The Exegesis

Nothing is lost; be still; the universe is honest.

Time, like the sea, gives all back in the end,

But only in its own way, on its own conditions:

Empires as grains of sand, forests as coal,

Mountains as pebbles. Be still, be still, I say;

You never were the water, only a wave;

Not substance, but a form substance assumed.

Have you forgotten?-Saturn (that is, Time)

Devoured all his children except four,

Pluto, Juno, Neptune, Jove, these being

-Antiquity knew it-earth, air, water, fire.