ENVOI.

The rock-ribbed Planet drifts across the Sun, Swarming with creatures creeping on the crust, Freighted with fears, and tears, and human dust, Speaking the blank star-beacons, one by one. Tossed on the ocean of Ten Million Nights, The Moon a battered battle-lantern swings; A Meteor a battle-pennant flings, Lost in the ocean of Ten Million Lights. Down to the Sea in Ships! Who knows?—Who knows What Unseen Thing shall climb the mist-hung shrouds And set the spread of splendid crowding clouds, And light the signals set in starry rows? Deep in the Black Crypt of the Universe A feeble thing stood sobbing on a star; “I live! I live! ’Tis mine to make or mar!” And Silence was the Answer and the Curse. Bee-haunted blossoms bud and bloom at Noon; Bird-haunted meadows belt the Seven Zones; And under all lie bedded human bones, And over all still swings the tarnished moon. On Men and Haunts of Men—if all Light dies,— And, where a million stars hang tenantless Whence the last ray is fled,—yet—none the less A Million Lamps are trimmed for other Skies. Believe it, O my soul! Arise and go Forth among Men and seek the Haunts of Men;— Nor shalt thou, O my soul, return again To tell thou knowest naught; We know! We know! R. W. C. April, 1896.