At Minas Basin and Other Poems — Resistless Fate

RESISTLESS FATE.

Resistless fate and iron destiny Are writ upon the tide--its branded mark.

It comes and goes heedless of wind or bark, Nature's untamed and tameless energy.

So rolls the cycle of eternity,-- Days, months, and years--faint shadows on the arc Within our human ken--rush from the dark And speed return as God's own mystery.

I on this tide-beat shore, and clutching time, Marvel of what account my selfhood's will,-- 'Gainst timeless might time's impotence is laid!

And through my inmost soul, as at the prime, A voice from out the awesome vast doth thrill: "O man, thou art in God's own image made!"