Artemis to Actæon (1909)/The Old Pole Star
THE OLD POLE STAR
Before the clepsydra had bound the daysMan tethered Change to his fixed star, and said:"The elder races, that long since are dead,Marched by that light; it swerves not from its baseThough all the worlds about it wax and fade."
When Egypt saw it, fast in reeling spheres,Her Pyramids shaft-centred on its rayShe reared and said: "Long as this star holds swayIn uninvaded ether, shall the yearsRevere my monuments—” and went her way.
The Pyramids abide; but through the shaftThat held the polar pivot, eye to eye,Look now—blank nothingness! As though Change laughedAt man's presumption and his puny craft,The star has slipped its leash and roams the sky.
Yet could the immemorial piles be swungA skyey hair's-breadth from their rooted base,Back to the central anchorage of space,Ah, then again, as when the race was young,Should they behold the beacon of the race!
Of old, men said: "The Truth is there: we rearOur faith full-centred on it. It was knownThus of the elders who foreran us here,Mapped out its circuit in the shifting sphere,And found it, 'mid mutation, fixed alone."
Change laughs again, again the sky is cold,And down that fissure now no star-beam glides.Yet they whose sweep of vision grows not oldStill at the central point of space beholdAnother pole-star: for the Truth abides.