THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH

THERE comes the time when he who gathers grapes Must find his vineyard in the city street, Must press what wine he may from lobate shapes And globules clustered at his head and feet. The press he treads will be the city night— Bubble and bloom and burst of heady wine; No fairer fresher grapes will meet his sight Than pallid fruit of the electric vine! There comes the time when he who longs for song Must turn to monsters dreaming in the dark, That Science-incubated aeons long; Will give to music new heresiarch! But Harmonies of pride and lust and doubt Will greet the ear, that for some human hymn Longs bitterly, hearing the brassy shout Of engine songs, massive, superb and grim. In those stark days new Lancelots shall pass Accoutered black, with the bi-colored plume. New Siegfrieds, armored in their steel and brass, Shall flash subseas in tunnelled ocean gloom. Woman and Science, gaunt with bold new brow, Shall say what shall be born, what thing shall cry Pioneer on its lurching, airdashed prow, Air-immigrant to harbors of the sky. There comes the day when on the sea of stars Unspoken ships shall lay unsounded course, And looming shapes, outside uncharted bars, Shall dumbly signal with some speechless force. New worlds shall stare on other worlds that be, Sailing close by them on that starry sea, And know that all the Main that round them rolls Swells to new moons, new seas, new tides, new poles. There comes the time, O patient Human heart, O Brave Pathetic—time when thou must see The old, the dear, the simple things depart, Who canst not love the strange new things to be. Yet by this New, shall not thy vision grow To some estate, some altitude of range, Where it is given thee that thou shalt know What Changeless ’tis, that underlies all change?