Thought.

Backward, backward Thought has traveled, Back into the dim unknown, When the spheres in cosmic star-dust Circled His eternal throne— Back where cosmogonic darkness, Wrought upon by Spirit light, Yielded elemental centers And protoplastic satellite. Back, where first creative forces, By impulsion from “The Cause,” Start the universe in motion, Guided by unerring laws— Hurl the spheric fiery masses Thro’ abysmal depths of space— Meting out to each an orbit With defined, unchanging place. Thought, from thence, fares down the aeons Thro’ the long chaotic night, While His omnipresent agents (Each a vast deific might) Fashion to His will and purpose Thro’ infinitude of spheres; In our own group change evolving Till Earth’s infant life appears— Till creation felt Time’s fullness, Surging thro’ unmeasured night, That should rend the swathe of vapors With command—“Let there be Light—” Felt the rolling, tossing tumult Of the fierce, internal sweep When the thunder-toned volcanos Lifted lands from shoreless deep. Then, from formless void emerging, Earth spread wide her fields and hills, Woke the untrod glooms with music Of her new-born leaping rills;— Then the firmament, in grandeur, Lit its unveiled depths of blue With the moon in full-orbed beauty And the young stars beaming through. And the sunshine thrilled earth’s bosom, Quickened germ-imprisoned life— Soon the hillsides and the valleys Were with floral beauty rife;—Forests robed the mountain ranges, Bound their sun-crooned brows with green, While the mighty, sea-fed rivers Rolled in majesty between. * * * * * Farther on in Life’s gradations He who tuned the spheric roll, Back in Nature’s barred Arcana, Gave and clothed the human soul. Hush, oh thought, nor dare to question How creative laws adjust! Canst thou comprehend Jehovah Or the elemental “dust?” Here, oh spirit, rest with child-faith; Covet not forbidden things. Life, the vainly sought for secret, Proof, to us, of Godhood brings— Of the Infinite, beyond us— Far beyond the grasp of mind;— Kneeling, trusting, here we worship God—Jehovah, Undefined.