of their pungent grief,
They learn to plant the rootlets of their life.
One thing is never lacking, at the time,
When in their nascent passions, nations rise:
The craft of Priests, in every age and clime,
To "point a moral," or portend the skies.
And so, from cast-off altars to the sun,
New pleadings to new conjured gods arose;
The selfish passions since the world begun,
All seek supernal outlet on their foes.

One thing, not far from truth, grew into form:
The thought of one great, universal heart,
That beat against the window pane of thought,
And formed of all existences a part.
How near the passions of mankind will verge,
Sometimes, upon the borderland of bliss!
And all the race is bettered if they urge
Continuous march; nor turn their steps amiss;
A little light would lead them on to God,
And lacking, it the race for ages plod.
O that the infant eye of every race
Might recognize at once the Master's face!
All brought their tribute to Tonatiuh's shrine,
Still burnishing the sun with rays divine.
True worship strengthens in the wake of years;
Its song grows rhythmal with repeated chant;
Its beauty lingers, though it disappears;
Rekindle, and it melts the adamant.
But worship on a purely human base,
Though it may work its legends into song
And deify the noblest of its race,
Can never be unquestionably strong.
The happenings of Nature clog its wheels;
The elements brush down its cobweb foils;
And from its mimicry the heart appeals,
And heavenly souls are not for human toils.
It is impossible to still the brain
By merely human fiat at it thrust;
Man journeys out, and he returns again--
The Father's voice alone can call him from the dust.

And yet, each effort of the human soul,
To force existence for its latent wings,
Is of an energy that leaps control,
Whose germ from our immortal nature springs.
The very latch-key of the eternal realm,
Though touched in ignorance, commands the door.
A more than human wisdom gui