The God of Progress rides the wings of time, Out of the distant ages, dim and vast, While campaniles of the planets chime The swift, elusive aeons, flying past. His right hand holds the lightning of thought -- His scepter and insignia of power. By many a soul, an earth-flung bolt is caught And blown into a flamelet for an hour. Through Hammurapi, legal justice grows; The scourge of rabies falls by Pasteur's hand; Burbank creates a larger, lovelier rose; Gandhi brings in the outcast of the land. What gift, for this great god, have you and I, To offer at his shrine as he rides by? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO OUR MOCKING-BIRD; DIED OF A CAT, MAY, 1878 by SIDNEY LANIER THE COLORED BAND by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE WIDOW; SAPPHICS by ROBERT SOUTHEY TO MADEMOISELLE by PIERRE JEAN DE BERANGER THE AUTHOR'S LAST WORDS TO HIS STUDENTS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THIRD REUNION POEM by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE |