A New Century

An age too great for thought of ours to scan,A wave upon the sleepless sea of timeThat sinks and sleeps for ever, ere the chimePass that salutes with blessing, not with ban,The dark year dead, the bright year born for man,Dies: all its days that watched man cower and climb,Frail as the foam, and as the sun sublime,Sleep sound as they that slept ere these began.

Our mother earth, whose ages none may tell,Puts on no change: time bids not her wax paleOr kindle, quenched or quickened, when the knellSounds, and we cry across the veering galeFarewell—and midnight answers us, Farewell;Hail—and the heaven of morning answers, Hail.