The Sky

  Where'er he be, on water or on land,
  Under pale suns or climes that flames enfold;
  One of Christ's own, or of Cythera's band,
  Shadowy beggar or Crœsus rich with gold;

  Citizen, peasant, student, tramp; whate'er
  His little brain may be, alive or dead;
  Man knows the fear of mystery everywhere,
  And peeps, with trembling glances, overhead.

  The heaven above? A strangling cavern wall;
  The lighted ceiling of a music-hall
  Where every actor treads a bloody soil—

  The hermit's hope; the terror of the sot;
  The sky: the black lid of the mighty pot
  Where the vast human generations boil!