Chapter III

“And yet at last, when all is said and done,
Where is the triumph, truly: to have been
Spectators of an immemorial scene,
And then hurried into oblivion?”
So speaks the mind, self-cheated, while the one
Splendor in every mind, however mean,
Works out Its purpose, secret and serene--
And through all living things under the sun.

His presence is the starry multitude,
And in us also, surely, He abides:
Our bodies are salt shores for the sharp flood
That through creation rises and subsides
With ebb and flow of everlasting tides,
Or rhythms of the perishable blood.