The Human Drift

"The Revelations of Devout and Learn'dWho rose before us, and as Prophets Burn'd,Are all but stories, which, awoke from Sleep,They told their comrades, and to Sleep return'd."

"The Sword Singing--

Driving the darkness,Even as the bannersAnd spear of the Morning;Sifting the nations,The Slag from the metal,The waste and the weakFrom the fit and the strong;Fighting the brute,The abysmal Fecundity;Checking the grossMultitudinous blunders,The groping, the purblindExcesses in serviceOf the Womb universal,The absolute drudge."

"Follow, O follow, then,Heroes, my harvesters!Where the tall grain is ripeThrust in your sickles!Stripped and adustIn a stubble of empireScything and bindingThe full sheaves of sovereignty."

"Motion as well as Matter being fixed in quantity, it would seem thatthe change in the distribution of Matter which Motion effects, comingto a limit in whichever direction it is carried, the indestructibleMotion thereupon necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, theuniversally-co-existent forces of attraction and repulsion, which, aswe have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout theUniverse, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of itschanges--produce now an immeasurable period during which theattractive forces predominating, cause universal concentration, andthen an immeasurable period during which the repulsive forcespredominating, cause universal diffusion--alternate eras of Evolutionand Dissolution. And thus there is suggested the conception of apast during which there have been successive Evolutions analogous tothat which is now going on; a future during which successive otherEvolutions may go on--ever the same in principle but never the same inconcrete result."