IX—IN ENGLANDDarwin

“I am the whisper that he ceased to hear,”The quiet voice of Shadow-of-a-Leaf began;And, as he spoke, the flowing air before meShone like a crystal sphere, wherein I sawAll that he pictured, through his own deep eyes.I waited in his garden there, at Down.I peered between the crooklights of a hedgeWhere ragged robins grew.Far off, I heardThe clocklike rhythm of an ironshod staffClicking on gravel, clanking on a flint.Then, round the sand-walk, under his trees he strode,A tall lean man, wrapt in a loose dark cloak,His big soft hat of battered sun-burnt strawPulled down to shade his face. But I could see,For I looked upward, the dim brooding weightOf silent thought that soon would shake the world.He paused to watch an ant upon its way.He bared his head. I saw the shaggy browsThat like a mountain-fortress overhungThe deep veracious eyes, the dogged faceWhere kindliness and patience, knowledge, power,And pain quiescent under the conquering will,In that profound simplicity which marksThe stature of the mind, the truth of art,The majesty of every natural law.The child’s wise innocence, and the silent worthOf human grief and love, had set their seal.I stole behind him, and he did not hearOr see me. I was only Shadow-of-a-Leaf;And yet—I knew the word was on its wayThat might annul his life-work in an hour.I heard the whisper of every passing wingWhere, wrapt in peace, among the hills of Kent,The patient watchful intellect had preparedA mightier revolution for mankindEven than the world-change of CopernicusWhen the great central earth began to moveAnd dwine to a grain of dust among the stars.I saw him pondering over a light-winged seedThat floated, like an elfin aeronaut,Across the path. He caught it in his handAnd looked at it. He touched its delicate hooksAnd set it afloat again. He watched it sailing,Carrying its tiny freight of life awayOver the quick-set hedge, up, into the hills.I heard him muttering, “beautiful! Surely thisImplies design!Design?” Then, from his faceThe wonder faded, and he shook his head;But with such reverence and humilityThat his denial almost seemed a prayer.A prayer—for, not long after, in his house,I saw him bowed, the first mind of his age,Bowed, helpless, by the deathbed of his child;Pondering, with all that knowledge, all that power,Powerless, and ignorant of the means to save;A dumb Prometheus, bending his great headIn silence, as he drank those broken wordsOf thanks, the pitiful thanks of small parched lips,For a sip of water, a smile, a cooling handOn the hot brow; thanks for his goodness—God!Thanks from a dying child, just ten years old!And, while he stood in silence by her grave,Hearing the ropes creak as they lowered her downInto the cold dark hollow, while he breathedThe smell of the moist earth, those calm strange words—I am the Resurrection and the Life,Echoed and echoed through his lonely mind,Only to deepen his agony of farewellInto Eternity.Dumbly there he stroveTo understand how accents so divine,In words so worthy of eternal power,So postulant of it in their calm majesty,Could breathe through mortal lips.Madman or God,Who else could say them?God it could not be,If in his mortal blindness he saw clear;And yet, and yet, could madness wring the heartThus, thus, and thus, for nineteen hundred years?Would that she knew, would God that she knew now,How much we loved her!The blind world, still ruledBy shams, and following in hypnotic flocksThe sheep-bell of an hour, still thought of him“The Man of Science” as less or more than man,Coldly aloof from love and grief and pain;Held that he knew far more, and felt far lessThan other men, and, even while it praisedThe babblers for their reticence and their strength,The shallow for their depth, the blind for sight,The rattling weathercocks for their love of truth,Ere long would brand, as an irreverent fool,This great dumb simple man, with his bowed head.Could the throng see that drama, as I saw it—I, Shadow-of-a-Leaf,—could the blind throng discernThe true gigantic drama of those hoursAmong the quiet hills as, one by one,His facts fell into place; their broken edgesJoined, like the fragments of a vast mosaic,And, slowly, the new picture of the world,Emerging in majestic pageantryOut of the primal dark, before him grew;Grew by its own inevitable law;Grew, and earth’s ancient fantasies dwindled down;The stately fabric of the old creationCrumbled away; while man, proud demigod,Stripped of all arrogance now, priest, beggar, king,Captive and conqueror, all must own alikeTheir ancient lineage. Kin to the dumb beastsBy the red life that flowed through all their veinsFrom hearts of the same shape, beating all as oneIn man and brute; kin, by those kindred formsOf flesh and bone, with eyes and ears and mouthsThat saw and heard and hungered like his own,His mother Earth reclaimed him.Back and back,He traced them, till the last faint clue died outIn lifeless earth and sea.I watched him strivingTo follow further, bending his great browsOver the intense lens....Far off, I heardThe murmur of human life, laughter and weeping;Heard the choked sobbings by a million graves,And saw a million faces, wrung with grief,Lifted forlornly to the Inscrutable Power.I saw him raise his head. I heard his thoughtAs others hear a whisper—Surely thisImplies design!And worlds on aching worldsOf dying hope were wrapped in those four words.He stared before him, wellnigh overwhelmedFor one brief moment, with instinctive aweOf Something that ... determined every forceDirected every atom....Then, in a flash,The indwelling vision vanished at the voiceOf his own blindfold reason. For what mindCould so unravel the complicated threads,The causes that are caused by the effectsOf other causes, intricately involved,Woven and interwoven, in endless mazes,Wandering through infinite time, infinite space,And yet, an ordered and mysterious whole,Before whose very being all mortal powerMust abdicate its sovereignty?A dogMight sooner hope to leap beyond the mindOf Newton than a man might hope to graspEven in this little whirl of earth and sunThe Scheme of the All-determining Absolute.And yet—if that—the All-moving, were the OneReality, and sustained and made all forms,Then, by the self-same power in man himselfWhatever was real in man might understandThat same Reality, being one substance with it,One substance with the essential Soul of all,—Might understand, as children understand,Even in ignorance, those who love them best;Might recognise, as through their innocent eyes,The highest, which is Love, though all the worldsOf lesser knowledge passed unheeded by.What meant those moments else? Moments that cameAnd went on wings, wild as these wings of mine,The wings of Shadow-of-a-Leaf,Quick with a light that never could be reachedBy toiling up the mountain-sides of thought;Consummate meanings that were never foundBy adding units; moments of strange aweWhen that majestic sequence of eventsWe call the cosmos, from its wheeling atomsUp to its wheeling suns, all spoke one Power,One Presence, One Unknowable, and One Known?In the beginning God made heaven and earth:He, too, believed it, once....

“I am the whisper that he ceased to hear,”

The quiet voice of Shadow-of-a-Leaf began;

And, as he spoke, the flowing air before me

Shone like a crystal sphere, wherein I saw

All that he pictured, through his own deep eyes.

I waited in his garden there, at Down.I peered between the crooklights of a hedgeWhere ragged robins grew.Far off, I heardThe clocklike rhythm of an ironshod staffClicking on gravel, clanking on a flint.Then, round the sand-walk, under his trees he strode,A tall lean man, wrapt in a loose dark cloak,His big soft hat of battered sun-burnt strawPulled down to shade his face. But I could see,For I looked upward, the dim brooding weightOf silent thought that soon would shake the world.

I waited in his garden there, at Down.

I peered between the crooklights of a hedge

Where ragged robins grew.

Far off, I heard

The clocklike rhythm of an ironshod staff

Clicking on gravel, clanking on a flint.

Then, round the sand-walk, under his trees he strode,

A tall lean man, wrapt in a loose dark cloak,

His big soft hat of battered sun-burnt straw

Pulled down to shade his face. But I could see,

For I looked upward, the dim brooding weight

Of silent thought that soon would shake the world.

He paused to watch an ant upon its way.He bared his head. I saw the shaggy browsThat like a mountain-fortress overhungThe deep veracious eyes, the dogged faceWhere kindliness and patience, knowledge, power,And pain quiescent under the conquering will,In that profound simplicity which marksThe stature of the mind, the truth of art,The majesty of every natural law.The child’s wise innocence, and the silent worthOf human grief and love, had set their seal.

He paused to watch an ant upon its way.

He bared his head. I saw the shaggy brows

That like a mountain-fortress overhung

The deep veracious eyes, the dogged face

Where kindliness and patience, knowledge, power,

And pain quiescent under the conquering will,

In that profound simplicity which marks

The stature of the mind, the truth of art,

The majesty of every natural law.

The child’s wise innocence, and the silent worth

Of human grief and love, had set their seal.

I stole behind him, and he did not hearOr see me. I was only Shadow-of-a-Leaf;And yet—I knew the word was on its wayThat might annul his life-work in an hour.I heard the whisper of every passing wingWhere, wrapt in peace, among the hills of Kent,The patient watchful intellect had preparedA mightier revolution for mankindEven than the world-change of CopernicusWhen the great central earth began to moveAnd dwine to a grain of dust among the stars.I saw him pondering over a light-winged seedThat floated, like an elfin aeronaut,Across the path. He caught it in his handAnd looked at it. He touched its delicate hooksAnd set it afloat again. He watched it sailing,Carrying its tiny freight of life awayOver the quick-set hedge, up, into the hills.I heard him muttering, “beautiful! Surely thisImplies design!Design?” Then, from his faceThe wonder faded, and he shook his head;But with such reverence and humilityThat his denial almost seemed a prayer.

I stole behind him, and he did not hear

Or see me. I was only Shadow-of-a-Leaf;

And yet—I knew the word was on its way

That might annul his life-work in an hour.

I heard the whisper of every passing wing

Where, wrapt in peace, among the hills of Kent,

The patient watchful intellect had prepared

A mightier revolution for mankind

Even than the world-change of Copernicus

When the great central earth began to move

And dwine to a grain of dust among the stars.

I saw him pondering over a light-winged seed

That floated, like an elfin aeronaut,

Across the path. He caught it in his hand

And looked at it. He touched its delicate hooks

And set it afloat again. He watched it sailing,

Carrying its tiny freight of life away

Over the quick-set hedge, up, into the hills.

I heard him muttering, “beautiful! Surely this

Implies design!

Design?” Then, from his face

The wonder faded, and he shook his head;

But with such reverence and humility

That his denial almost seemed a prayer.

A prayer—for, not long after, in his house,I saw him bowed, the first mind of his age,Bowed, helpless, by the deathbed of his child;Pondering, with all that knowledge, all that power,Powerless, and ignorant of the means to save;A dumb Prometheus, bending his great headIn silence, as he drank those broken wordsOf thanks, the pitiful thanks of small parched lips,For a sip of water, a smile, a cooling handOn the hot brow; thanks for his goodness—God!Thanks from a dying child, just ten years old!

A prayer—for, not long after, in his house,

I saw him bowed, the first mind of his age,

Bowed, helpless, by the deathbed of his child;

Pondering, with all that knowledge, all that power,

Powerless, and ignorant of the means to save;

A dumb Prometheus, bending his great head

In silence, as he drank those broken words

Of thanks, the pitiful thanks of small parched lips,

For a sip of water, a smile, a cooling hand

On the hot brow; thanks for his goodness—God!

Thanks from a dying child, just ten years old!

And, while he stood in silence by her grave,Hearing the ropes creak as they lowered her downInto the cold dark hollow, while he breathedThe smell of the moist earth, those calm strange words—I am the Resurrection and the Life,Echoed and echoed through his lonely mind,Only to deepen his agony of farewellInto Eternity.Dumbly there he stroveTo understand how accents so divine,In words so worthy of eternal power,So postulant of it in their calm majesty,Could breathe through mortal lips.Madman or God,Who else could say them?God it could not be,If in his mortal blindness he saw clear;And yet, and yet, could madness wring the heartThus, thus, and thus, for nineteen hundred years?Would that she knew, would God that she knew now,How much we loved her!The blind world, still ruledBy shams, and following in hypnotic flocksThe sheep-bell of an hour, still thought of him“The Man of Science” as less or more than man,Coldly aloof from love and grief and pain;Held that he knew far more, and felt far lessThan other men, and, even while it praisedThe babblers for their reticence and their strength,The shallow for their depth, the blind for sight,The rattling weathercocks for their love of truth,Ere long would brand, as an irreverent fool,This great dumb simple man, with his bowed head.

And, while he stood in silence by her grave,

Hearing the ropes creak as they lowered her down

Into the cold dark hollow, while he breathed

The smell of the moist earth, those calm strange words—

I am the Resurrection and the Life,

Echoed and echoed through his lonely mind,

Only to deepen his agony of farewell

Into Eternity.

Dumbly there he strove

To understand how accents so divine,

In words so worthy of eternal power,

So postulant of it in their calm majesty,

Could breathe through mortal lips.

Madman or God,

Who else could say them?

God it could not be,

If in his mortal blindness he saw clear;

And yet, and yet, could madness wring the heart

Thus, thus, and thus, for nineteen hundred years?

Would that she knew, would God that she knew now,

How much we loved her!

The blind world, still ruled

By shams, and following in hypnotic flocks

The sheep-bell of an hour, still thought of him

“The Man of Science” as less or more than man,

Coldly aloof from love and grief and pain;

Held that he knew far more, and felt far less

Than other men, and, even while it praised

The babblers for their reticence and their strength,

The shallow for their depth, the blind for sight,

The rattling weathercocks for their love of truth,

Ere long would brand, as an irreverent fool,

This great dumb simple man, with his bowed head.

Could the throng see that drama, as I saw it—I, Shadow-of-a-Leaf,—could the blind throng discernThe true gigantic drama of those hoursAmong the quiet hills as, one by one,His facts fell into place; their broken edgesJoined, like the fragments of a vast mosaic,And, slowly, the new picture of the world,Emerging in majestic pageantryOut of the primal dark, before him grew;Grew by its own inevitable law;Grew, and earth’s ancient fantasies dwindled down;The stately fabric of the old creationCrumbled away; while man, proud demigod,Stripped of all arrogance now, priest, beggar, king,Captive and conqueror, all must own alikeTheir ancient lineage. Kin to the dumb beastsBy the red life that flowed through all their veinsFrom hearts of the same shape, beating all as oneIn man and brute; kin, by those kindred formsOf flesh and bone, with eyes and ears and mouthsThat saw and heard and hungered like his own,His mother Earth reclaimed him.Back and back,He traced them, till the last faint clue died outIn lifeless earth and sea.I watched him strivingTo follow further, bending his great browsOver the intense lens....Far off, I heardThe murmur of human life, laughter and weeping;Heard the choked sobbings by a million graves,And saw a million faces, wrung with grief,Lifted forlornly to the Inscrutable Power.

Could the throng see that drama, as I saw it—

I, Shadow-of-a-Leaf,—could the blind throng discern

The true gigantic drama of those hours

Among the quiet hills as, one by one,

His facts fell into place; their broken edges

Joined, like the fragments of a vast mosaic,

And, slowly, the new picture of the world,

Emerging in majestic pageantry

Out of the primal dark, before him grew;

Grew by its own inevitable law;

Grew, and earth’s ancient fantasies dwindled down;

The stately fabric of the old creation

Crumbled away; while man, proud demigod,

Stripped of all arrogance now, priest, beggar, king,

Captive and conqueror, all must own alike

Their ancient lineage. Kin to the dumb beasts

By the red life that flowed through all their veins

From hearts of the same shape, beating all as one

In man and brute; kin, by those kindred forms

Of flesh and bone, with eyes and ears and mouths

That saw and heard and hungered like his own,

His mother Earth reclaimed him.

Back and back,

He traced them, till the last faint clue died out

In lifeless earth and sea.

I watched him striving

To follow further, bending his great brows

Over the intense lens....

Far off, I heard

The murmur of human life, laughter and weeping;

Heard the choked sobbings by a million graves,

And saw a million faces, wrung with grief,

Lifted forlornly to the Inscrutable Power.

I saw him raise his head. I heard his thoughtAs others hear a whisper—Surely thisImplies design!And worlds on aching worldsOf dying hope were wrapped in those four words.He stared before him, wellnigh overwhelmedFor one brief moment, with instinctive aweOf Something that ... determined every forceDirected every atom....Then, in a flash,The indwelling vision vanished at the voiceOf his own blindfold reason. For what mindCould so unravel the complicated threads,The causes that are caused by the effectsOf other causes, intricately involved,Woven and interwoven, in endless mazes,Wandering through infinite time, infinite space,And yet, an ordered and mysterious whole,Before whose very being all mortal powerMust abdicate its sovereignty?A dogMight sooner hope to leap beyond the mindOf Newton than a man might hope to graspEven in this little whirl of earth and sunThe Scheme of the All-determining Absolute.And yet—if that—the All-moving, were the OneReality, and sustained and made all forms,Then, by the self-same power in man himselfWhatever was real in man might understandThat same Reality, being one substance with it,One substance with the essential Soul of all,—Might understand, as children understand,Even in ignorance, those who love them best;Might recognise, as through their innocent eyes,The highest, which is Love, though all the worldsOf lesser knowledge passed unheeded by.What meant those moments else? Moments that cameAnd went on wings, wild as these wings of mine,The wings of Shadow-of-a-Leaf,Quick with a light that never could be reachedBy toiling up the mountain-sides of thought;Consummate meanings that were never foundBy adding units; moments of strange aweWhen that majestic sequence of eventsWe call the cosmos, from its wheeling atomsUp to its wheeling suns, all spoke one Power,One Presence, One Unknowable, and One Known?

I saw him raise his head. I heard his thought

As others hear a whisper—Surely this

Implies design!

And worlds on aching worlds

Of dying hope were wrapped in those four words.

He stared before him, wellnigh overwhelmed

For one brief moment, with instinctive awe

Of Something that ... determined every force

Directed every atom....

Then, in a flash,

The indwelling vision vanished at the voice

Of his own blindfold reason. For what mind

Could so unravel the complicated threads,

The causes that are caused by the effects

Of other causes, intricately involved,

Woven and interwoven, in endless mazes,

Wandering through infinite time, infinite space,

And yet, an ordered and mysterious whole,

Before whose very being all mortal power

Must abdicate its sovereignty?

A dog

Might sooner hope to leap beyond the mind

Of Newton than a man might hope to grasp

Even in this little whirl of earth and sun

The Scheme of the All-determining Absolute.

And yet—if that—the All-moving, were the One

Reality, and sustained and made all forms,

Then, by the self-same power in man himself

Whatever was real in man might understand

That same Reality, being one substance with it,

One substance with the essential Soul of all,—

Might understand, as children understand,

Even in ignorance, those who love them best;

Might recognise, as through their innocent eyes,

The highest, which is Love, though all the worlds

Of lesser knowledge passed unheeded by.

What meant those moments else? Moments that came

And went on wings, wild as these wings of mine,

The wings of Shadow-of-a-Leaf,

Quick with a light that never could be reached

By toiling up the mountain-sides of thought;

Consummate meanings that were never found

By adding units; moments of strange awe

When that majestic sequence of events

We call the cosmos, from its wheeling atoms

Up to its wheeling suns, all spoke one Power,

One Presence, One Unknowable, and One Known?

In the beginning God made heaven and earth:He, too, believed it, once....

In the beginning God made heaven and earth:

He, too, believed it, once....

As if the wingsOf Shadow-of-a-Leaf had borne me through the WestSo that the sunset changed into the dawn,I saw him in his youth.The large salt wind,The creak of cordage, the wild swash of wavesWere round him as he paced the clear white deck,An odd loose-tweeded sojourner, in a worldOf uniforms and guns.TheBeagleplungedWestward, upon the road that Drake had sailed;But this new voyager, on a longer quest,Sailed on a stranger sea; and, though I heardHis ringing laugh, he seemed to live apartIn his own mind, from all who moved around him.I saw him while theBeaglebasked at anchorUnder West Indian palms. He lounged there, tannedWith sun; tall, lankier in his cool white drill;The big slouched straw pulled down to shade his eyes.The stirring wharf was one bright haze of colour;Kaleidoscopic flakes, orange and green,Blood-red and opal, glancing to and fro,Through purple shadows. The warm air smelt of fruit.He leaned his elbows on the butt of a gunAnd listened, while a red-faced officer, breathingFaint whiffs of rum, expounded lazily,With loosely stumbling tongue, the cynic’s codeHis easy rule of life, belying the creedThat both professed.And, in one flash, I caughtA glimpse of something deeper, missed by both,—The subtle touch of the Master-IronistUnfolding his world-drama, point by point,In every sight and sound and word and thought,Packed with significance.Out of its myriad scenesAll moving swiftly on, unguessed by man,To close in one great climax of clear light,This vivid moment flashed.The cynic ceased;And Darwin, slowly knitting his puzzled brows,Answered, “But it is wrong!”“Wrong?” chuckled the other. “Why should it be wrong?”And Darwin, Darwin,—he that was to graspThe crumbling pillars of their infidel TempleAnd bring them headlong down to the honest earth,Answered again, naïvely as a child,“Does not the Bible say so?”A broad grinWreathed the red face that stared into his own;And, later, when the wardroom heard the jest,The same wide grin from Christian mouth to mouthSpread like the ripples on a single poolQuietly enough! They liked him. They’d not hurt him!And Darwin, strange, observant, simple soul,Saw clearly enough; had eyes behind his backFor every smile; though in his big slow mindHe now revolved a thought that greatly puzzled him,A thought that, in their light sophistication,These humorists had not guessed.Once, in his cabin,His red-faced cynic had picked up a bookBy one whose life was like a constant lightOn the high altar of Truth.He had read a page,Then flung it down, with a contemptuous oath,Muttering, “These damned atheists! Why d’you read them?”Could pagan minds be stirred, then, to such wrathBecause the man they called an “atheist” smiledAt dates assigned by bland ecclesiastsTo God for His creation?Man was madeOn March the ninth, at ten o’clock in the morning(A Tuesday), just six thousand years ago:A legend of a somewhat different castFrom that deep music of the first great phraseInGenesis. The strange irony here struck home.For Darwin, here, was with the soul-bowed throngOf prophets, while the ecclesiasts blandly toyedWith little calendars, which his “atheist’s book,”In its irreverence, whispered quite away;Whispered (for all such atheists bend their headsDoubtless in shame) that, in the Book of Earth,Six thousand years were but as yesterday,A flying cloud, a shadow, a breaking wave.Million of years were written upon the rocksThat told its history. To upheave one rangeOf mountains, out of the sea that had submergedSo many a continent, ere mankind was born,The harnessed forces, governed all by law,Had laboured, dragging down and building up,Through distances of Time, unthinkableAs those of starry space.It dared to say(This book so empty of mystery and awe!)That, searching the dark scripture of the rocks,It found therein no sign of a beginning,No prospect of an end.Strange that the Truth,Whether upheld by the pure law withinOr by the power of reason, thus dismayedThese worshippers of a little man-made code.Alone there in his cabin, with the booksOf Humboldt, Lyell, Herschel, spread before him.He made his great decision.If the realmBeyond the bounds of human knowledge gaveSo large a sanctuary to mortal lies,Henceforth his Bible should be one inscribedDirectly with the law—the Book of Earth.

As if the wings

Of Shadow-of-a-Leaf had borne me through the West

So that the sunset changed into the dawn,

I saw him in his youth.

The large salt wind,

The creak of cordage, the wild swash of waves

Were round him as he paced the clear white deck,

An odd loose-tweeded sojourner, in a world

Of uniforms and guns.

TheBeagleplunged

Westward, upon the road that Drake had sailed;

But this new voyager, on a longer quest,

Sailed on a stranger sea; and, though I heard

His ringing laugh, he seemed to live apart

In his own mind, from all who moved around him.

I saw him while theBeaglebasked at anchor

Under West Indian palms. He lounged there, tanned

With sun; tall, lankier in his cool white drill;

The big slouched straw pulled down to shade his eyes.

The stirring wharf was one bright haze of colour;

Kaleidoscopic flakes, orange and green,

Blood-red and opal, glancing to and fro,

Through purple shadows. The warm air smelt of fruit.

He leaned his elbows on the butt of a gunAnd listened, while a red-faced officer, breathingFaint whiffs of rum, expounded lazily,With loosely stumbling tongue, the cynic’s codeHis easy rule of life, belying the creedThat both professed.And, in one flash, I caughtA glimpse of something deeper, missed by both,—The subtle touch of the Master-IronistUnfolding his world-drama, point by point,In every sight and sound and word and thought,Packed with significance.Out of its myriad scenesAll moving swiftly on, unguessed by man,To close in one great climax of clear light,This vivid moment flashed.The cynic ceased;And Darwin, slowly knitting his puzzled brows,Answered, “But it is wrong!”“Wrong?” chuckled the other. “Why should it be wrong?”And Darwin, Darwin,—he that was to graspThe crumbling pillars of their infidel TempleAnd bring them headlong down to the honest earth,Answered again, naïvely as a child,“Does not the Bible say so?”A broad grinWreathed the red face that stared into his own;And, later, when the wardroom heard the jest,The same wide grin from Christian mouth to mouthSpread like the ripples on a single poolQuietly enough! They liked him. They’d not hurt him!And Darwin, strange, observant, simple soul,Saw clearly enough; had eyes behind his backFor every smile; though in his big slow mindHe now revolved a thought that greatly puzzled him,A thought that, in their light sophistication,These humorists had not guessed.Once, in his cabin,His red-faced cynic had picked up a bookBy one whose life was like a constant lightOn the high altar of Truth.He had read a page,Then flung it down, with a contemptuous oath,Muttering, “These damned atheists! Why d’you read them?”Could pagan minds be stirred, then, to such wrathBecause the man they called an “atheist” smiledAt dates assigned by bland ecclesiastsTo God for His creation?Man was madeOn March the ninth, at ten o’clock in the morning(A Tuesday), just six thousand years ago:A legend of a somewhat different castFrom that deep music of the first great phraseInGenesis. The strange irony here struck home.For Darwin, here, was with the soul-bowed throngOf prophets, while the ecclesiasts blandly toyedWith little calendars, which his “atheist’s book,”In its irreverence, whispered quite away;Whispered (for all such atheists bend their headsDoubtless in shame) that, in the Book of Earth,Six thousand years were but as yesterday,A flying cloud, a shadow, a breaking wave.Million of years were written upon the rocksThat told its history. To upheave one rangeOf mountains, out of the sea that had submergedSo many a continent, ere mankind was born,The harnessed forces, governed all by law,Had laboured, dragging down and building up,Through distances of Time, unthinkableAs those of starry space.It dared to say(This book so empty of mystery and awe!)That, searching the dark scripture of the rocks,It found therein no sign of a beginning,No prospect of an end.Strange that the Truth,Whether upheld by the pure law withinOr by the power of reason, thus dismayedThese worshippers of a little man-made code.Alone there in his cabin, with the booksOf Humboldt, Lyell, Herschel, spread before him.He made his great decision.If the realmBeyond the bounds of human knowledge gaveSo large a sanctuary to mortal lies,Henceforth his Bible should be one inscribedDirectly with the law—the Book of Earth.

He leaned his elbows on the butt of a gun

And listened, while a red-faced officer, breathing

Faint whiffs of rum, expounded lazily,

With loosely stumbling tongue, the cynic’s code

His easy rule of life, belying the creed

That both professed.

And, in one flash, I caught

A glimpse of something deeper, missed by both,—

The subtle touch of the Master-Ironist

Unfolding his world-drama, point by point,

In every sight and sound and word and thought,

Packed with significance.

Out of its myriad scenes

All moving swiftly on, unguessed by man,

To close in one great climax of clear light,

This vivid moment flashed.

The cynic ceased;

And Darwin, slowly knitting his puzzled brows,

Answered, “But it is wrong!”

“Wrong?” chuckled the other. “Why should it be wrong?”

And Darwin, Darwin,—he that was to grasp

The crumbling pillars of their infidel Temple

And bring them headlong down to the honest earth,

Answered again, naïvely as a child,

“Does not the Bible say so?”

A broad grin

Wreathed the red face that stared into his own;

And, later, when the wardroom heard the jest,

The same wide grin from Christian mouth to mouth

Spread like the ripples on a single pool

Quietly enough! They liked him. They’d not hurt him!

And Darwin, strange, observant, simple soul,

Saw clearly enough; had eyes behind his back

For every smile; though in his big slow mind

He now revolved a thought that greatly puzzled him,

A thought that, in their light sophistication,

These humorists had not guessed.

Once, in his cabin,

His red-faced cynic had picked up a book

By one whose life was like a constant light

On the high altar of Truth.

He had read a page,

Then flung it down, with a contemptuous oath,

Muttering, “These damned atheists! Why d’you read them?”

Could pagan minds be stirred, then, to such wrath

Because the man they called an “atheist” smiled

At dates assigned by bland ecclesiasts

To God for His creation?

Man was made

On March the ninth, at ten o’clock in the morning

(A Tuesday), just six thousand years ago:

A legend of a somewhat different cast

From that deep music of the first great phrase

InGenesis. The strange irony here struck home.

For Darwin, here, was with the soul-bowed throng

Of prophets, while the ecclesiasts blandly toyed

With little calendars, which his “atheist’s book,”

In its irreverence, whispered quite away;

Whispered (for all such atheists bend their heads

Doubtless in shame) that, in the Book of Earth,

Six thousand years were but as yesterday,

A flying cloud, a shadow, a breaking wave.

Million of years were written upon the rocks

That told its history. To upheave one range

Of mountains, out of the sea that had submerged

So many a continent, ere mankind was born,

The harnessed forces, governed all by law,

Had laboured, dragging down and building up,

Through distances of Time, unthinkable

As those of starry space.

It dared to say

(This book so empty of mystery and awe!)

That, searching the dark scripture of the rocks,

It found therein no sign of a beginning,

No prospect of an end.

Strange that the Truth,

Whether upheld by the pure law within

Or by the power of reason, thus dismayed

These worshippers of a little man-made code.

Alone there in his cabin, with the books

Of Humboldt, Lyell, Herschel, spread before him.

He made his great decision.

If the realm

Beyond the bounds of human knowledge gave

So large a sanctuary to mortal lies,

Henceforth his Bible should be one inscribed

Directly with the law—the Book of Earth.

I saw him climbing like a small dark speck—Fraught with what vast significance to the world—Among the snow-capt Andes, a dark pointOf travelling thought, alone upon the heights,To watch the terrible craters as they breathedTheir smouldering wrath against the sky.I saw him,Pausing above Portillo’s pass to hearThe sea-like tumult, where brown torrents rolledInnumerable thousands of rough stones,Jarring together, and hurrying all one way.He stood there, spellbound, listening to the voiceOf Time itself, the moments hurrying byFor ever irrecoverably. I heardHis very thought. The stones were on their wayTo the ocean that had made them; every noteIn their wild music was a prophecyOf continents unborn.When he had seenThose continents in embryo, beds of sandAnd shingle, cumulant on the coastwise plains,Thousands of feet in thickness, he had doubtedWhether the river of time itself could grindAnd pile such masses there. But when he heardThe mountain-torrents rattling, he recalledHow races had been born and passed away,And night and day, through years unreckonable,These grinding stones had never ceased to rollOn their steep course. Not even the Cordilleras,Had they been ribbed with adamant, could withstandThat slow sure waste. Even those majestic heightsWould vanish. Nothing—not the wind that blowsWas more unstable than the crust of the earth.He landed at Valdivia, on the dayWhen the great earthquake shuddered through the hillsFrom Valparaiso, southward to Cape Horn.I saw him wandering through a ruined cityOf Paraguay, and measuring on the coastThe upheaval of new land, discovering rocksTen feet above high-water, rocks with shellsFor which the dark-eyed panic-stricken throngsHad dived at ebb, a few short days ago.I saw him—strange discoverer—as he sailedThrough isles, not only uncharted, but newborn,Isles newly arisen and glistening in the sun,And atolls where he thought an older heightHad sunk below the smooth Pacific sea.He explored the Pampas; and before him passedThe centuries that had made them; the great streamsGathering the red earth at their estuariesIn soft rich deltas, till new plains of loamOver the Banda granite slowly spread,And seeds took root and mightier forests towered,Forests that human foot could never tread,Forests that human eye could never see;But by the all-conquering human mind at lastTrodden and seen, waving their leaves in airAs at an incantation,And filled once more with monstrous forms of life.He found their monstrous bones embedded there,And, as he found them, all those dry bones lived.I stole beside him in the dark, and heard,In the unfathomable forest deeps, the crashOf distant boughs, a wild and lonely sound,Where Megatherium, the gigantic SlothWhose thigh was thrice an elephant’s in girth,Rose, blindly groping, and with armoured handsTore down the trees to reach their tender crestsAnd strip them of their more delicious green.I saw him pondering on the secret bondBetween the living creatures that he foundOn the main coast, and those on lonely isles;Forms that diverged, and yet were closely akin.One key, one only, unlocked the mystery there.Unless God made, for every separate isleAs it arose, new tribes of plants, birds, beasts,In variant images of the tribes He setUpon their nearest continent, grading allBy time, and place, and distance from the shore,The bond between them was the bond of blood.All, all had branched from one original tree.I saw him off the Patagonian coastStaring at something stranger than a dream.There, on a rocky point above the shipWith its world-voyaging thoughts, he first beheldPrimeval man. There, clustering on the crags,Backed by their echoing forests of dark beech,The naked savages yelled at the white sails,Like wolves that bay the moon. They tossed their armsWildly through their long manes of streaming hair,Like troubled spirits from an alien world.Whence had they risen? From what ancestral night?What bond of blood was there? What dreadful PowerBegot them—fallen or risen—from heaven or hell?I saw him hunting everywhere for lightOn life’s dark mystery; gathering everywhereArmies of fact, that pointed all one way,And yet—whatvera causacould he findIn blindfold Nature?Even had he found it,What æons would be needed! Earth was old;But could the unresting loom of infinite timeWeave this wild miracle, or evolve one nerveOf all this intricate network in the brain,This exquisite machine that looked through heaven,Revelled in colours of a sunset sky,Or met love’s eyes on earth?Everywhere, now,He found new clues that led him all one way.And, everywhere, in the record of the rocks,Time and to spare for all that Time could do,But not hisvera causa.Earth grew strange.Even in the ghostly gleam that told the watchOne daybreak that the ship was nearing homeHe saw those endless distances again....He saw through mist, over the struggling wavesThat run between the white-chalk cliffs of FranceAnd England, sundered coasts that once were joinedAnd clothed with one wide forest.The deep seaHad made the strange white body of that broad land,Beautifully establishing it on death,Building it, inch by inch, through endless yearsOut of innumerable little gleaming bones,The midget skeletons of the twinkling tribesThat swarmed above in the more lucid greenTen thousand fathoms nearer to the sun.There they lived out their gleam of life and died,Then slowly drifted down into the dark,And spread in layers upon the cold sea-bedThe invisible grains and flakes that were their bones.Layer on layer of flakes and grains of lime,Where life could never build, they built it upBy their incessant death. Though but an inchIn every thousand years, they built it up,Inch upon inch, age after endless age;And the dark weight of the incumbent DeepCompressed them (Power determined by what Will?)Out of the night that dim creation roseThe seas withdrew. The bright new land appeared.Then Gaul and Albion, nameless yet, were one;And the wind brought a myriad wingèd seeds,And the birds carried them, and the forests grew,And through their tangled ways the tall elk roared.But sun and frost and rain, the grinding streamsAnd rhythmic tides (the tools of what dread Hand?)Still laboured on; till, after many a change,The great moon-harnessed energies of the seaCame swinging back, the way of the southwest wind,And, æon after æon, hammering there,Rechannelled through that land their shining way.There all those little bones now greet the sunIn gleaming cliffs of chalk; and, in their chinesThe chattering jackdaw builds, while overheadOn the soft mantle of turf the violet wakesIn March, and young-eyed lovers look for Spring.What of the Cause? O, no more rounded creedsFramed in a realm where no man could refute them!Honesty, honesty, honesty, first of all.And so he turned upon the world around him,The same grave eyes of deep simplicityWith which he had faced his pagan-christian friendsAnd quoted them their Bible....Slowly he marshalled his worldwide hosts of fact,Legions new-found, or first assembled now,In their due order. Lyell had not daredTo tell the truth he knew. He found in earthThe records of its vanished worlds of life,Each with its own strange forms, in its own age,Sealed in its own rock-system.In the first,The rocks congealed from fire, no sign of life;And, through the rest, in order as they were made,From oldest up to youngest, first the signsOf life’s first gropings; then, in gathering power,Strange fishes, lizards, birds, and uncouth beasts,Worlds of strange life, but all in ordered grades,World over world, each tombed in its own ageOr merging into the next with subtle changes,Delicate modulations of one form,(Urged by what force? Impelled by what dark power?)Progressing upward, into subtler formsThrough all the buried strata, till there cameForms that still live, still fight for life on earth,Tiger and wolf and ape; and, last of all,The form of man; the child of yesterday.Of yesterday! For none had ever foundAmong the myriad forms of older worlds,Locked in those older rocks through tracts of timeOut-spanning thought, one vestige of mankind.There was no human footprint on the shoresWhose old compacted sand, now turned to stone,Still showed the ripples where a summer seaOnce whispered, ere the mastodon was born.There were the pitted marks, all driven one way,That showed how raindrops fell, and the west wind blew.There on the naked stone remained the tracksWhere first the sea-beasts crawled out of the sea,A few salt yards upon the long dark trailThat led through æons to the tidal roarOf lighted cities and this world of tears.The shell, the fern, the bird’s foot, the beast’s claw,Had left their myriad signs. Their forms remained,Their delicate whorls, their branching fronds, their bones,Age after age, like jewels in the rocks;But, till the dawning of an age so late,It seemed like yesterday, no sign, no trace,No relic of mankind!Then, in that ageAmong the skulls, made equal in the grave,Of ape and wolf, last of them all, looked upThat naked shrine with its receding brows,And its two sightless holes, the skull of man.Round it, his tools and weapons, the chipped flints,The first beginnings of his fight for power,The first results of his first groping thoughtProclaimed his birth, the youngest child of time.Born, and not made?Born—of what lesser life?Was man so arrogant that he could disdainThe words he used so glibly of his God—Born, and not made?Could Lyell, who believedThat, in the world around us, we should findThe self-same causes and the self-same lawsTo-day as yesterday; and throughout all time;And that the Power behind all changes worksBy law alone; law that includes all heights,All depths, of reason, harmony, and love;Could Lyell hold that all those realms of life,Each sealed apart in its own separate age,With its own separate species, had been calledSuddenly, by a special Act of God,Out of the void and formless? Could he thinkEven that mankind, this last emergent form,After so many æons of ordered law,Was by miraculous Hands in one wild hour,Suddenly kneaded out of the formless clay?And was the formless clay more noble, then,Than this that breathed, this that had eyes to see,This whose dark heart could beat, this that could die?No! Lyell knew that this wild house of fleshWas never made by hands, not even those Hands;And that to think so were to discrown God,And not to crown Him, as the blind believed.The miracle was a vaster than they knew.The law by which He worked was all unknown;Subtler than music, quieter than light,The mighty process that through countlesschanges,Delicate grades and tones and semi-tones,Out of the formless slowly brought forthforms,Lifeless as crystals, or translucent globesDrifting in water; till, through endless years,Out of their myriad changes, one or twoMore subtle in combination, at the touchOf light began to move, began to attractSubstances that could feed them; blindly atfirst;But as an artist, with all heaven for prize,Pores over every syllable, tests each threadOf his most tenuous thought, the movingPowerSpent endless æons of that which men callTime,To form one floating tendril that could closeOn what it touched.Who whispered in his earThat fleeting thought?We must suppose a PowerIntently watching—through all the universe—Each slightest variant, seizing on the best,Selecting them, as men by conscious choiceIn their small realm selected and reshapedTheir birds and flowers.We must suppose a PowerIn that immense night-cleaving pageantryWhich men call Nature, a selective Power,Choosing through æons as men choose through years.Many are called, few chosen, quietly breathedShadow-of-a-Leaf, in exquisite undertoneOne phrase of the secret music....He did not hear.Lamarck—all too impatiently he flungLamarck aside; forgetting how in daysWhen the dark Book of Earth was darker yetLamarck had spelled gigantic secrets out,And left an easier task for the age to come;Forgetting more than this; for Darwin’s mind,Working at ease in Nature, lost its wayIn history, and the thoughts of other men.For him Lamarck had failed, and he misreadHis own forerunner’s mind. Blindfold desiresHad never shaped a wing. The grapevine’s needTo cling and climb could thrust no tendrils out.The environing snows of Greenland could not cloakIts little foxes with their whiter fur.Nor could the wing-shut butterfly’s inner willMimic the shrivelled leaf on the withered boughSo cunningly that the bird might perch beside itAnd never see its prey.Was it blind chanceThat flashed his own great fragment of the truthInto his mind? Whatvera causa, then,What leap of Nature brought that truth to birth,Illumining all the world?It flashed upon himAs at a sudden contact of two wiresThe current flashes through; or, when through space,A meteorite for endless ages rollsIn darkness, and its world of night appearsUnchangeable for ever, till, all at once,It plunges into a soft resisting seaOf planet-girdling air, and burns with heat,And bursts into a blaze, while far below,Two lovers, in a world beyond its ken,Look from a little window into the nightAnd see a falling star.By such wild light,An image of his own ambiguous “chance,”Which was not “chance,” but governed by a lawUnknown, too vast for men to comprehend(Too vast for any to comprehend but One,Breathed Shadow-of-a-Leaf, who in each part discernsIts harmony with the whole), at last the clueFlashed on him....In the strange ironical schemeWherein he moved, of the Master-Dramatist,It was his own ambiguous “chance” that sliptA book of Malthus into his drowsy handAnd drew his drowsy eyes down to that lawOf struggling men and nations.Was it “chance”That in this intricate torch-race tossed him thereLight from one struggling on an alien trackAnd yet not alien, since all roads to truthMeet in one goal at last?Was it blind chanceThat even in this triumphant flash preparedThe downfall of his human pride, and sliptThe self-same volume into another hand;And, in the lonely islands of Malay,Drew Wallace to the self-same page, and said—Though only Shadow-of-a-Leaf could hear that voice,—Whose is the kingdom, whose the glory and power?O, exquisite irony of the Master, thereUnseen by both, their generous rivalryEvolved, perfected, the new thought for man;And, over both, and all their thoughts, a PowerIntently watching, made of their struggle for truthAn image of the law that they illumed.So all that wasting of a myriad seedsIn Nature’s wild profusion was not waste,Not even such waste as drives the flying grainsUnder the sculptor’s chisel, but was itselfA cause of that unending struggle of lifeThrough which all life ascends.The conqueror thereWas chosen by laws inexorably precise,As though to infinite Reason infinite ArtWere wedded, and had found in infinite “chance”Full scope for their consummate certainties,—Choice and caprice, freedom and law in one.Each slightest variant, in a myriad ways,That armed or shielded or could help its kind,Would lead to a new triumph; would reveal,In varying, subtler ways of varying still;New strokes of that divinest “chance” of allWhich poet and sculptor count as unforeseen,And unforeseeable; yet, when once achieved,They recognise as crowning law with law,And witnessing to infinitudes of PowerIn that creative Will which shapes the world.O, in that widening splendour of the mind,Blinder than Buffon, blinder than Lamarck,His eyes amazed with all that leapt to light,Dazed with a myriad details, lost the whole.He saw the law whereby the few were chosenFrom forms already at variance. Back and backHe traced his law, and every step was true.And yet hisvera causawas no Cause,For it determined nothing. It revealed,In part, how subtler variants had arisenFrom earliest simpler variants, but no more....Subtler than music, quieter than light,The Power that wrought those changes; and the lastWere all implied and folded in the first,As the gnarled oak-tree with its thousand boughsWrithing to heaven and striking its grim rootsLike monstrous talons into the mountain’s heartIs pent in one smooth acorn. So each life,In little, retold the tale; each separate manWas, in himself, the world’s epitome,A microcosm, wherein who runs may readThe history of the whole; from the first seedEnclosed in the blind womb, until life wakeThrough moons or æons of embryonic changeTo human thought and love, and those desiresWhich still grope upward, into the unknown realmsAs far beyond us now as Europe layFrom the first life that crawled out of the sea.There lies our hope; but O, the endless way!And the lost road of knowledge, endless, too!That infinite hope was not for him. One lifeHardly sufficed for his appointed task,To find on earth his clues to the unknown law,Out-miracling all miracles had he known,Whereby this lifeless earth, so clearly seenAcross the abyss of time, this lifeless earthWashed by a lifeless ocean, by no powerBut that which moves within the things we see,Swept the blind rocks into the cities of men,With great cathedrals towering to the sky,And little ant-like swarms in their dark aislesKneeling to that Unknowable.His to traceThe way by inches, never to see the whole,Never to grasp the miracle in the law,And wrestling with it, to be written by lightAs by an Angel’s finger in the dark.Could he have stood on that first lifeless coastWith Shadow-of-a-Leaf, and seen that lifeless brine,Rocks where no mollusc clung, nor seaweed grew;Could he have heard a whisper,—Only wait.Be patient. On one sure and certain day,Out of the natural changes of these rocksAnd seas, at last, a great ship will go by;Cities will dusk that heaven; and you shall seeTwo lovers pass, reading one printed book,The Paradiso....Would he have been so sureThat Nature had no miracles in her heartMore inconceivably shattering to the mindThan madness ever dreamed? For this, this, this,Had happened, though the part obscured the whole;And his own labour, in a myriad ways,Endlessly linking part to part, had lostThevera causathat Lamarck had known,The one determining Cause that moved through all.

I saw him climbing like a small dark speck

—Fraught with what vast significance to the world—

Among the snow-capt Andes, a dark point

Of travelling thought, alone upon the heights,

To watch the terrible craters as they breathed

Their smouldering wrath against the sky.

I saw him,

Pausing above Portillo’s pass to hear

The sea-like tumult, where brown torrents rolled

Innumerable thousands of rough stones,

Jarring together, and hurrying all one way.

He stood there, spellbound, listening to the voice

Of Time itself, the moments hurrying by

For ever irrecoverably. I heard

His very thought. The stones were on their way

To the ocean that had made them; every note

In their wild music was a prophecy

Of continents unborn.

When he had seen

Those continents in embryo, beds of sand

And shingle, cumulant on the coastwise plains,

Thousands of feet in thickness, he had doubted

Whether the river of time itself could grind

And pile such masses there. But when he heard

The mountain-torrents rattling, he recalled

How races had been born and passed away,

And night and day, through years unreckonable,

These grinding stones had never ceased to roll

On their steep course. Not even the Cordilleras,

Had they been ribbed with adamant, could withstand

That slow sure waste. Even those majestic heights

Would vanish. Nothing—not the wind that blows

Was more unstable than the crust of the earth.

He landed at Valdivia, on the dayWhen the great earthquake shuddered through the hillsFrom Valparaiso, southward to Cape Horn.I saw him wandering through a ruined cityOf Paraguay, and measuring on the coastThe upheaval of new land, discovering rocksTen feet above high-water, rocks with shellsFor which the dark-eyed panic-stricken throngsHad dived at ebb, a few short days ago.I saw him—strange discoverer—as he sailedThrough isles, not only uncharted, but newborn,Isles newly arisen and glistening in the sun,And atolls where he thought an older heightHad sunk below the smooth Pacific sea.

He landed at Valdivia, on the day

When the great earthquake shuddered through the hills

From Valparaiso, southward to Cape Horn.

I saw him wandering through a ruined city

Of Paraguay, and measuring on the coast

The upheaval of new land, discovering rocks

Ten feet above high-water, rocks with shells

For which the dark-eyed panic-stricken throngs

Had dived at ebb, a few short days ago.

I saw him—strange discoverer—as he sailed

Through isles, not only uncharted, but newborn,

Isles newly arisen and glistening in the sun,

And atolls where he thought an older height

Had sunk below the smooth Pacific sea.

He explored the Pampas; and before him passedThe centuries that had made them; the great streamsGathering the red earth at their estuariesIn soft rich deltas, till new plains of loamOver the Banda granite slowly spread,And seeds took root and mightier forests towered,Forests that human foot could never tread,Forests that human eye could never see;But by the all-conquering human mind at lastTrodden and seen, waving their leaves in airAs at an incantation,And filled once more with monstrous forms of life.

He explored the Pampas; and before him passed

The centuries that had made them; the great streams

Gathering the red earth at their estuaries

In soft rich deltas, till new plains of loam

Over the Banda granite slowly spread,

And seeds took root and mightier forests towered,

Forests that human foot could never tread,

Forests that human eye could never see;

But by the all-conquering human mind at last

Trodden and seen, waving their leaves in air

As at an incantation,

And filled once more with monstrous forms of life.

He found their monstrous bones embedded there,And, as he found them, all those dry bones lived.I stole beside him in the dark, and heard,In the unfathomable forest deeps, the crashOf distant boughs, a wild and lonely sound,Where Megatherium, the gigantic SlothWhose thigh was thrice an elephant’s in girth,Rose, blindly groping, and with armoured handsTore down the trees to reach their tender crestsAnd strip them of their more delicious green.I saw him pondering on the secret bondBetween the living creatures that he foundOn the main coast, and those on lonely isles;Forms that diverged, and yet were closely akin.One key, one only, unlocked the mystery there.

He found their monstrous bones embedded there,

And, as he found them, all those dry bones lived.

I stole beside him in the dark, and heard,

In the unfathomable forest deeps, the crash

Of distant boughs, a wild and lonely sound,

Where Megatherium, the gigantic Sloth

Whose thigh was thrice an elephant’s in girth,

Rose, blindly groping, and with armoured hands

Tore down the trees to reach their tender crests

And strip them of their more delicious green.

I saw him pondering on the secret bond

Between the living creatures that he found

On the main coast, and those on lonely isles;

Forms that diverged, and yet were closely akin.

One key, one only, unlocked the mystery there.

Unless God made, for every separate isleAs it arose, new tribes of plants, birds, beasts,In variant images of the tribes He setUpon their nearest continent, grading allBy time, and place, and distance from the shore,The bond between them was the bond of blood.All, all had branched from one original tree.

Unless God made, for every separate isle

As it arose, new tribes of plants, birds, beasts,

In variant images of the tribes He set

Upon their nearest continent, grading all

By time, and place, and distance from the shore,

The bond between them was the bond of blood.

All, all had branched from one original tree.

I saw him off the Patagonian coastStaring at something stranger than a dream.There, on a rocky point above the shipWith its world-voyaging thoughts, he first beheldPrimeval man. There, clustering on the crags,Backed by their echoing forests of dark beech,The naked savages yelled at the white sails,Like wolves that bay the moon. They tossed their armsWildly through their long manes of streaming hair,Like troubled spirits from an alien world.Whence had they risen? From what ancestral night?What bond of blood was there? What dreadful PowerBegot them—fallen or risen—from heaven or hell?

I saw him off the Patagonian coast

Staring at something stranger than a dream.

There, on a rocky point above the ship

With its world-voyaging thoughts, he first beheld

Primeval man. There, clustering on the crags,

Backed by their echoing forests of dark beech,

The naked savages yelled at the white sails,

Like wolves that bay the moon. They tossed their arms

Wildly through their long manes of streaming hair,

Like troubled spirits from an alien world.

Whence had they risen? From what ancestral night?

What bond of blood was there? What dreadful Power

Begot them—fallen or risen—from heaven or hell?

I saw him hunting everywhere for lightOn life’s dark mystery; gathering everywhereArmies of fact, that pointed all one way,And yet—whatvera causacould he findIn blindfold Nature?Even had he found it,What æons would be needed! Earth was old;But could the unresting loom of infinite timeWeave this wild miracle, or evolve one nerveOf all this intricate network in the brain,This exquisite machine that looked through heaven,Revelled in colours of a sunset sky,Or met love’s eyes on earth?Everywhere, now,He found new clues that led him all one way.And, everywhere, in the record of the rocks,Time and to spare for all that Time could do,But not hisvera causa.Earth grew strange.Even in the ghostly gleam that told the watchOne daybreak that the ship was nearing homeHe saw those endless distances again....He saw through mist, over the struggling wavesThat run between the white-chalk cliffs of FranceAnd England, sundered coasts that once were joinedAnd clothed with one wide forest.The deep seaHad made the strange white body of that broad land,Beautifully establishing it on death,Building it, inch by inch, through endless yearsOut of innumerable little gleaming bones,The midget skeletons of the twinkling tribesThat swarmed above in the more lucid greenTen thousand fathoms nearer to the sun.There they lived out their gleam of life and died,Then slowly drifted down into the dark,And spread in layers upon the cold sea-bedThe invisible grains and flakes that were their bones.Layer on layer of flakes and grains of lime,Where life could never build, they built it upBy their incessant death. Though but an inchIn every thousand years, they built it up,Inch upon inch, age after endless age;And the dark weight of the incumbent DeepCompressed them (Power determined by what Will?)Out of the night that dim creation roseThe seas withdrew. The bright new land appeared.Then Gaul and Albion, nameless yet, were one;And the wind brought a myriad wingèd seeds,And the birds carried them, and the forests grew,And through their tangled ways the tall elk roared.But sun and frost and rain, the grinding streamsAnd rhythmic tides (the tools of what dread Hand?)Still laboured on; till, after many a change,The great moon-harnessed energies of the seaCame swinging back, the way of the southwest wind,And, æon after æon, hammering there,Rechannelled through that land their shining way.There all those little bones now greet the sunIn gleaming cliffs of chalk; and, in their chinesThe chattering jackdaw builds, while overheadOn the soft mantle of turf the violet wakesIn March, and young-eyed lovers look for Spring.What of the Cause? O, no more rounded creedsFramed in a realm where no man could refute them!Honesty, honesty, honesty, first of all.And so he turned upon the world around him,The same grave eyes of deep simplicityWith which he had faced his pagan-christian friendsAnd quoted them their Bible....Slowly he marshalled his worldwide hosts of fact,Legions new-found, or first assembled now,In their due order. Lyell had not daredTo tell the truth he knew. He found in earthThe records of its vanished worlds of life,Each with its own strange forms, in its own age,Sealed in its own rock-system.In the first,The rocks congealed from fire, no sign of life;And, through the rest, in order as they were made,From oldest up to youngest, first the signsOf life’s first gropings; then, in gathering power,Strange fishes, lizards, birds, and uncouth beasts,Worlds of strange life, but all in ordered grades,World over world, each tombed in its own ageOr merging into the next with subtle changes,Delicate modulations of one form,(Urged by what force? Impelled by what dark power?)Progressing upward, into subtler formsThrough all the buried strata, till there cameForms that still live, still fight for life on earth,Tiger and wolf and ape; and, last of all,The form of man; the child of yesterday.Of yesterday! For none had ever foundAmong the myriad forms of older worlds,Locked in those older rocks through tracts of timeOut-spanning thought, one vestige of mankind.There was no human footprint on the shoresWhose old compacted sand, now turned to stone,Still showed the ripples where a summer seaOnce whispered, ere the mastodon was born.There were the pitted marks, all driven one way,That showed how raindrops fell, and the west wind blew.There on the naked stone remained the tracksWhere first the sea-beasts crawled out of the sea,A few salt yards upon the long dark trailThat led through æons to the tidal roarOf lighted cities and this world of tears.The shell, the fern, the bird’s foot, the beast’s claw,Had left their myriad signs. Their forms remained,Their delicate whorls, their branching fronds, their bones,Age after age, like jewels in the rocks;But, till the dawning of an age so late,It seemed like yesterday, no sign, no trace,No relic of mankind!Then, in that ageAmong the skulls, made equal in the grave,Of ape and wolf, last of them all, looked upThat naked shrine with its receding brows,And its two sightless holes, the skull of man.Round it, his tools and weapons, the chipped flints,The first beginnings of his fight for power,The first results of his first groping thoughtProclaimed his birth, the youngest child of time.Born, and not made?Born—of what lesser life?Was man so arrogant that he could disdainThe words he used so glibly of his God—Born, and not made?Could Lyell, who believedThat, in the world around us, we should findThe self-same causes and the self-same lawsTo-day as yesterday; and throughout all time;And that the Power behind all changes worksBy law alone; law that includes all heights,All depths, of reason, harmony, and love;Could Lyell hold that all those realms of life,Each sealed apart in its own separate age,With its own separate species, had been calledSuddenly, by a special Act of God,Out of the void and formless? Could he thinkEven that mankind, this last emergent form,After so many æons of ordered law,Was by miraculous Hands in one wild hour,Suddenly kneaded out of the formless clay?And was the formless clay more noble, then,Than this that breathed, this that had eyes to see,This whose dark heart could beat, this that could die?No! Lyell knew that this wild house of fleshWas never made by hands, not even those Hands;And that to think so were to discrown God,And not to crown Him, as the blind believed.The miracle was a vaster than they knew.The law by which He worked was all unknown;Subtler than music, quieter than light,The mighty process that through countlesschanges,Delicate grades and tones and semi-tones,Out of the formless slowly brought forthforms,Lifeless as crystals, or translucent globesDrifting in water; till, through endless years,Out of their myriad changes, one or twoMore subtle in combination, at the touchOf light began to move, began to attractSubstances that could feed them; blindly atfirst;But as an artist, with all heaven for prize,Pores over every syllable, tests each threadOf his most tenuous thought, the movingPowerSpent endless æons of that which men callTime,To form one floating tendril that could closeOn what it touched.Who whispered in his earThat fleeting thought?We must suppose a PowerIntently watching—through all the universe—Each slightest variant, seizing on the best,Selecting them, as men by conscious choiceIn their small realm selected and reshapedTheir birds and flowers.We must suppose a PowerIn that immense night-cleaving pageantryWhich men call Nature, a selective Power,Choosing through æons as men choose through years.

I saw him hunting everywhere for light

On life’s dark mystery; gathering everywhere

Armies of fact, that pointed all one way,

And yet—whatvera causacould he find

In blindfold Nature?

Even had he found it,

What æons would be needed! Earth was old;

But could the unresting loom of infinite time

Weave this wild miracle, or evolve one nerve

Of all this intricate network in the brain,

This exquisite machine that looked through heaven,

Revelled in colours of a sunset sky,

Or met love’s eyes on earth?

Everywhere, now,

He found new clues that led him all one way.

And, everywhere, in the record of the rocks,

Time and to spare for all that Time could do,

But not hisvera causa.

Earth grew strange.

Even in the ghostly gleam that told the watch

One daybreak that the ship was nearing home

He saw those endless distances again....

He saw through mist, over the struggling waves

That run between the white-chalk cliffs of France

And England, sundered coasts that once were joined

And clothed with one wide forest.

The deep sea

Had made the strange white body of that broad land,

Beautifully establishing it on death,

Building it, inch by inch, through endless years

Out of innumerable little gleaming bones,

The midget skeletons of the twinkling tribes

That swarmed above in the more lucid green

Ten thousand fathoms nearer to the sun.

There they lived out their gleam of life and died,

Then slowly drifted down into the dark,

And spread in layers upon the cold sea-bed

The invisible grains and flakes that were their bones.

Layer on layer of flakes and grains of lime,

Where life could never build, they built it up

By their incessant death. Though but an inch

In every thousand years, they built it up,

Inch upon inch, age after endless age;

And the dark weight of the incumbent Deep

Compressed them (Power determined by what Will?)

Out of the night that dim creation rose

The seas withdrew. The bright new land appeared.

Then Gaul and Albion, nameless yet, were one;

And the wind brought a myriad wingèd seeds,

And the birds carried them, and the forests grew,

And through their tangled ways the tall elk roared.

But sun and frost and rain, the grinding streams

And rhythmic tides (the tools of what dread Hand?)

Still laboured on; till, after many a change,

The great moon-harnessed energies of the sea

Came swinging back, the way of the southwest wind,

And, æon after æon, hammering there,

Rechannelled through that land their shining way.

There all those little bones now greet the sun

In gleaming cliffs of chalk; and, in their chines

The chattering jackdaw builds, while overhead

On the soft mantle of turf the violet wakes

In March, and young-eyed lovers look for Spring.

What of the Cause? O, no more rounded creeds

Framed in a realm where no man could refute them!

Honesty, honesty, honesty, first of all.

And so he turned upon the world around him,

The same grave eyes of deep simplicity

With which he had faced his pagan-christian friends

And quoted them their Bible....

Slowly he marshalled his worldwide hosts of fact,

Legions new-found, or first assembled now,

In their due order. Lyell had not dared

To tell the truth he knew. He found in earth

The records of its vanished worlds of life,

Each with its own strange forms, in its own age,

Sealed in its own rock-system.

In the first,

The rocks congealed from fire, no sign of life;

And, through the rest, in order as they were made,

From oldest up to youngest, first the signs

Of life’s first gropings; then, in gathering power,

Strange fishes, lizards, birds, and uncouth beasts,

Worlds of strange life, but all in ordered grades,

World over world, each tombed in its own age

Or merging into the next with subtle changes,

Delicate modulations of one form,

(Urged by what force? Impelled by what dark power?)

Progressing upward, into subtler forms

Through all the buried strata, till there came

Forms that still live, still fight for life on earth,

Tiger and wolf and ape; and, last of all,

The form of man; the child of yesterday.

Of yesterday! For none had ever found

Among the myriad forms of older worlds,

Locked in those older rocks through tracts of time

Out-spanning thought, one vestige of mankind.

There was no human footprint on the shores

Whose old compacted sand, now turned to stone,

Still showed the ripples where a summer sea

Once whispered, ere the mastodon was born.

There were the pitted marks, all driven one way,

That showed how raindrops fell, and the west wind blew.

There on the naked stone remained the tracks

Where first the sea-beasts crawled out of the sea,

A few salt yards upon the long dark trail

That led through æons to the tidal roar

Of lighted cities and this world of tears.

The shell, the fern, the bird’s foot, the beast’s claw,

Had left their myriad signs. Their forms remained,

Their delicate whorls, their branching fronds, their bones,

Age after age, like jewels in the rocks;

But, till the dawning of an age so late,

It seemed like yesterday, no sign, no trace,

No relic of mankind!

Then, in that age

Among the skulls, made equal in the grave,

Of ape and wolf, last of them all, looked up

That naked shrine with its receding brows,

And its two sightless holes, the skull of man.

Round it, his tools and weapons, the chipped flints,

The first beginnings of his fight for power,

The first results of his first groping thought

Proclaimed his birth, the youngest child of time.

Born, and not made?Born—of what lesser life?

Was man so arrogant that he could disdain

The words he used so glibly of his God—

Born, and not made?

Could Lyell, who believed

That, in the world around us, we should find

The self-same causes and the self-same laws

To-day as yesterday; and throughout all time;

And that the Power behind all changes works

By law alone; law that includes all heights,

All depths, of reason, harmony, and love;

Could Lyell hold that all those realms of life,

Each sealed apart in its own separate age,

With its own separate species, had been called

Suddenly, by a special Act of God,

Out of the void and formless? Could he think

Even that mankind, this last emergent form,

After so many æons of ordered law,

Was by miraculous Hands in one wild hour,

Suddenly kneaded out of the formless clay?

And was the formless clay more noble, then,

Than this that breathed, this that had eyes to see,

This whose dark heart could beat, this that could die?

No! Lyell knew that this wild house of flesh

Was never made by hands, not even those Hands;

And that to think so were to discrown God,

And not to crown Him, as the blind believed.

The miracle was a vaster than they knew.

The law by which He worked was all unknown;

Subtler than music, quieter than light,

The mighty process that through countless

changes,

Delicate grades and tones and semi-tones,

Out of the formless slowly brought forth

forms,

Lifeless as crystals, or translucent globes

Drifting in water; till, through endless years,

Out of their myriad changes, one or two

More subtle in combination, at the touch

Of light began to move, began to attract

Substances that could feed them; blindly at

first;

But as an artist, with all heaven for prize,

Pores over every syllable, tests each thread

Of his most tenuous thought, the moving

Power

Spent endless æons of that which men call

Time,

To form one floating tendril that could close

On what it touched.

Who whispered in his ear

That fleeting thought?

We must suppose a Power

Intently watching—through all the universe—

Each slightest variant, seizing on the best,

Selecting them, as men by conscious choice

In their small realm selected and reshaped

Their birds and flowers.

We must suppose a Power

In that immense night-cleaving pageantry

Which men call Nature, a selective Power,

Choosing through æons as men choose through years.

Many are called, few chosen, quietly breathedShadow-of-a-Leaf, in exquisite undertoneOne phrase of the secret music....He did not hear.Lamarck—all too impatiently he flungLamarck aside; forgetting how in daysWhen the dark Book of Earth was darker yetLamarck had spelled gigantic secrets out,And left an easier task for the age to come;Forgetting more than this; for Darwin’s mind,Working at ease in Nature, lost its wayIn history, and the thoughts of other men.For him Lamarck had failed, and he misreadHis own forerunner’s mind. Blindfold desiresHad never shaped a wing. The grapevine’s needTo cling and climb could thrust no tendrils out.The environing snows of Greenland could not cloakIts little foxes with their whiter fur.Nor could the wing-shut butterfly’s inner willMimic the shrivelled leaf on the withered boughSo cunningly that the bird might perch beside itAnd never see its prey.Was it blind chanceThat flashed his own great fragment of the truthInto his mind? Whatvera causa, then,What leap of Nature brought that truth to birth,Illumining all the world?It flashed upon himAs at a sudden contact of two wiresThe current flashes through; or, when through space,A meteorite for endless ages rollsIn darkness, and its world of night appearsUnchangeable for ever, till, all at once,It plunges into a soft resisting seaOf planet-girdling air, and burns with heat,And bursts into a blaze, while far below,Two lovers, in a world beyond its ken,Look from a little window into the nightAnd see a falling star.By such wild light,An image of his own ambiguous “chance,”Which was not “chance,” but governed by a lawUnknown, too vast for men to comprehend(Too vast for any to comprehend but One,Breathed Shadow-of-a-Leaf, who in each part discernsIts harmony with the whole), at last the clueFlashed on him....In the strange ironical schemeWherein he moved, of the Master-Dramatist,It was his own ambiguous “chance” that sliptA book of Malthus into his drowsy handAnd drew his drowsy eyes down to that lawOf struggling men and nations.Was it “chance”That in this intricate torch-race tossed him thereLight from one struggling on an alien trackAnd yet not alien, since all roads to truthMeet in one goal at last?Was it blind chanceThat even in this triumphant flash preparedThe downfall of his human pride, and sliptThe self-same volume into another hand;And, in the lonely islands of Malay,Drew Wallace to the self-same page, and said—Though only Shadow-of-a-Leaf could hear that voice,—Whose is the kingdom, whose the glory and power?

Many are called, few chosen, quietly breathed

Shadow-of-a-Leaf, in exquisite undertone

One phrase of the secret music....

He did not hear.

Lamarck—all too impatiently he flung

Lamarck aside; forgetting how in days

When the dark Book of Earth was darker yet

Lamarck had spelled gigantic secrets out,

And left an easier task for the age to come;

Forgetting more than this; for Darwin’s mind,

Working at ease in Nature, lost its way

In history, and the thoughts of other men.

For him Lamarck had failed, and he misread

His own forerunner’s mind. Blindfold desires

Had never shaped a wing. The grapevine’s need

To cling and climb could thrust no tendrils out.

The environing snows of Greenland could not cloak

Its little foxes with their whiter fur.

Nor could the wing-shut butterfly’s inner will

Mimic the shrivelled leaf on the withered bough

So cunningly that the bird might perch beside it

And never see its prey.

Was it blind chance

That flashed his own great fragment of the truth

Into his mind? Whatvera causa, then,

What leap of Nature brought that truth to birth,

Illumining all the world?

It flashed upon him

As at a sudden contact of two wires

The current flashes through; or, when through space,

A meteorite for endless ages rolls

In darkness, and its world of night appears

Unchangeable for ever, till, all at once,

It plunges into a soft resisting sea

Of planet-girdling air, and burns with heat,

And bursts into a blaze, while far below,

Two lovers, in a world beyond its ken,

Look from a little window into the night

And see a falling star.

By such wild light,

An image of his own ambiguous “chance,”

Which was not “chance,” but governed by a law

Unknown, too vast for men to comprehend

(Too vast for any to comprehend but One,

Breathed Shadow-of-a-Leaf, who in each part discerns

Its harmony with the whole), at last the clue

Flashed on him....

In the strange ironical scheme

Wherein he moved, of the Master-Dramatist,

It was his own ambiguous “chance” that slipt

A book of Malthus into his drowsy hand

And drew his drowsy eyes down to that law

Of struggling men and nations.

Was it “chance”

That in this intricate torch-race tossed him there

Light from one struggling on an alien track

And yet not alien, since all roads to truth

Meet in one goal at last?

Was it blind chance

That even in this triumphant flash prepared

The downfall of his human pride, and slipt

The self-same volume into another hand;

And, in the lonely islands of Malay,

Drew Wallace to the self-same page, and said

—Though only Shadow-of-a-Leaf could hear that voice,—

Whose is the kingdom, whose the glory and power?

O, exquisite irony of the Master, thereUnseen by both, their generous rivalryEvolved, perfected, the new thought for man;And, over both, and all their thoughts, a PowerIntently watching, made of their struggle for truthAn image of the law that they illumed.

O, exquisite irony of the Master, there

Unseen by both, their generous rivalry

Evolved, perfected, the new thought for man;

And, over both, and all their thoughts, a Power

Intently watching, made of their struggle for truth

An image of the law that they illumed.

So all that wasting of a myriad seedsIn Nature’s wild profusion was not waste,Not even such waste as drives the flying grainsUnder the sculptor’s chisel, but was itselfA cause of that unending struggle of lifeThrough which all life ascends.The conqueror thereWas chosen by laws inexorably precise,As though to infinite Reason infinite ArtWere wedded, and had found in infinite “chance”Full scope for their consummate certainties,—Choice and caprice, freedom and law in one.Each slightest variant, in a myriad ways,That armed or shielded or could help its kind,Would lead to a new triumph; would reveal,In varying, subtler ways of varying still;New strokes of that divinest “chance” of allWhich poet and sculptor count as unforeseen,And unforeseeable; yet, when once achieved,They recognise as crowning law with law,And witnessing to infinitudes of PowerIn that creative Will which shapes the world.O, in that widening splendour of the mind,Blinder than Buffon, blinder than Lamarck,His eyes amazed with all that leapt to light,Dazed with a myriad details, lost the whole.He saw the law whereby the few were chosenFrom forms already at variance. Back and backHe traced his law, and every step was true.And yet hisvera causawas no Cause,For it determined nothing. It revealed,In part, how subtler variants had arisenFrom earliest simpler variants, but no more.

So all that wasting of a myriad seeds

In Nature’s wild profusion was not waste,

Not even such waste as drives the flying grains

Under the sculptor’s chisel, but was itself

A cause of that unending struggle of life

Through which all life ascends.

The conqueror there

Was chosen by laws inexorably precise,

As though to infinite Reason infinite Art

Were wedded, and had found in infinite “chance”

Full scope for their consummate certainties,—

Choice and caprice, freedom and law in one.

Each slightest variant, in a myriad ways,

That armed or shielded or could help its kind,

Would lead to a new triumph; would reveal,

In varying, subtler ways of varying still;

New strokes of that divinest “chance” of all

Which poet and sculptor count as unforeseen,

And unforeseeable; yet, when once achieved,

They recognise as crowning law with law,

And witnessing to infinitudes of Power

In that creative Will which shapes the world.

O, in that widening splendour of the mind,

Blinder than Buffon, blinder than Lamarck,

His eyes amazed with all that leapt to light,

Dazed with a myriad details, lost the whole.

He saw the law whereby the few were chosen

From forms already at variance. Back and back

He traced his law, and every step was true.

And yet hisvera causawas no Cause,

For it determined nothing. It revealed,

In part, how subtler variants had arisen

From earliest simpler variants, but no more.

...

Subtler than music, quieter than light,The Power that wrought those changes; and the lastWere all implied and folded in the first,As the gnarled oak-tree with its thousand boughsWrithing to heaven and striking its grim rootsLike monstrous talons into the mountain’s heartIs pent in one smooth acorn. So each life,In little, retold the tale; each separate manWas, in himself, the world’s epitome,A microcosm, wherein who runs may readThe history of the whole; from the first seedEnclosed in the blind womb, until life wakeThrough moons or æons of embryonic changeTo human thought and love, and those desiresWhich still grope upward, into the unknown realmsAs far beyond us now as Europe layFrom the first life that crawled out of the sea.

Subtler than music, quieter than light,

The Power that wrought those changes; and the last

Were all implied and folded in the first,

As the gnarled oak-tree with its thousand boughs

Writhing to heaven and striking its grim roots

Like monstrous talons into the mountain’s heart

Is pent in one smooth acorn. So each life,

In little, retold the tale; each separate man

Was, in himself, the world’s epitome,

A microcosm, wherein who runs may read

The history of the whole; from the first seed

Enclosed in the blind womb, until life wake

Through moons or æons of embryonic change

To human thought and love, and those desires

Which still grope upward, into the unknown realms

As far beyond us now as Europe lay

From the first life that crawled out of the sea.

There lies our hope; but O, the endless way!And the lost road of knowledge, endless, too!That infinite hope was not for him. One lifeHardly sufficed for his appointed task,To find on earth his clues to the unknown law,Out-miracling all miracles had he known,Whereby this lifeless earth, so clearly seenAcross the abyss of time, this lifeless earthWashed by a lifeless ocean, by no powerBut that which moves within the things we see,Swept the blind rocks into the cities of men,With great cathedrals towering to the sky,And little ant-like swarms in their dark aislesKneeling to that Unknowable.His to traceThe way by inches, never to see the whole,Never to grasp the miracle in the law,And wrestling with it, to be written by lightAs by an Angel’s finger in the dark.Could he have stood on that first lifeless coastWith Shadow-of-a-Leaf, and seen that lifeless brine,Rocks where no mollusc clung, nor seaweed grew;Could he have heard a whisper,—Only wait.Be patient. On one sure and certain day,Out of the natural changes of these rocksAnd seas, at last, a great ship will go by;Cities will dusk that heaven; and you shall seeTwo lovers pass, reading one printed book,The Paradiso....Would he have been so sureThat Nature had no miracles in her heartMore inconceivably shattering to the mindThan madness ever dreamed? For this, this, this,Had happened, though the part obscured the whole;And his own labour, in a myriad ways,Endlessly linking part to part, had lostThevera causathat Lamarck had known,The one determining Cause that moved through all.

There lies our hope; but O, the endless way!

And the lost road of knowledge, endless, too!

That infinite hope was not for him. One life

Hardly sufficed for his appointed task,

To find on earth his clues to the unknown law,

Out-miracling all miracles had he known,

Whereby this lifeless earth, so clearly seen

Across the abyss of time, this lifeless earth

Washed by a lifeless ocean, by no power

But that which moves within the things we see,

Swept the blind rocks into the cities of men,

With great cathedrals towering to the sky,

And little ant-like swarms in their dark aisles

Kneeling to that Unknowable.

His to trace

The way by inches, never to see the whole,

Never to grasp the miracle in the law,

And wrestling with it, to be written by light

As by an Angel’s finger in the dark.

Could he have stood on that first lifeless coast

With Shadow-of-a-Leaf, and seen that lifeless brine,

Rocks where no mollusc clung, nor seaweed grew;

Could he have heard a whisper,—Only wait.

Be patient. On one sure and certain day,

Out of the natural changes of these rocks

And seas, at last, a great ship will go by;

Cities will dusk that heaven; and you shall see

Two lovers pass, reading one printed book,

The Paradiso....

Would he have been so sure

That Nature had no miracles in her heart

More inconceivably shattering to the mind

Than madness ever dreamed? For this, this, this,

Had happened, though the part obscured the whole;

And his own labour, in a myriad ways,

Endlessly linking part to part, had lost

Thevera causathat Lamarck had known,

The one determining Cause that moved through all.

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