And given us the merest husks instead,
The very bones and skeleton of nature,
Filling those peaceful hours with shapes of dread,
And horrid ranks of Latin nomenclature.

Blest is the Indian on his native plains,
And blest the wandering Tartar, happy nomad,
Fire-worshippers, whose twinkling altar-fanes
Still gleam on lonely peaks beyond Allahbad.
Shadows yet linger round their ruined towers,
And whisper from the caverns and the islands,
Their Memnon still is eloquent, but ours
Stares on with shut lips in an age-long silence.

Not so! The age still ripens for her needs
The flower, the man. Behold her slow still finger
Points where He comes, beneath whose feet the weeds
Bloom out immortal flowers, the immortal Singer!
Forward, not backward all the ages press;
New stars arise, of whose bright occultation
No glory of the dying past could guess:
Still grows the unfinished miracle, Creation.

Oh! Poet of the years that are to come,
Singing at dawn thy idyls sweet and tender--
The preludes of the great millenium
Of song, to drown the world in light and splendour
Awake, arise! thou youngest born of time!
Through flaming sunsets with red banners furled,
The nations call thee to thy task sublime,