Things to Come

When you have gone and I have gone Beyond the ken of earthly things, Yet watch the old race carry on As to precarious life it clings, Gazing together from afar, Perched on some fixed or unfixed star, We may find cause to meditate Full thankfully upon our fate. And you shall say - or I shall say: Those were man's great days, yours and mine, Before his glories passed away, His kingship fell into decline, When he walked proudly o'er the earth Questing his joy at its broad girth Ere fear and folly claimed his soul And bade him emulate the mole. And you shall gaze and I shall gaze In pity from our distant star And witness, thro' the cosmic haze Earth's bosom scored by many a scar Where in and out, in furtive haste Strange, pallid little creatures raced, Short-limbed, large-pawed, with small weak eyes That feared to look up to the skies. We'll watch the timid little gnomes, So altered now in shape from us, Peer from their subterranean homes Half vengefully, half curious; Then, at the barking of a gun, Back to their holes we'll watch them run. And I shall say - or you shall say: "These were earth's masters in our day."