wisdom untold,But there cometh an era of light, When the hemispheres shall meet,For over the ocean a king, Shall stride with his air-clad feet.We shall catch the whispering voices, And the hum of the Eastern world,In a flash of electric glory, And Science, her banner unfurled,Shall stalk with a giant's footsteps, Shall tell us how light had birth,And what the great glacier hideth, In the uttermost gloom of the earth.
She shall trace all paths of the winds, And compass all gates of sound,And clasp in her march of progress, The horizon's mighty bound.There shall be but a step to sever, The old world and the new,For One shall abide forever, And His human children shall grow, Nearer to heart of Creation, Wiser in hidden lore,And the glory of coming ages, Shall eclipse all wonders before.
