Years have studied, with such mingled
Aid from lore divine and human
Have in vain tried to unriddle!--
"In the beginning was the Word".--
Yes, but when was this beginning?
Was it when Jove, Neptune, Pluto
Shared the triple zones betwixt them,
When the one took to himself
Heaven supreme, one hell's abysses,
And the sea the third, to Ceres
Leaving earth, the ever-wing`ed
Time to Saturn, fire to Phoebus,
And the air to Jove's great sister?[5]--
No, it could not have been then,
For the fact of their partition
Shows that heaven and earth then were,
Shows that sea and land existed:--
The beginning then must be
Something more remote and distant:
He who has expressly said
'The beginning,' must have hinted
At the primal cause of all things,
At the first and great beginning,
All things growing out of HIM,
He himself the pre-existent:--
Yes, but then a new beginning
Must we seek for this beginner,
And so on ad infinitum;
Since if I, on soaring pinion
Seek from facts to rise to causes,