I
THE UNIVERSE-CENTRE
“The supreme end and purpose of this vast Universe was the production
and development of the living soul in the perishable body of man.”
—Alfred Russel Wallace, in the Fortnightly Review for March, 1903.
Strange, if in truth this world of ours, so small,
So grief-devoured, should the grand centre be
Of that huge starry Universe we see,—
The end, the chief result, the crown of all!
Here is the battle fought. Here stand or fall
Armies whose swords flash through eternity.
We are the combatants, aye even we
Whose pigmy frames the sunlit voids appal.
O thought tremendous! thought that must perturb,
If it be true, the tremulous soul of man!
To know that fragrance of an earthly rose
Through the vast flowerless scentless spaces goes
Lonely, divine,—to know that Love can curb
The winds, and aid or mar the cosmic plan.
