“Is This the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of eternity?
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this -
More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed -
More filled with sighs and portents for the soul -
More packt with danger for the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
…O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God?”
