Then Vega rose and on her lyre
Played tremulous vast chords,
Singing the infinite desire
Of those celestial lords
Who shouted when earth's loom was laid,
And through the warp God's shuttle played;
When through the loom of misted flame
The threads of God began
To weave a world; before there came
Adventuring of man
Upon the Path of life to find
Monitions of eternal Mind.
She sang of forest and of fell,
Of mountain and of moor;
Caves and the caveman's battle-yell;
The song beside the door
Where women ground the meal and sung
Rhymes in their rude primeval tongue.
I saw the mammoth and the bear,
Like moving mountains, run
In terror from the flint-head spear,
Proving that man had won
Lordship of earth; and I made prayer,
Aldebaran, before thee there!