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 | The poems of Madison Cawein |  |
X
The fire, to which the Magi prayed,
The Aztecs sacrificed and kneeled,
Whose ceremonies now are sealed,
Whose priests are dust, whose people weighed,
Since God permitted such, should man,—
All ignorant of heavenly ends,—
Despise the means, since Earth began,
God works by to perfect His plan,
Which through immediate forms ascends
Of Nature, lifting, race by race,
Man to the beauty of His face?
The Aztecs sacrificed and kneeled,
Whose ceremonies now are sealed,
Whose priests are dust, whose people weighed,
Since God permitted such, should man,—
All ignorant of heavenly ends,—
Despise the means, since Earth began,
God works by to perfect His plan,
Which through immediate forms ascends
Of Nature, lifting, race by race,
Man to the beauty of His face?
11
Through Nature only we arrive
At God: identical with truth,
By periods of repeated youth,
Through Nature must the Ages strive;
The Epochs, that must purify
Themselves through her experience,
Her knowledge, which each Age lays by
To clothe it better for the sky
In robes of new intelligence
Befitting life, that upwardly
Approaches ends which none can see.
At God: identical with truth,
By periods of repeated youth,
Through Nature must the Ages strive;
The Epochs, that must purify
Themselves through her experience,
Her knowledge, which each Age lays by
To clothe it better for the sky
In robes of new intelligence
Befitting life, that upwardly
Approaches ends which none can see.
| The poems of Madison Cawein | |