If we could roll back History
 A century, let's say,
And start from there, I'm sure that we
 Would find things as to-day:
In all creation's cosmic range
 No vestige of a change.
 
Turn back a thousand years, the same
 Unchangement we would view;
Cause and Effect their laws proclaim,
 The truest of the true,
And in life's mechanistic groove
 The Universe would move.

Grim is the grip of the Machine
 And everything we do
Designed implacably has been
 Since earth was virgin new:
We strut our parts as they were writ,--
 That's all there is to it.

Curse on such thinking! let us play
 At Free Will, though we be
The gnatlike creatures of the day,
 The dupes of Destiny . . .
The merle is merry in the may--
 Tommorow's time to pray.