I.—Nay.
How may we trust Thee, Majesty Supreme!
We whose dim life fleets by, an idle dream,
Amid the ruining welter, and the wash
Of shattered Faiths, and holiest Hopes that flash
To annihilation in a moment, or slow wane,
Till what lay desert desert lies again,
Fooled for an hour with visions of ripe grain,
Withered ere harvest! Oh, the weary round
Of life and death halting within a bound
Of adamant, and fluctuating, ever
Goaded to dissonant, impotent endeavour!
Warring, we swarm to scale a phantom height,
We whose feet fail in some drear infinite!
Piteous human bones upon the waste
Jeer, as we wander, our infatuate haste.
Where now the goal and beacon of strong youth?
Where those far havens of Eternal Truth?
Fabled Atlantis, islands of the blest,
In shadowy sunset kingdoms of the West,
