Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FUTURE, by GEORGE LUNT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FUTURE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh future, deep and vast!
Last Line: And shadows fall thy waves, without reply!
Subject(s): Future; Past


OH Future, deep and vast!
What echoes of the Past
Shall give thy language some familiar tone?
Dark sweeps the shadowy train
Of thine abysmal reign,
The Unfathomable rolls, but voice has none!

Once, there were opening skies,
And seraph-like replies
To man's high spirit, strong in truthful love,
Heaven had celestial songs,
And Earth a thousand tongues,
By shadowy steep and every whispering grove.

But now the heavens are dim,
And nature's forest-hymn
Is but the breathing wind's mysterious wail;
And silent look on earth
Stars, that in song broke forth,
Choired with God's sons, creation's dawn to hail.

Seer and priest are dumb,
Nor guests angelic come,
With sweet familiar converse, as of old;
No prophet-visions roll,
To touch man's longing soul
With fire from out thine adamantine fold.

Nor now, in nightly dreams,
Come Heaven's communing gleams,
Nor awful counsel guides the doubtful day;
Nor jewelled ephods rest
Upon the priestly breast,
As erst when Aaron's sons inquired the way.

Vocal, in nature's prime,
Some legend of the time
Made hill and vale and bright responsive stream;
But dark and fabled gods,
Who held those old abodes,
Fled with the morn, dissolved, a spectral dream.

No more, with garlands led,
The victim's crownèd head
Bows down before the altar's flowery mound,
Nor all the shouting crowd,
With hymns and pæans loud,
Take up the Flamen's chant, with solemn sound.

Nor now, on festal days,
Above their songs of praise,
The mystic oracle's responses rise,
Nor yet, by fane and shrine,
'Mid rites they deemed divine,
The UNKNOWN GOD they darkly sought replies.

No more, by elfin grot,
Or sweet enchanted spot,
The moonlight people dance their fairy round;
Nor shadowy forms, half-seen,
Trip o'er the rustic green,
Or steal, with flitting step, through haunted ground.

But though our wiser years
Deride their mystic fears,
And fond illusions of the days of old,
We love a darker night,
While morn's refulgent light
Pours all its orient streams of flooded gold.

And broke is many a chain,
Enwreathed, oh, not in vain,
That linked us, spirits, to the spirit-shore;
And thus we plod by day,
And grope our nightly way,
To Heaven's far bourne, a neighbor-strand no more.

At Sinai's awful base,
The Prophet hid his face,
Lest God's reflected glory should appear,
But round our hearts the veil
Folds its enclouding trail,
Else were we close to Him, to us so near!

And though forever stand,
In the eternal land,
The living pastures spread with deathless flowers,
Dull hangs the mortal screen
Heaven and our hearts between,
And shrouds the gates of pearl and sapphire towers.

Thus is the spirit-world
In clouds and darkness furled,
Our souls shut out the simple truths of yore;
Our spirit's flickering gleams
Illume but faded dreams,
Whose light is dark,—the vision comes no more.

And though the things we clasp
Are bubbles in our grasp,
We count it wisdom still to chase the cheat;
And Faith has grown too cold
To pierce the sullen mould,
Wrapt round the life within, Heaven's wonted seat.

Of Future, deep and vast!
The spirit of the Past
Had gleams of glory from the homeward sky;
But mute thine ocean rolls
To our reluctant souls,
And shadows fall thy waves, without reply!





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