(A Modernity) <br /> Twelve good friends <br /> Passed under her hat, <br /> And devil a one of them <br /> Knew where he was at. <br /> Had they but known, <br /> Then had they known all things, -- <br /> The littleness of great things, <br /> The unmeasured immensity of small things. <br /> They had known the Where and the Why, <br /> The When and the Wherefore, <br /> And how the Eternal <br /> Conceived the Eternal, and therefore <br /> Beginning began the Beginning; <br /> They had apprehended <br /> The ultimate virtue of sinning; <br /> They had caught the whisper <br /> That Vega vibrates to Arcturus, <br /> Piercing the walls <br /> Of heavy flesh that immure us. <br /> <br /> But if they had known, <br /> Then had there been no mystery; <br /> And Life had been poorer, <br /> And laughter unsurer, <br /> And the shadow of death securer, <br /> By lack of this brief history.<br /><br />Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bat-bat-come-under-my-hat/
