A Look-Out for Thirty Years

Oh! deaf to Science and her faithful words!
I counted on those fires of prophecy
No more than on some flight of midnight birds,
That pass, unheralded, with sudden cry, —
That never travell'd under Humboldt's eye,
Nor owed themselves at Greenwich. Thirty years
Must pass ere such bright vision reappears,
And then I shall be dead or near to die;
Or, should my life bridge over that great gap,
I cannot vouch for my decrepit self,
With feeble knees, weak eyes, and velvet cap,
And all my forethought laid upon the shelf;
But some good youth, or maid, or rosy elf,
Shall set my thin face heavenward, it may hap.