V. Aletheia Phrikodes (Fragments of Certainty) Lyrics

Time's endless vista spread before my thought

With its vast pageant of unceasing change

And sempiternal strife of force and will

I saw the ages flow in stately stream

Past rise and fall of universe and life

I saw the birth of suns and worlds, their death,

Their transmutation into limpid flame,

Their second birth and second death, their course

Perpetual thro' the aeons' termless flight,

Never the same, yet born again to serve

The varying purpose of omnipotence.

And whilst I watched, I knew each second's space

Was greater than the lifetime of our world.

Then turned my musings to that speck of dust

Whereon my form corporeal took its rise

That speck, born but a second, which must die

In one brief second more; that fragile earth

That crude experiment; that cosmic sport

Which holds our proud, aspiring race of mites

And moral vermin; those presuming mites

Whom ignorance with empty pomp adorns,

And misinstructs in specious dignity

Those mites who, reasoning outward, vaunt themselves

As the chief work of Nature, and enjoy

In fatuous fancy the particular care

Of all her mystic, super-regnant power.