FIN DE SlÈCLE
Now making exit to the outer vast
Our century speeds, and shall retain no more
Its perihelion splendor, save to cast
A search-light on the chartless course before.
I hear the murmur of our kind, whose eyes
Follow the spread of that phantasmal ray;
Who see as infants see, nor can surmise
Aright of what is near—what far away.
I hear the jest, the threnody, the low
Recount of dreams which down the years have fled,—
Of fair romance now shattered with love's bow,
Of legend brought to test, and passion dead.
Dark Science broods in Fancy's hermitage,
The rainbow fades,—and hushed, they say, is Song
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