Can you explain in words just why
So many are afraid to die?
Why should the creeps be twinned with fear
At thoughts of Nature's ruling here?
Are we so loath to close our eyes
While stars bedight Night's purple skies?
Why then, when this, our perfect sleep,
Allows the Spirit Cosmic sweep?
Is there today a way whereby
Rare souls, prepared, might amplify
Self-knowledge by a thousandfold,
Precisely as in days of old?
Might one foretread that old, old road
Which the immortal gods have strode,
And know just what it means to be
Some Rounds ahead of you and me?
The Red Man views the Milky Way
As one vast "Road of Souls," they say.
Is this a fragment of old lore
That all men shared long heretofore?
Did they then know the metes and bounds,
The ultimate of future Rounds,
That Man must make in times to come
When we have solved the Cosmic Sum?
— M. G. G.