This circled cosmos whereof man is god
Has suns and stars of green and gold and red,
And cloudlands of great smoke, that range o’er range
Far floating, hide its iron heavens o’erhead.
God! shall we ever honour what we are,
And see one moment ere the age expire,
The vision of man shouting and erect,
Whirled by the shrieking steeds of flood and fire?
Or must Fate act the same grey farce again,
And wait, till one, amid Time’s wrecks and scars,
Speaks to a ruin here, ‘What poet-race
Shot such cyclopean arches at the stars?’