Om: The Secret of Ahbor Valley. Talbot Mundy

      EVOLUTION

       Table of Contents

      Tides in the ocean of stars and the infinite rhythm of space;

       Cycles on cycles of aeons adrone on an infinite beach;

       Pause and recession and flow, and each atom of dust in its place

       In the pulse of eternal becoming; no error, no breach

       But the calm and the sweep and the swing of the leisurely, measureless roll

       Of the absolute cause, the unthwarted effect—and no haste,

       And no discord, and nothing untimed in a calculus ruling the whole;

       Unfolding; evolving; accretion; attrition; no waste.

      Planet on planet a course that it keeps, and each swallow its flight;

       Comet's ellipse and grace-note of the sudden firefly glow;

       Jewels of Perseid splendor sprayed on summer's purple night;

       Blossom adrift on the breath of spring; the whirl of snow;

       Grit on the grinding beaches; spume of the storm-ridden wave

       Hurled on the north wind's ice-born blast to blend with the tropic rain;

       Hail and the hissing of torrents; song where sapphire ripples lave

       The crest of thousand-fathom reefs upbuilt beneath the main,

      Silt of the ceaseless rivers from the mountain summits worn,

       Rolled along gorge and meadow till the salt, inflowing tide

       Heaps it in shoals at harbor-mouth for continents unborn;

       Earth where the naked rocks were reared; pine where the birches died;

       Season on season proceeding, and birth in the shadow of death;

       Dawning of luminous day in the dying of night; and a Plan

       In no whit, in no particle changing; each phase of becoming a breath

       Of the infinite Karma of all things; its goal, evolution of MAN.