George John Romanes died young, he was only forty-six when he died in Oxford, having been born in Ontario in 1848; he was an extraordinary man, a friend of Darwin, and actually invented the term neo-Darwinism, he spoke German and Italian fluently, and was a published scientific writer. Although a Christian when young, as demonstrated in this sonnet, he later became an agnostic as his scientific work progressed.
Hereafter
When I look back upon my childish years,
And think how little then I thought at all,
Sometimes to me it now almost appears,
So great the change has been, ’twere but a small
Increase of change that might transform a man
Into a spirit, standing at the throne
Of God, to see in full the mighty plan
Divine, and know as also he is known.
For why should thus so vast a growth have been,
Which all but tops the verge of earthly skies,
If, at the end, all that a man hath seen
Be blotted out before his closing eyes?
So were it better still a child to be,
And shout young laughter through a world of glee.
Lois Elsden 