When swift the Camel-rider spans the howling waste, by Kismet sped,
And of his Magic Wand a wave hurries the quick to join the dead.*

How sore the burden, strange the strife; how full of splendour, wonder, fear;
Life, atom of that Infinite Space that stretcheth ’twixt the Here and There.

How Thought is imp’otent to divine the secret which the gods defend,
The Why of birth and life and death, that Isis-veil no hand may rend.

Eternal Morrows make our Day; our Is is aye to be till when
Night closes in; ’tis all a dream, and yet we die,—and then and THEN?

And still the Weaver plies his loom, whose warp and woof is wretched Man
Weaving th’ unpattern’d dark design, so dark we doubt it owns a plan.