_If Luther's day expand to Darwin's year,_ <br />_Shall that exclude the hope--foreclose the fear?_ <br /> <br />Unmoved by all the claims our times avow, <br />The ancient Sphinx still keeps the porch of <br />shade; <br />And comes Despair, whom not her calm may <br />cow, <br />And coldly on that adamantine brow <br />Scrawls undeterred his bitter pasquinade. <br />But Faith (who from the scrawl indignant <br />turns) <br />With blood warm oozing from her wounded <br />trust, <br />Inscribes even on her shards of broken urns <br />The sign o' the cross--_the spirit above the dust!_ <br /> <br />Yea, ape and angel, strife and old debate-- <br />The harps of heaven and dreary gongs of hell; <br />Science the feud can only aggravate-- <br />No umpire she betwixt the chimes and knell: <br />The running battle of the star and clod <br />Shall run forever--if there be no God. <br /> <br />Degrees we know, unknown in days before; <br />The light is greater, hence the shadow more; <br />And tantalized and apprehensive Man <br />Appealing--Wherefore ripen us to pain? <br />Seems there the spokesman of dumb Nature's <br />train. <br /> <br />But through such strange illusions have they <br />passed <br />Who in life's pilgrimage have baffled striven-- <br />Even death may prove unreal at the last, <br />And stoics be astounded into heaven. <br /> <br />Then keep thy heart, though yet but <br />ill-resigned-- <br />Clarel, thy heart, the issues there but mind; <br />That like the crocus budding through the <br />snow-- <br />That like a swimmer rising from the deep-- <br />That like a burning secret which doth go <br />Even from the bosom that would hoard and <br />keep; <br />Emerge thou mayst from the last whelming <br />sea, <br />And prove that death but routs life into victory.<br /><br />Herman Melville<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/epilogue-30/
