Slow streamed the progress vast of human kind, Out of the primal dark I watched it wind, Like a full river gleaming towards the sun, Crested with light, but lost in mists behind.
I saw the towering crests of ancient state Arise and pass, and bow themselves to fate: Captors of men bound still to conquering Time, And in their triumph drawn to death’s dark gate.
Colossal Egypt on her car rolled by, Dragged by her crowd of slaves, with lash and cry; Who now, a slave herself, is bought and sold, And buried in the sand her pride doth lie.
Athens, supreme, with burnished helm and spear, In art and arms and wisdom shining clear, To other hands hath passed the lamp of life, And weep the muses o’er her sculptured bier.
There, clothed as with a robe with power and pride, Great Rome upon her triumph car did ride Over the necks of nations and of men, Unto whose broken wheel still souls are tied.
All these I saw, as on time’s painted page The figure of man’s life from age to age Was figured, like his life of years and hours, And glassed his face—an infant or a mage.
In boyhood bright beneath the Grecian sun, I saw him stand, intent his race to run— To touch the golden goal of thought and art, And daring all man since hath dared or done.
The apple of his life to Beauty’s hand Freely he gave, and she so dowered his land, That still that fond world takes it for her glass, And gazes, leaving knowledge and command.
In youth a mystic shadow o’er him fell: He touched the lover’s lute beneath the spell; He fought, a knight-at-arms, for lady’s grace; He prayed a monk austere in haunted cell;
Till Nature roused him from his dreams again, And Reason broke the chains which bound him then; New knowledge, power, and beauty filled life’s cup, And rolled the round world to his manhood’s ken.
Yet old before his time he sits, out-worn With words and wars, upon the seat of scorn; Weary of life’s vain round, love’s fruitless chase, False fortune’s whirling wheel, fame’s empty horn.
For here, in living shape and semblance, shone The passions and the powers man’s soul hath won Through all his ages, like the starry signs Where through life’s year revolves the sleepless sun.
The pattern and the form of thoughts untold; The book of being wrought in runes of gold; The twisted net that holds all gain and loss The birth-clothes cover, or the shroud doth fold.