Cycles

The sorcerer departs . . . and his high tower is drowned Slowly by low flat communal seas that level all . . . While crowding centuries retreat, return and fall Into the cyclic gulf that girds the cosmos round, Widening, deepening ever outward without bound . . . Till the oft-rerisen bells from young Atlantis call; And again the wizard-mortised tower upbuilds its wall Above a rebeginning cycle, turret-crowned. New-born, the mage resummons stronger spells, and spirits With dazzling darkness clad about, and fierier flame Renewed by aeon-curtained slumber. All the powers Of genii and Solomon the sage inherits; And there, to blaze with blinding glory the bored hours, He calls upon Shem-hamphorash, the nameless Name.