I SAT within my tranquil room;
The twilight shadows sank and rose
With slowly flickering motions, waved
Grotesquely through the dusk repose;
There came a sudden thought to me,
Which thrilled the spirit, flushed the brow--
A dream of what our world would be
A thousand years from now!
If science on her heavenward search,
Rolling the stellar charts apart,
Or delving hour by hour to win
The secrets of earth's inmost heart--
If that her future apes her past,
To what new marvels men must bow,
Marvels of land, and air, and sea,
A thousand years from now!
If empires hold their wonted course,
And blind republics will not stay
To count the cost of laws which lead
Unerring to the State's decay--
What changes vast of realm and rule,
The low upraised, the proud laid low,
Shall greet the unborn ages still,
A thousand years from now!
Our creeds may change with mellowed times
Of nobler hope, and love increased,
And some new Advent flood the world
In glory from the haunted East--
While souls on loftier heights of faith
May mark the mystic pathway grow
Clearer between their stand and heaven's,
A thousand years from now!
These things may be! but what, perforce,
Must with the ruthless epochs pass?
The millions' breath, the centuries' pomp,
Sure as the wane of flowers or grass;
The earth so rich in tombs to-day,
There scarce seems space for death to sow,
Who, who shall count her churchyard wealth
A thousand years from now?
And we--poor waifs! whose life-term seems,
When matched with after and before,
Brief as a summer wind's, or wave's,
Breaking its frail heart on the shore,
We--human toys--that Fate sets up
To smite, or--spare I marvel how
These souls shall fare, in what strange sphere,
A thousand years from now?
Too vague, too faint for mortal ken
That far, phantasmal future lies;
But sweet! one sacred truth I read,
Just kindling in your tear-dimmed eyes,
That states may rise, and states may set,
With age earth's tottering pillars bow,
But hearts like ours can ne'er forget,
And though we know not where, nor how,
Our conscious love shall blossom yet,
A thousand years from now!
