Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Hovering over phantom-mists
On the chance stepping-stones of time;
Descending the uneven stairs of Art,
Into our nature's cavern gloom;
Breathless almost become we,
As if the blood fled from collapsing veins.
And yet when we return
Into the even sunlight of to-day,
The interests of the present seem
Fool's-play, unreal, an even-song;
And all the living generation shrinks
Into turf-hidden grasshoppers; loud-tongued
As clamoring storks, that feebly build
Among the cloven roofs of old
And kingless cities; passing as a flock
Of clouds storm-scattered, when the sear leaves fall,
And day shrinks coldly in.

But rather let me hear
Derisive laughter than degenerate fears.

101

And verily thou art, O Sphynx, no more
Than a child's bauble which the man disowns
With loftier knowledge, weightier cares,—
Yet from the soul's profound,
The most dread question comes,—
Which nature cannot answer. Thou,
Watcher by temple-stairs,—
Thou might'st have taught the entering worshippers
Homeward to look not starward,
Inward and not back into the tomb,
Or over Styx with hopes that bloom not here!
Alas, and is the question still
Unanswered, is the night
Eternal upon Acheron?
And when the triumphs of our England fall
Crumbling before the tides of years to come,
Shall Sphynxes stand by temple-stairs?
Or from the heart's depths call?
And shalt thou still
Unburied sit amidst the sand?