The Newtown bee., 1892-05-27
Inadequateness.

Yet to possess this Infinite,
 That beckons at every turn, Make vassal at the forge of use
 The fires that in us burn; To master tyrant discontent,
 Whose lash is never still, To blow these ashes into flame
 And work our burning will! Oh, baffling Nature, stand aside,
 Your early spell is fled, Your promises are dust and lies, You give us stones for bread. Your mountains climb, yonr torrents leap,
 Your iubilant waves aspire; But deep in caves of gloom and death
 Shoulders your central fire. Your winds blow blessing and blow curse,
 Your sun rays heal and blight; Poison and honey are your flowers,
 You fiatter, but you smite! You flash creation through the void,
 Sow thick your whirling spheres, And in your trailing comets count
 Your uneXhausted years; Then, while we look, you blind our eyes
 And snatch away our breath,
 
 The damp surprise of death! What boots it that your systems spin
 Their dim, eternal track, That mote and meteor know their place,
 And planets turn not back, If we, your consummat1ng splre,
 Your masters,yet your slaves, Must always watch with Shackled rect
 Beside unsounded graves? live, who mete and weigh the stars,
 Girdle the globe we tread, And into gulfing chaos dare
 To drop our sounding lead, Must always walk in groping doubt
 An outer universe, Whose aged night no ray of yours Has virtue to disperse; Across whose gray uncertainty
 Your splendors never blaze, Nor any clew of yours avails
 To thread it's toiling maze? Oh, Nature, cunning scheme ot things,
 You shut us from the light; Your look is hard and beautiful,
 Your eyes are cold and bright. Ages on ages have you drawn
 The upward reaching Race, And ever when you turned we found
 The Sphynx's stony tace' Your seons flood our shallow years,
 Engulfing all our plans; Your order mocks our tangled lives,
 And shames our dissonance. Still hungrily the fatal fruit
 We pluck, as ages fly, And every generation sees
 Some old illusion die. We used to think our destiny
 The pivot of the World; For us alone the suns drank fire,
 For us the planets whirled. Our fates were written in the skies,
 For better and tor worse; We were the progeny of Zeus,
 Wards of the Universe, When river shrank, or sun grew black, A miracle we saw; And dreamed for us you sometimes would Reverse your mystic Law. But life has grown too intricate
 To be deciphered so; The stars mind now their own concerns, Moons wane and waters flow; And, though your violated laws
 Punish us soon or late, Our very smart delights you not,
 Who are too cold to hatei Tn pitiless caprice you pour
 Your lite through every vein; Then turn the flood, and send us back To Erebus again. You keep your young immortal bloom, While we grow old and gray; You take us home at last and mix
 Our bones with mari and clay. And still the Race Is born and dies, And still your seasons roll, And the same hopeless problems yex Each fresh and curious soul. Slowly we learn to look within
 And read the answers there-- To trust our best experience,
 And strip traditions bare; To leave the future where it waits Enringed with strong decrees, And try to make ourselves deserve Its broader destinies; To train the world to wise reforms, To root out old abuse, And educate society,
 To sift and weigh and choose; Till laws of Nature and of mind Shall shape the laws of man, And we have found and hold our place In the eternal plan.-[ Rachel Pomero Florence, Italy, April, 1870