Monarch of all the animals is man, but what his goal? Being material, yet endowed with an immortal soul, Whence comes he? Hath he lived before? He knoweth not, But if he be immortal, must be Heaven-begot. To live for naught in the great cosmic plan Would prove him lesser than his claim as man. Alone he stands amid his empire, clothed with speech, And attributes of reason and intelligence to reach The heights sublime, for he alone surveys The skies or lifts his eyes to mark the boundless ways Of the vast galaxy of the celestial star-strewn plains, He of the mighty animal kingdom o’er which he reigns, He who is but the veriest echo of the Almighty sound, A faint reflection of his Maker, but who yet is bound By ties unbreakable, for doth he not receive The realm of thought from Him, the air to breathe? The glorious constellations move in their appointed place To the deep throbbing heart-beats of the universe. The planets, trembling arteries of the spacious whole, With each frail mortal the molecule called soul, And he in turn respondeth to the Almighty thought, Each entity distinct, yet like the other wrought; Creature of elements mysterious, half divine! Emotional, fearful, yet vibrating to the electric line Of the invisible, which holds him startled at the flight And magnitude of thought soaring beyond the night Of mundane things; then asks himself--as thousands more-- If death the end of all created beings is, wherefore All the ennobling longings in the human mind innate And love of nature and which all things beautiful elate, This spark of immortality flaming with fitful gleams Of vague remembrance of a pre-existence, seems To shape itself into a dream which comes and goes. And when the influence of the Almighty over spirit throws The searching rays of the great Omnipresent power In Whom we live, to Whom we kneel in sorrow’s hour, Who bids the ministers of all the Heavenly Argosies Of Faith, and Hope, and Mercy, on the ethereal spheres Enthroned with Justice, Truth and Liberty, To teach man that, though mortal, immortality Is his, Oh not, for nought, the powers of death and life, Oh not, for nought, it is the everlasting strife ’Twixt mind and matter, if we be--as some would deem-- Nought but the moving shadows of a melting dream, Why live, why love, why breathe the unconscious prayer? Because, deep down in the human heart, we feel God there; And dare the shadow of his Maker,--man--profess That he can build this empire without him to bless.