http://www.wordnik.com/lists/poetrie-infinity.xml The probing eye of Palomar peers skyward to reveal<br />A billion molten, fiery stars in our galactic wheel...<br />And shows that even this great disc <br />Is but a <a href="/words/firefly">firefly</a> burning, <br />Within a much more monstrous wheel, <br />Slowly, slowly turning.<br /><br />May not this next celestial wheel <br />Be but an atom's glow in some big <a href="/words/molecule">molecule</a> of stars<br />In some huge flake of snow?<br />For may not space flow on and on from door to opening door,<br />Like seas that open into seas and never reach a shore?<br /><br />If in our atom's tiny flame a billion stars are whirled<br />And millions of these lonely suns has each a captive world,<br />Just follow to the trillionth power and on beyond to see,<br />What must be true when <a href="/words/cipher">cipher</a>s link down to infinity.<br /><br />Somewhere red planets swing around a triple silver sun,<br />And pale, pale rainbows interlock their arches one by one.<br />Somewhere, dark girls upon their brows grow curving, scarlet horns,<br />And ride in <a href="/words/tinkling">tinkling</a> gardens on great golden <a href="/words/unicorn">unicorn</a>s.<br /><br />Somewhere rains of diamonds fall on foaming, milk-white seas,<br />Where <a href="/words/rocket">rocket</a>s follow streaming light from star to star with ease.<br />And soft-eyed girls with honeyed lips swim up to sing and free<br />Their water-weighted lashes from their native shining sea.<br /><br />Great blue-white giant blazing suns control a thousand spheres<br />Where reptiles march in glistening ranks and fight with <a href="/words/jeweled spears">jeweled spears</a>; <br />Where lizards lounge on ivory thrones<br />And keep to weave and spin, to clean their overlapping scales,<br />A smooth-skinned race of men.<br /><br />Somewhere crustaceans think like Gods and muse <a href="/words/eternal">eternal</a> laws<br />And write the music of the spheres with clicking bony claws.<br />Or beetles, fish and furry things emerge as <a href="/words/sentient">sentient</a> breeds,<br />Or, working with atomic fires are thinking centipedes.<br /><br />Or, coal-black spiders sway in webs<br />Beneath chill alien moons,<br />And finger gemlike instruments to strum <a href="/words/immortal">immortal</a> tunes.<br />Or serpent-men on serpent worlds evolve to racial prime,<br />And glide in fourth dimensions where<br />The riddle solved is time.<br /><br />For if there is no end of worlds and nature keeps her laws,<br />Who knows which life will win which world:<br />The hands...the coils...the <a href="/words/claws">claws</a>?<br />So feathered things and crawling things<br />And creeping things all go<br />Their separate ways on separate worlds,<br />Around, above, below.<br /><br />If God employs infinity His wonders to perform,<br />And there's no end of endlessness,<br />Can there, then, be a norm?<br />Would God give souls to sentient beasts<br />Or would they still be clods?<br />If <a href="/words/evolution">evolution</a> is God's way,<br />Whose image, then, is God's?<br /><br />An endlessness of worlds implies a world of every kind:<br />Worlds where our past repeats itself until the end of time.<br />Worlds where our future's far events <a href="/words/enact">enact</a> themselves before;<br />Where every closing portal means another opening door.<br /><br />So if there is infinity, if endlessness is true,<br />Somewhere, Napoleon walks again the fields of <a href="/words/Waterloo">Waterloo</a>;<br />And somewhere, always, in the depths of time's <a href="/words/vast">vast</a> shoreless sea,<br />Upon the ghastly Hill of Skulls, <br />Christ hangs upon the tree.<br /><br />--from some sci-fi mag; copied out long ago and forgotten till now.<br /><br />UPDATE: The poem is by Rosser Reeves, and it appeared in "The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, Tenth Series" in 1961. The cover price is/was 45¢!!<br /><br />The editor's comment: "The author is chairman of the board of a large corporation, and we confess we find it intriguing and comforting to know that a man whose workday is devoted to the harsh realities of multi-million-dollar profit and loss has in him that good old-fashioned sense of wonder."<br /><br />He was an advertising executive (creating among others: "M & Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand."). See comments below for link to more info. http://www.wordnik.com http://www.wordnik.com/words/firefly Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:15:26 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/firefly http://www.wordnik.com/words/molecule Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:15:23 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/molecule http://www.wordnik.com/words/cipher Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:15:19 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/cipher http://www.wordnik.com/words/tinkling Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:14:55 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/tinkling http://www.wordnik.com/words/unicorn Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:14:52 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/unicorn http://www.wordnik.com/words/rocket Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:14:36 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/rocket http://www.wordnik.com/words/jeweled spears Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:13:27 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/jeweled spears http://www.wordnik.com/words/eternal Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:13:20 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/eternal http://www.wordnik.com/words/sentient Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:13:16 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/sentient http://www.wordnik.com/words/immortal Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:13:11 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/immortal http://www.wordnik.com/words/claws Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:13:06 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/claws http://www.wordnik.com/words/evolution Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:13:00 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/evolution http://www.wordnik.com/words/enact Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:12:54 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/enact http://www.wordnik.com/words/waterloo Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:12:51 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/waterloo http://www.wordnik.com/words/vast Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:12:41 +0000 http://www.wordnik.com/words/vast