Empires

How dare we deem that in this age
The end of all the ages lurks?
That God is printing the last page
Of the last volume of his Works?

Have we not canted of the mills
Of God, how very slow they grind?
Why should we fancy on our hills
Their sails are sped by earthly wind?

Persia and Egypt, Greece and Rome,
And vaster dynasties before,
Now faded in Time's monochrome,
In what do we surpass their lore?

Some things they knew that we know not;
Some things we know by them unknown;
But the axles of their wheels were hot
With the same frenzies as our own.