FIN DE SIÈCLE
With those high bards who lingering charmed the age
Ere one by one they joined the statued throng.
I hear the dirge for beauty sped, and faith
Astray in space and time's far archways lost,
Till Life itself becomes a tenuous wraith,
A wandering shade whom wandering shades accost.
Their light sad plaint I hear who thus divine
The future, counselling that all is done,—
Naught left for art's sweet touch—but to refine,
For courage—but to face the setting sun.
I hear, yet have no will to falter so.
We seek out matter's alchemy, and tame
Force to our needs, but what shall make us know
Whether the twain are parted, or the same?
The same! then conscious substance, fetterless
The more when most subdued to Will's control,
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