What have we learned from all the load of years
To stay despair, to stanch the stream of tears ?
From out the centuries of night and crime
Have we no message from the mists of time?
Has knowledge no interpreter, no guide
To read the riddle and to stem the tide?
Whence have we come, and whither leads the way,—
Our darkling path, whereon the moonbeams play?
Who bids the violet wake beneath the snows ?
Whence comes the scent of this consummate rose?
How learned the lark, at morning's call, to sing
His laureate song, the prelude of the spring?
There is a book, and he who runs may read,
And seek and find the solace of his need,
Learn how the lark, the summer's sonneteer,
Weaves his wild notes, and why the flowers appear,
And last and first upon the enchanting page
Learn man is one with God from age to age;
