Low Tide

There never was on Earth a time like this,
When all the eager souls of men were sad,
Always there was some idol's foot to kiss
Or sovereign's hand — now all the gods are bad —
And kings have lost their heads and crowns of gold,
And from the tombs of books the solemn wraiths
Stalk in the twilight like a story told
At bedtime to the children — these were faiths.
Listen! Along the coasts of all the world
Even the sound of ebb-tide has been stilled;
Columbus' and Magellan's sails are furled;
And hopeless mouths explain the hope they killed, —
While apes grow tired of being their own god,
Blink at the stars, and lie down in the sod.

Move forward changing Earth in your elipse
About the dying star we call the Sun
Out of the shadow of our soul's eclipse;
Not all your ebb and flow of tides is done.
Man has turned inward, feeding on himself,
And found himself a brother to the beast;
The ebb-tide has exposed his lowest shelf,
And now the West returns unto the East.
And we may hear the tide returning soon,
See tangents of the sunrise on the hills,
And shadows shrinking backward to a noon
When slaves shall look above the reek of mills
To read the future in the stars at last —
The Earth is but a record of the past.