XVII.

Men shall fly through the clouds, with steering sails;
Work factories by tides; weigh stars by scales;

In earth, air, sea, new powers sleep till man's rod prevails.

XVIII.

Heat shall preclude smoke's birth, and broad house-tops Bear things more beautiful than hard street shops,-Groves, gardens, aviaries, orchards, or serial crops.

XIX.

I pray the Lord Christ's pardon, having found Something perhaps I should not, underground; But human good and ill the mind alone can bound.

XX.

If it shall change the arms, force, Art of War,
Extremes will come, and end the bloody jar,
And my space-wandering ghost find its absolving star.

XXI.

For days must dawn when man shall tire of strife,
And touch the trembling secret of this life,

And catch a glimpse beyond with different wonders rife.

XXII.

A ship, ere sunrise, through dense shadows looming; A thunder, with no visible lightning, booming; An Angel's presence felt, my cell's dark vault illuming!

XXIII.

Thus Science, Art, and the all-conquering Soul
Will gain a calculated, fix't control,

While through the midnight space invisible planets roll.

XXIV.

Spirits, akin to life's ecstatic light,

Are ever darting through the magic night,
And struggle for clear dawn as Samson for his sight.

XXV.

When man shall lose fierce faith in each old story,
Scorning all new things as his hairs grow hoary,

Fresh eras will begin for his advancing glory.

XXVI.

The Sun co-operator deigns to be,

And aid man's miracles thro' earth, air, sea; And master-spirits work each unrevealed decree.

XXVII.

A pregnant lightning-flash that leaves no trace,
Or, like the all-creative Mind's embrace,

Pervades the tremulous earth, and may pass on through space.

XXVIII.

The Sea?-why leave one-half the world wild-wasting, When island-rafts, with food around aye lasting, O'ercrowded towns would save from want and foul airs blasting?

XXIX.

O happy islanders! who float well-decked,

Well-fed, 'midst healthiest winds, with course unchecked, And untax'd, fireproof homes, which never can be wrecked.

XXX.

Deep knowledge, like green buds, doth peep and perk,
But where right-rooted flowers and fruit do lurk,
True science yet will grasp, and with fresh life-sap work.

XXXI.

Dragon-flames gorging rich works-present, past—
Shall, by a charged smoke, flat to dust be cast,
Or, like a flaring torch, be blown dead by a blast.

XXXII.

Great God! could I but glimpse one hidden wonder,
A smile from me could burst these walls asunder,
And teach mankind far more with silence than by thunder.

XXXIII.

Eternal necromancer-Earth's grand breath!
Thy germinant limits, heavenward and beneath,
Nor astrolabe, nor hell, can reach unless through death.

XXXIV.

Then may we sit in some asomatous light, Solving fresh problems by our new birth-right, And seeing still beyond, as now by second-sight;

XXXV.

And great thoughts, like those shapes in Jacob's dream,
Traverse the ladder of our dazzling beam-

Flit round God's gate, and prove us far more than we seem.

XXXVI.

What were we if our souls have lived before

We deem as sand-grains to our present shore?
Yet all may be fine dust from some great opening Door!

XXXVII

If sounds, some day, may traverse rays of light,
Questions may reach as far as human sight,
And answers be return'd by means as swift and bright.

XXXVIII.

Not ever thus above my doom I soar;

But, ah! too oft this low vault, this stone floor, The cold rock-hole appear of my life's tideless shore.

XXXIX.

Sometimes I wake, trembling at my strange state!
Are my mind's tablets like a wiped-out slate,

With the sad sense that once 'twas writ with words of weight?

XL.

Am I myself, or have I changed with time?
Like yon poor slug (at best a silvery slime),
Or bones in rags of one whose brain-work was a crime?

XLI.

I count these paving-stones' forbidden lore;
Oft like an idiot gabble 'em o'er and o'er;
Then planets gleam-thank God! I am myself once more.

XLII.

Yes, o'er earth's elements man's spirit brooding,

May gain large mastery (tho' through years eluding), But now his struggling force old systems are secluding.

XLIII.

The highest civilization's narrow plan

Can ne'er develop Nature's possible man,

Nor Genius guide a world which popes and priests trapan.

XLIV.

Thou spell-bound Earth, of compounds little known,

Far greater exorcisms will be shown

When, some ten centuries hence, thy child's good brain hath grown.

XLV.

And, in ten thousand years, man's God-like brain.
May disarrange some forces that sustain-

And Chaos swallow all-and all begin again!

XLVI.

Yea, all begin again, from the first worm ;-
Or, it may be, some Comet's travelling storm
May pass too near, and leave no vestige of Earth's form.

XLVII.

And seers will calculate the coming doom Unheeded, till the far-off sparkling gloom, Passing our sun, announce a gradual burning tomb!

XLVIII.

Then all, out-thronging in the reddening air, With cries, close clingings, tumult, frantic prayer, Crush, trample, swoon, or die in strong life's last despair.

XLIX.

See! in the vaporous ooze new germs fermenting! All different from ours; change unrelenting; Pigmies-or, prodigies of body-and-mind presenting!

L.

Millions of years, in Nature's squandering hand,
Are, to us mortals, like a pinch of sand;

Yet we must measure things e'en where our small feet stand.

LI.

And mine, I feel, must soon be stretch'd up straight;
Now stiff and cold, the change will not be great;
My last appeal sticks fast in the Pope's iron gate.

LII.

Hence let my spirit dart! no wings of fire
Can aid the forces of my blind desire :

Yet I can be resigned to slumber, or aspire.

LIII.

If an ecstatic flash inform the soul,

And space conducting media enroll,

Death and one tick of time may reach a final goal.

LIV.

Or is it here, birthplace and body's tomb,
New series of lives unseen may bloom?
Nought is too wonderful for Earth, and All-to-Come.

LV.

Time was, and is (an onward-rolling sea); Time is, but lives no moment tangibly; The Future never is—yet, oh! 'tis all to me.

LVI.

Thus doth the brain sincere a fixt faith find
In Nature and itself; man's growing mind;
And, with Astronomy, look to cycles well defined.

LVII,

The black wings of my tenth year's dungeon-thrall
Expand above me like a hushing pall ;

I now am but a shade, creeping through Memory's hall.

LVIII.

Thou skull and crucifix! thou quivering lamp! Farewell, old friends!-and eke distorting cramp, Farewell! my battle's lost: I seek a loftier camp.

LIX.

White hairs and withered limbs; large hopes, few fears; Day-dreams and midnight thoughts; some bitter tears; Great God! receive this soul!-thus end Thy servant's years!

VOS OMNES, ET QUI NUNC ET QUI POSTHAC
CONFIDETIS FORE, UT HOMINIS SCIENTIA
PROGREDIATUR SEMPER,

PRECAMINI

UT REQUIESCAT ANIMA ROGERI BACONIS.

R. H. HORNE.