These Days Poem by Martin Farquhar Tupper

Haste! the poor old Earth is dying,--
Do God service while you can;
Haste! too hurriedly is flying
All this halcyon chance of man;
Haste! for time may be no longer,--
All created yearnings tend
In a rapid ever stronger
To that cataract, The End!

Lo! the cycled years revolving
Turn to their first goal again,--
Every Sphinx-enigma solving,
Every riddle reading plain;
All things speak to man sublimely
With Apocalyptic mouth,
Nature's consummation timely
Telling out from North to South.

Yea, what privilege and gladness
Dwell with modern men and things,
Vainly waited for in sadness
By old prophets and old kings:
Children see what sages doubted,
Peasants know what patriarchs guess'd;
And the sword of Truth has routed
Every lie from East to West.

Ancient wrongs are being righted,--
Ancient rights lift up their head;
Savage realms and tribes benighted
Rise to life as from the dead;
Ignorance is out of season,
Wickedess is glad to hide,--
Nothing stands but faith and reason,
Nothing falls but sin and pride.

We, in days so full and fleeting,
Spend our lives on eagles' wings,
Throng'd by marvels, marvels meeting,
Flock'd about by wondrous things;
Every day the whole world's history
Spread out map-like stirs the mind,
Every day some ripen'd mystery
Stands consummate for mankind.

Nineveh with ghostly message
Rises from her mounded graves;
Polar Ice has clued the Passage
Winding through its hummock'd waves;
Saurian monsters crawl before us,--
Storms their whirling laws avow,--
All Creation shouts in chorus,
'Nothing shall be secret now!'

Earth's forgotten wastes and corners,
Peopled thick through gold broadcast,
Tell the scoffers and the scorners
How she is 'subdued' at last:
God commands; and nothing frees us
Till that word we all obey,--
Even China bows to Jesus,
Even Africa doth pray.

Ravel-skeins of old beginnings
Tapestried around the Cross,--
And Creation's final winnings
Well out-balancing her loss,--
All subdued, and all replenish'd,
All things, sealing up the sum,
Preach, how nearly, It is finish'd,
Tell how soon the Christ will come.