When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it, lie down for an aeon or two,...
When that with meat and drink they had fulfilled Not temperately but like him conceived In monstrous jest at Meudon, whose regale Stands for exemplar of Gargantuan greed,...
South and far south below the Line, Our Admiral leads us on, Above, undreamed-of planets shine, The stars we know are gone. Around, our clustered seamen mark The silent deep ablaze...