The Sky

Where'er he be, on water or on land, Under pale suns or climes that flames enfold; One of Christ's own, or of Cythera's band, Shadowy beggar or Crœsus rich with gold;

Citizen, peasant, student, tramp; whate'er His little brain may be, alive or dead; Man knows the fear of mystery everywhere, And peeps, with trembling glances, overhead.

The heaven above? A strangling cavern wall; The lighted ceiling of a music-hall Where every actor treads a bloody soil--

The hermit's hope; the terror of the sot; The sky: the black lid of the mighty pot Where the vast human generations boil!