THROUGHOUT the long procession of the ages,
The seekers after God in pain have striven,
And saints have suffered, and to wistful sages
A glimpse of truth eternal has been given.
Like those rare sentries in the vault of heaven
That make it luminous with shining rays,
The Pleiades, the sacred sisters seven,
Sirius and splendid Arcturus, these blaze;
Meanwhile, a multitude, in tangled maze
Of starry systems, link their astral shields
And crowd in nebulous ranks the Milky Ways,
Or rove, unnoted, interstellar fields.
So men revere the peerage of the past
Nor heed the light by lowly sainthood cast.