yRfiRNERATF 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
 
Mr. Savage's Books. 
 
 My Creed. (In press.) 
 
 Poems. i6mo. Full gilt. With portrait $1.50 
 
 Light on the Cloud. i6mo. Full gilt 1.25 
 
 Social Problems. i2mo i.oo 
 
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 Belief in God. i2mo i.oo 
 
 Beliefs about Man. i2mo i.oo 
 
 Beliefs about the Bible i.oo 
 
 The Modern Sphinx. i2mo i.oo 
 
 The Morals of Evolution. i2mo 1.00 
 
 Talks about Jesus. i2mo i.oo 
 
 Man, Woman and Child. i2mo i.oo 
 
 Christianity the Science of Manhood. i2mo i.oo 
 
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 Life Questions. i6mo 1.00 
 
 BlufEton : A Story of To-day. (Out of print.) 
 
 The Minister's Hand-book. For Christenings, Weddings, 
 
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 Sacred Songs for Public Worship. A Hymn and Tune 
 Book. Edited by M. J. Savage and Howard M. Dow. 
 
 Cloth ■ . I.oo 
 
 Leather -, 1.50 
 
 Mr. Savage*s weekly sermons are regularly printed in pamphlet 
 form in " Unity Pulpit." Subscription price, for the season, $1.50; 
 single copies, 5 cents. 
 
 GEO. H. ELLIS, Publisher, 
 
 141 Franklin St., Boston, Mass. 
 
These Degenerate Days 
 
 33 
 
 MiNOT J. Savage 
 
 'Not ten strong ^nen th? enormous weight could raise, — 
 Such men as live in these degenerate days " 
 
 Pope's Homer 
 
 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street 
 
 1887 
 
t <J 
 
 aaT^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 BY M. J. SAVAGE 
 
aDo Kl* H* tlotoelU 
 
 Wit, Humorist, Poet, Critic^ Diplomat: 
 
 How many and what jewels deck the crown 
 That marks the kingship of thy fair renown, — 
 
 The only kingship that a democrat 
 
 Like thee could covet! But, when one has sat 
 Upon thy throne of thought, and, looking down, 
 Has seen men cringing at a monarch's frown. 
 
 Beside real power, how poor must seem all that! 
 
 I have been one content to sit and hear 
 Thy lark-song falling from the upper air 
 To cheer the vale to humble tasks assigned. 
 And still thy old notes echo in my ear; 
 And, as I listen, earth grows very fair. 
 
 While I take heart and hope for all mankind! 
 
" God is not dumb, that he should speak no more ; 
 If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness 
 And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor; 
 There towers the mountain of the Voice no less, 
 Which whoso seeks shall find." 
 
 Lowell's Bibliolatres. 
 
"Ttiese Degenerate Bays. 
 
 If * 
 
 O Lowell, once thy ringing words 
 Were keen and flashing, like the swords 
 With which Jehovah's hosts clove down 
 The fierce Philistine's haughty crown! 
 
 In days when Liberty lay low, 
 Despair of friend and scorn of foe ; 
 When o'er her, in exultant mood, 
 Stood 111 in liveried guise of Good ; 
 When Commerce, if it had a soul, 
 Had traded it for Judas' dole; 
 When Fashion, in her high estate, 
 Spelled out success and called it great; 
 
 ♦Written on reading Lowell's "Credidimus Jovem Regnare" in the 
 Atlantic for February, 1887. 
 
When preachers, like false watch-dogs, bayed 
 To fright the Truth they had betrayed, — 
 Then thou, young David, with thy sling 
 Didst to his knees the giant bring, 
 And, filling Israel's foes with dread. 
 Dismay through all his cohorts spread! 
 
 Or — change the figure — when increased 
 The revel of the godless feast 
 That, like Belshazzar's, set the seal 
 Of bondage on God's commonweal ; 
 When in the nation's capital 
 Reigned Slavery's high carnival. 
 Where all the lords of wealth and might 
 Led captive outlawed Truth and Right, 
 And e'en the Temple cups brought in 
 To grace the triumph of their sin, — 
 Then thy handwriting on the wall 
 
Did all their stoutest hearts appall ; 
 Their trembling lips, with oath or prayer, 
 Betrayed the unseen spectre there ; 
 While, in the lines thy finger drew, 
 The tyrant God's swift judgment knew! 
 
 Or — change the figure once again — 
 When, on the field of fighting men. 
 The two great armies met, — the free 
 Stood face to face with Slavery; 
 When both sides claimed their cause divine, 
 And looked to heaven for a sign, — 
 Thou didst flash out, — thy streaming hair 
 A threatening comet on the air, — 
 And, flaming far across the night. 
 Helped men believe God loved the right, 
 And, cleaving all the darkness through. 
 Wast herald of a day-dawn new ! 
 
How well do I recall the days 
 
 When, groping the uncertain ways 
 
 Then trodden by a country youth 
 
 Who tried to find and follow Truth, 
 
 While looking for some brain-refection 
 
 Within the meagre town collection 
 
 That all its scanty wealth made free 
 
 To hungry comers for a fee, 
 
 I stumbled on a rare surprise, — 
 
 A book so witty and so wise 
 
 That ever since I've venerated 
 
 The man who Hosea B. created, 
 
 And taught him how, with speech uncouth. 
 
 To make me hate aught less than truth, 
 
 And with his ringing challenge lead 
 
 The way to noble thought and deed! 
 
 He bade me hate the coward lie. 
 
 That good with yesterday could die; 
 
He bade revere the noble past, 
 Yet know no partial form could last ; 
 He bade me know that each fresh morn 
 Some new God-gotten truth is born, 
 And but the future shall unfold 
 Man's blessed hope, the age of gold! 
 His words, that shamed all halting fear. 
 How oft they've rung in my glad ear! — 
 New visions that God gives to youth 
 Still make the ** ancient good uncouth"; 
 And they must "onward, upward still," 
 Who hope Truth's mission to fulfil; 
 We like the Pilgrims still must be. 
 And '* launch our ' Mayflower ' on the sea," 
 Nor think "the Past's blood-rusted key" 
 Can ope the doors of destiny ! 
 
 Alas ! whose is this weary wail 
 That but repeats the outworn tale 
 
lO 
 
 That, in each age since time began, 
 
 Has mocked the growing hope of man ? 
 
 As far back as old Homer's days. 
 
 They had begun this plaint to raise, 
 
 And, sighing on through senile rhymes, 
 
 To maunder of " degenerate " times. 
 
 The poet old, as up the track 
 
 Of years heroic he looked back. 
 
 Beheld the figures looming tall 
 
 About the Trojans' fated wall, 
 
 And sad exclaimed, ''Not ten strong men^ 
 
 Alas ! the world is not as then — 
 
 Could now e'en lift the rock that he. 
 
 Great Ajax, tossed so easily!" 
 
 And ever since, the ages long. 
 
 Has echoed down the same old song. 
 
 Each age repeats its wonder-lore 
 
 Of wonder people gone before ; 
 
II 
 
 Sees, looming huge the twilight through, 
 
 Shapes that no present ever knew. 
 
 If one believed the tales, he'd think 
 
 The world was ever on the brink 
 
 Of some Ragnarok, doomed to be 
 
 The dwindled earth's catastrophe! 
 
 And yet, somehow, in logic's spite. 
 
 The earth rolls upward through the night. 
 
 And every day, with promise new, 
 
 The sun shines out, and heaven is blue! 
 
 E'en in my life,— not long as yet,— 
 So many times the day's been set 
 When this old world, so doomed to evil, 
 So hastening downward to the devil, 
 Was just about its grip on bUss 
 To lose, and plunge adown th' abyss ; 
 And yet, so often, when I've placed 
 
12 
 
 Myself, and got my feet well braced, 
 In waiting for the world's undoin'. 
 They have postponed the final ruin, 
 That I've concluded now to wait 
 Until does strike the clock of fate. 
 And not waste time, with fret and fume. 
 Until I hear the " crack o' doom " ! 
 For, though these dismal prophets tell 
 Each time will be the " last " farewell, 
 The ruined earth comes smiling up 
 To pledge us in a brimming cup 
 Of God's new wine of life, that runs 
 Cheer-giving rays of brighter suns ! 
 
 O Lowell ! no one better knows 
 That slavery of the body grows 
 From slavery of heart and mind, — 
 That both are ever of a kind ! 
 
13 
 
 And yet the blast that thou couldst blow, 
 That so rocked Slavery's Jericho, — 
 Alas! one scarce believes his ears, — 
 Now pipes, an echo of the fears 
 Of these same Canaanites, who quake 
 When Israel's rams' horns music make ! 
 
 For this same Science that has pried, 
 That questions earth and heaven beside, 
 That, like the Babel-builders, frets 
 God's fearful champions with its threats 
 Of scaling heaven, and flinging down 
 The weak Almighty's rusty crown, — 
 Alas ! the poor Omnipotence 
 That seems to need such hot defence ! — 
 This Science is the Titan strong, 
 Prometheus, who, to right man's wrong, 
 To lift the weak, and haste the hour 
 
14 
 
 When thought should triumph over power, 
 
 Defied the hate conservative, 
 
 That he to daring souls might give 
 
 The fire celestial, raising clods 
 
 Till they should come to be like gods ! 
 
 Since man, of every force the slave, 
 
 Crept, an autochthon, from his cave. 
 
 And, brutal, fought with brute, to share 
 
 His uncooked food and bedless lair, 
 
 Until, a Jesus, God's own child, 
 
 He walked the old earth undefiled, — 
 
 Until, with Shakspere's fancy, he 
 
 His home made in eternity, — 
 
 Until the measured suns confess 
 
 Him child of the Almightiness, — 
 
 Until the steam, winds, lightnings, all 
 
 Of nature's forces, know his call, — 
 
 Until, in spite of craven fears. 
 
15 
 
 He's climbed the summit of the years, 
 
 And, fearless of the " pious " frown. 
 
 Has seized and worn his manhood's crown, — 
 
 From that far time till this, pray tell 
 
 What problem he has tried to spell 
 
 But some voice still has filled his ears 
 
 With boding wail and threatening fears ? 
 
 And yet each step that nearer brought 
 
 The goal of good was science-taught. 
 
 It meant the wider, freer mind, 
 
 That to near dangers could be blind. 
 
 And dare to see a better day 
 
 Break with its promise far away ! 
 
 But never a new morning broke 
 
 Except to hear the troubled croak 
 
 Of some belated bird of night, 
 
 That thought day ended with the light ! 
 
i6 
 
 See man, a brute half-waked from sleep, 
 Along his shores primeval creep, 
 And, awe-struck, scan the misty deep ! 
 And now, behold ! the dug-out boat, 
 In which he dared the waves to float, 
 To palaces steam-driven grown ! 
 Lo ! man has made the sea his throne. 
 While storms and winds his vassals are, 
 Which, harnessed to his floating car. 
 Bring all earth's treasures from afar ! 
 
 See man, fear-cowed, his hands upraise 
 
 To where the clouds with lightnings blaze. 
 
 While his distorted fancy sees 
 
 A dragon red devour the trees ; 
 
 And he, with prayers and gifts, in vain 
 
 The monster's ravage would restrain ! 
 
 And now, behold ! the lightnings run. 
 
17 ' 
 
 From rising until set of sun 
 
 On tireless feet, his willing slave, 
 
 Climb mountains, dive beneath the wave, 
 
 Till, distancing the weary wind. 
 
 E'en Puck's fleet wings are left behind ! 
 
 See man, unclothed, a tree-branch tear 
 To fight the nature-weaponed bear, 
 And rob him of his blood-stained skin 
 To wrap his freezing weakness in ! 
 And now, behold! the walls arise 
 Of countless humming factories. 
 Where willing waterfalls their play 
 To restless labor turn all day; 
 Or where the steam, as in delight, 
 Puts forth its never-wearied might. 
 With ponderous stroke, or gentle tap 
 Too low to rouse a sick man's nap! 
 
i8 
 
 And see, almost surpassing thought, 
 The crude to shapes of beauty wrought. 
 How like a god of power profuse 
 It pours its gifts for human use ! 
 
 See man, whose babblings vainly reach 
 
 To grasp the mystery of speech, 
 
 With cry and gesture seeking still 
 
 Some fuller utterance of his will, 
 
 While, like a muddy pool, his brain. 
 
 Distorted, gives no image plain ! 
 
 And now, behold ! the alphabet 
 
 Like gems upon his brow he's set, 
 
 And his expanding brain he's taught 
 
 To form and echo subtlest thought. 
 
 Next, from the mine, that wondrous thing, 
 
 A pen he's borrowed for a wing. 
 
 With this through fancy's realm he flies 
 
19 
 
 Or soars in philosophic skies ; 
 
 With Dante sweeps the dusky air 
 
 That's heavy with a soul's despair ; 
 
 Or, with the blind old seer for guide, 
 
 Looks down o'er heaven's champaign wide ; 
 
 With Kepler, where God's planets are, 
 
 Tracks God's own thought from star to star, 
 
 Or dives down to the depths to see 
 
 The microscope's infinity. 
 
 As thus by growing thought portrayed, 
 
 Man seems but less than angel made ! 
 
 See man to fetich bending low. 
 And seeing in each force a foe. 
 The gods his enemies appear ; 
 His worship's but a cringing fear : 
 In blood, in sorrow, tears, and hate. 
 He solves the riddle of his fate. 
 
20 
 
 Upon a bleeding altar piled, 
 
 He burn* his slave, his wife, his child, — 
 
 The dearest and the best, — to buy 
 
 The cruel gods that sit on high. 
 
 And now, behold ! the shapes of hate 
 
 That brooded o'er his hapless fate 
 
 Have faded from the heavens bright. 
 
 As day drives off the scowling night. 
 
 And all these many, grown to one, 
 
 Shine on us like a risen sun. 
 
 Now hear we the apostle's call, 
 
 " One God and Father of us all " ; 
 
 And, knowing we're one brotherhood, 
 
 Learn that God's worship means man's good, 
 
 While, looking up the years, we see 
 
 God's and man's kingdom that's to be ! 
 
 It asks no learning recondite 
 
 To trace the dawn of all this light. 
 
21 
 
 'Tis Science, free thought, just the grace 
 That dared to look God in the face, 
 That dared to question heaven and earth. 
 That brings the God-man child to birth. 
 'Tis this that stole the heavenly spark, 
 And made man victor o'er the dark ; 
 'Tis this that over earth and sea 
 Has given him the victory ; 
 'Tis this, with power to loose and bind, 
 That's made him king of steam and wind ; 
 'Tis this that cleared the forests dread. 
 And gave the farm and park instead ; 
 'Tis this that forged the lightning's chain, 
 And with it girdled land and main ; 
 'Tis this that, linking thought to speech, 
 Brings earth and heaven within his reach ; 
 'Tis this that humanizes God, 
 And shows of kin with him the clod ! 
 
22 
 
 The whole long reach from brute to man 
 
 That binds the ages with its span, 
 
 That reaches forward till we see 
 
 The better time that is to be, — 
 
 All this long tale of battles won 
 
 But tells what God-led thought has done! 
 
 And not one single step was taken 
 
 But some old structure still was shaken. 
 
 And its self-styled defender's gloom 
 
 Mistook Truth's tread for '' trump of doom." 
 
 But, Lowell, had it been foretold 
 
 That you'd have played this farce so old, 
 
 Though prophets had declared they knew it, 
 
 I'd never have believed you'd do it! 
 
 For all these years thy trumpet-blast 
 
 Has led me onward from the past. 
 
 While ever o'er the conflict's gloom 
 
23 
 
 Far in the van I've seen thy plume ; 
 And, while thy bugle note still rung, 
 In brain and heart I've known thee young. 
 I would have sworn, whoever faltered. 
 My Lowell's faith and trust unaltered. 
 So, when I saw thee in the rear, 
 I cried, " What god has struck with fear 
 My hero ? " And with heart all pain 
 I felt "my eyes cloud up for rain." 
 
 When Douglass, on the trial day, 
 Felt once his faith and trust give way, 
 Up rose brave old Sojourner Truth, 
 With face of coal and form uncouth. 
 But with a soul devoid of fear, 
 And rang out with her challenge clear : 
 ** Shame, Frederick, in your panic dread ! 
 Say, dost thou think that God is dead ? " 
 
^4 
 
 Alas, poor God ! whose ser\*ants fear 
 That, like a cloud, he'll disappear, 
 If some new thought should dare to frame 
 For his old power some newer name ! 
 Alas, poor God ! that such transition 
 Should hinge upon a definition ! 
 Art thou so weak some fatal spasm 
 May seize thee, if called protoplasm ? 
 And did brave Cromwell's power, that sent 
 Fear-stricken a whole parliament, 
 That, spite of awe that hedged a king, 
 Could Charles unto a scaffold bring, — 
 Was all this power on him conferred 
 By just the difference in a word ? 
 
 *Tis ver\-, very sweet indeed. 
 
 This peace and quiet of one's creed ; 
 
 To hear " Old Hundred " ringing loud, 
 
As if from angels on a cloud; 
 To feel the soul, on lifted wing. 
 Soar upward as the people sing, — 
 These sentiments are passing dear, 
 As were those strains to childhood's ear. 
 But who'd not gladly give this peace. 
 If so the world might gain release 
 From that old horror :: :ht hell 
 That all the ancient creeds foretell ? 
 "Old Hundred," even, had the moan 
 Of lost souls for an undertone : 
 One still heard, in its grandest strains, 
 The drip of tears and clank of chains. 
 From the old record can we strike 
 Just what we happen not to like, — 
 Keep the old mansion, but let go 
 The shadow^' basement down below ? 
 
26 
 
 Your brother poet, Holmes, whose head 
 
 With all our loves is garlanded, — 
 
 He, too, not long since, spoke his mind 
 
 About our modern Thomas-kind. 
 
 He called them ''mystery-solving lynxes," 
 
 And sighed for old times, when the sphinxes 
 
 Looked calmly o'er the dreaming sand 
 
 Of Egypt's still undoubting land. 
 
 He cried, '' Give back our faith ! " The ways 
 
 They used to know in convent days 
 
 Were better than this finding out 
 
 The truth, whose shadow still is doubt ! 
 
 True, true, if turning on our track 
 The ancient comfort might bring back; 
 If — this is Tennyson's heart-cry, 
 When dawn was fading from his sky — 
 If we " our sister's heaven " might know 
 
27 
 
 Without our brother's hell of woe ; 
 If we might tread the old-time path, 
 And find the love without the wrath, — 
 Oh, then it might be sweet indeed 
 To " robe us " in our outworn creed ! 
 But is't not something, when all's done. 
 The cursing of the curse t' have won ? 
 If th' agnostic gives not bliss. 
 Yet who will not be glad at this, — 
 That one may dare to doubt th' abyss ? 
 
 If there lives one who breathes man's breath 
 Who would not welcome dreamless death, 
 Who would not kiss the grave's green sod 
 And glad embrace the senseless clod, 
 Who'd not with gratitude lay down 
 His hope of heaven and his crown. 
 And, like a miser, grasp and keep 
 
28 
 
 The poor blank hope of endless sleep, — 
 
 This, rather than take heaven's fee 
 
 At cost of hopeless misery 
 
 Of one poor soul, the meanest one 
 
 That ever crawled beneath the sun, — 
 
 If there is one such selfish soul 
 
 Who o'er one lost would reach his goal. 
 
 Then I in hell would rather be 
 
 Than share e'en heaven with such as he ! 
 
 Let me then live my poor life out 
 Befogged and lost on seas of doubt 
 Rather than by hell's light to see 
 A " title clear " to bliss for me ! 
 And He who, as the churches say, 
 To save men left the realms of day, 
 Sure He'll not love me less for this, 
 That I'd surrender all my bliss 
 
29 
 
 To go among the lost and take 
 A cooling drop their thirst to slake ! 
 Or can it be that now so long 
 He's listened to the gladsome song 
 Of those far off from pain, his ears 
 Grow deaf to sounds of falling tears ? 
 
 But are we quite lost in the fog? 
 Do never angels go incog.f 
 Sometimes — the Bible so declares — 
 Men "entertain them unawares." 
 Perhaps this Science men so fear 
 God's guiding angel may appear. 
 In every step the world has taken, 
 The ancient things are always shaken ; 
 And what is shaken, Scriptures say, 
 Is just about to pass away. 
 The old must change and pass, 'tis true. 
 
30 
 
 But only to make room for new. 
 
 The plough must May's fresh flowers tear 
 
 That it the harvest may prepare ; 
 
 And, if a mouse's nest be torn, 
 
 The end of all the mouse may mourn : 
 
 And yet the harvest justifies 
 
 The deaths that in its pathway lies. 
 
 'Twas undue love for older thought 
 
 That Jesus to Golgotha brought ; 
 
 For he the rough disturber seemed 
 
 Of sweet old rest in which men dreamed. 
 
 And they who now the new deride 
 
 Still shout, " Let him be crucified ! " 
 
 The ages change ; but still men slay 
 
 The daring prophets of their day, 
 
 While ancient slayers they disdain. 
 
 And laud the victims once so slain. 
 
 Alas, such "difference should be 
 
31 
 
 'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee " ! 
 But Tweedledum is old ; and so 
 About it ancient ivies grow. 
 While Tweedledee is new : as yet 
 The ivy leaves are hardly set. 
 
 ♦' O ye of little faith ! " d'ye fear 
 God cannot face the daylight clear, 
 That he's a God of cloud and night, 
 And dreads the dawn's uprising light ? 
 Art fearful that his work may show 
 Brass 'neath the gilt to those who know,- 
 That to a strict search there might be 
 Found aught to shame the deity ? 
 Is this world but an empty shrine 
 That hides within it naught divine ? 
 Must they who'd their devotion keep 
 From far, through half-shut eyelids, peep 
 
32 
 
 At his high temple, guarded well 
 
 By priests who know, but dare not tell, 
 
 Lest, should they tell, all men would know 
 
 That they are orphans here below? 
 
 Oh, sure, this doubt of truth must be 
 
 The one, real infidelity ! 
 
 God must possess omnipotence. 
 
 Or he'd be slain by such defence ! 
 
 And, Father, in thy book write down — 
 
 I never tried to save thy crown. 
 
 But trusted that thy throne was sure. 
 
 Rock-based in that which must endure ! 
 
 At sea we sail ; nor yet may know 
 The port, — whence come nor where we go. 
 Sometimes the sun laughs on our way ; 
 Sometimes we're glad to lose the day, 
 Because the wide night-heaven, afire 
 
33 
 
 With stars, may teach us to aspire. 
 Sometimes the fog devours the sun, 
 And e'en the stars fade, one by one. 
 But what man ever cast a log 
 Who does not know lt£-/i^ makes the fog ? 
 Light is above, below, around ; 
 And, though the dismal fog-bell sound. 
 Still hold the helm, and forward glide. 
 Steam onward towards the farther side. 
 For there the sun smiles, and in glee 
 The winds play with the laughing sea. 
 'Tis but the coward who turns back, 
 And shirks the God-appointed track. 
 Through cloud or sun drive on the keel ; 
 'Tis God, though unseen, holds the wheel. 
 Or, if one doubts this, playing trust 
 Will naught avail us: sink we must. 
 
34 
 
 I fret not, though, with flattened nose 
 Against the pane, ** beyond my toes " 
 I cannot see : the track behind 
 Such ages long, through wave and wind. 
 Some hand has guided, that I know 
 The helmsman cannot be my foe. 
 The seas we have sailed over tell 
 The hand that holds us knows them well. 
 Still brighter stars shine out at night ; 
 Still fairer countries heave in sight ; 
 And, by the warrant of the past. 
 Some noble port we'll make at last ! 
 
 Or, let us sink, the power that wakes 
 The wind song, or with morning breaks. 
 Still whispers to the ear that hears 
 More than to hasty sight appears, — 
 Assurance that, though wrecked, 'twould be 
 To sail still on — "another sea." 
 
35 
 
 Lowell ! I gave first to thee 
 My boyhood's love and loyalty. 
 My youth took fire at thy word ; 
 And thou my manhood's spirit stirred 
 To lofty faith and noble trust. 
 
 1 love thee still, because I must ; 
 For early loves and trusts remain, 
 
 Nor break with common stress or strain. 
 Among the singers who have made 
 Rare music in each wood and glade 
 Of our New England, thy heart tone 
 Has oftenest matched and thrilled my own. 
 Wherever storming party led, 
 I've seen thy standard still ahead ; 
 Wherever fight was fought for man, 
 I've heard thy shout far in the van. 
 And now — I cannot bear to think 
 The hour should come when thou wouldst 
 shrink, 
 
36 
 
 Cry halt, or lose that courage grand 
 That gave thy voice its old command. 
 
 And dost thou fear that, science-led, 
 The world may find that Faith is dead,- 
 Exchange the soul for dust, and see 
 No more the stars that used to be ? 
 No, no ! Thou canst not ! For to-day 
 The old-time "faiths" do pass away; 
 But Faith remains ; and, undefiled. 
 True Science is true Faith's own child. 
 She only dares, with utter trust, 
 To seek God in a grain of dust. 
 And learn that sainthood's holiest awe 
 Is one with gravitation's law. 
 She only dares, and, daring, holds 
 That One Life all the worlds enfolds; 
 And that, or studying soul or clod, 
 
37 
 
 We still are face to face with God ; 
 That, spell it ever as we will, 
 It is the same One Being still; 
 That, in the soul or in a sun. 
 The one same force is ever one ; 
 That, though all else be less than sure. 
 This basis is at least secure. 
 
 And dost thou really fear to see 
 
 In science death of poetry ? 
 
 I know that Wordsworth, in his age, 
 
 Was senile grown instead of sage, 
 
 And, careless of God's new worlds born, 
 
 Bemoaned lost "Triton" and his "horn," 
 
 So fearful was he lest the Muse 
 
 To flee a wiser world should choose. 
 
 But is this Poesy a sprite 
 
 To flee, ghost-like, the morning's light ? 
 
38 
 
 Must she still prattle on in rhymes 
 
 That sing of only child-world times ? 
 
 Or is she not God's daughter grave, 
 
 With star-like eyes, and girded brave 
 
 With God's breastplate of truth, to sing 
 
 The grander ages and their king ? 
 
 The baby-house that man once taught 
 
 Was measure of th' Almighty thought. 
 
 The petty world that Dante knew, 
 
 Our daring Science has burst through ; 
 
 While up star-vistas now we see 
 
 The gateways of Infinity. 
 
 Shall not the Muse some day be heard 
 
 In utterance of a grander word. 
 
 To match the grander theme that runs, 
 
 A fugue, whose notes are worlds and suns ? 
 
 Could she but tune her mighty lyre, 
 And prelude first the cloud of fire 
 
39 
 
 That, cooling, one by one has whirled 
 Off ring on ring, each ring a world ; 
 Could she sing thus the planet's birth, 
 And how life dawned upon the earth ; 
 Could she the mystery unfold 
 Of how the new succeeds the old ; 
 See man leap to his feet, and face 
 The heavens, and then his journey trace. 
 As on, through blood and toil and tears, 
 He climbed the steep path of the years. 
 Until, with earth beneath his feet. 
 He stood divine, a man complete, — 
 Could but the Muse, instead of whining 
 For what returns not for repining, 
 But plume her wing for this high flight, 
 She might a poem still indite, 
 Compared with which the epics old. 
 That chant a dreamed-of "age of gold," 
 
40 
 
 Were but as dawn-time twitterings 
 Matched with the song the skylark sings. 
 
 So, Lowell, strike thy harp once more, 
 And let us hear it as of yore — 
 Such music as once cheered the slave. 
 Made cowards hide or else turn brave. 
 The sun is not about to set ; 
 'Tis but the morning twilight yet. 
 The dawn still fights the early mists : 
 But 'tis Apollo in the lists ; 
 And his bright arrows shall lay low 
 The Dragon, Dark, his ancient foe. 
 Man's but a child as yet ; but see 
 The cradled Hercules to be, 
 Who e'en with infant hands can slay 
 The serpent ills that cross his way. 
 
41 
 
 Behind us is the dawn ; before, 
 The day is broadening to more; 
 And man, the child of all the past, 
 Approaches man's estate at last. 
 " Now are we sons of God ! " nor see 
 But glimpses of the yet to be, — 
 The glory that shall come to birth 
 When man's at one with God on earth. 
 Then, Lowell, let thy latest lay 
 Be not a wail of dying day ; 
 But let us hear thy bugle-horn 
 Ring welcome to the rising morn.