 | Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne |  |
THE WORLD.
QUATRAINS.
The world is older than our earliest dates;
All thoughts, all feelings, all desires, all fates,
Were known and tested, long ere Adam's crime
Set the keen sword of flame at Eden-gates!
All thoughts, all feelings, all desires, all fates,
Were known and tested, long ere Adam's crime
Set the keen sword of flame at Eden-gates!
Billions of years on billions more have fled,
Since first love's kiss a maiden cheek turned red;
Since the first mother nursed her innocent babe—
The first wild mourner wept above his dead.
Since first love's kiss a maiden cheek turned red;
Since the first mother nursed her innocent babe—
The first wild mourner wept above his dead.
These ancient clods our vagrant feet displace,
May once have held the loftiest soul of grace;
This dateless dust that dims our garden flowers,
May once have smiled—a beauteous woman's face!
May once have held the loftiest soul of grace;
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May once have smiled—a beauteous woman's face!
Older than all man's wisdom and his dreams,
Older than all which is, than all which seems,
Our world rolls on, where wrapped in cloud-like fire,
Phantasmal, pale, her awful death-morn gleams!
Older than all which is, than all which seems,
Our world rolls on, where wrapped in cloud-like fire,
Phantasmal, pale, her awful death-morn gleams!
| Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne | |