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-Project Gutenberg's The Angel in the Cloud, by Edwin W. (Wiley) Fuller

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license

-

-

-Title: The Angel in the Cloud

-

-Author: Edwin W. (Wiley) Fuller

-

-Release Date: July 14, 2018 [EBook #57504]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: UTF-8

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD ***

-

-

-

-

-Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed

-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was

-produced from images available at The Internet Archive)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-                               THE ANGEL

-                             IN THE CLOUD

-

-                                  BY

-

-                            EDWIN W. FULLER

-

-                           PRIVATELY PRINTED

-                                MCMVII

-

-

-

-

-                           _Copyright, 1907

-                         Sumner Fuller Parham_

-

-

-

-

-                                TO THE

-

-                     HALLOWED MEMORY OF MY FATHER,

-

-                                 WHO,

-

-             EVEN WHILE I WAS GAZING UPON THE GOLDEN CITY

-

-                       PASSED WITHIN ITS WALLS,

-

-                   THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS INSCRIBED,

-

-                              WITH TEARS.

-

-

-

-

-PREFACE

-

-

-To those who may favor these pages with perusal, I make this earnest

-request: that, if they commence, they will read all. Knowing that the

-best mode of dealing with doubts is to state and refute, successively, I

-regret that the plan of the present work forces a separation of the

-statement and refutation. To read one without the other were to defeat

-the object in view; hence my request.

-

-Many of the subjects of thought are worn smooth with the touch of ages,

-so that hope for originality is as slender as the bridge of Al Sirat;

-but in the bulrush ark of self-confidence, pitched with Faith, I commit

-my first-born to the Nile of public opinion; whether to perish by

-crocodile critics, or bask in the palace of favor, the Future, alone,

-must determine. May Pharaoh’s daughter find it!

-

-                                                      E. W. F.

-

-LOUISBURG, Jan. 17th, 1871.

-

-

-

-

-A NOTE

-

-

-_First published more than thirty-five years ago, in the lifetime of the

-poet, THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD has long since passed not only out of print

-but out of the memory of most living men. Of the copies of the original

-edition, only few are known to exist. Upon his surviving family is

-imposed the obligation, and to them comes the privilege, of rescuing

-from the realm of forgotten things these evidences of a graceful and

-genuine poetic gift in one whose memory they revere and whose genius

-they are unwilling to have die. It is therefore with the sense of

-performing a grateful duty that they have caused to be printed this new

-edition of Edwin Fuller’s poems, in the hope and belief that others,

-like themselves, will value it both as friends of the gentle poet and as

-disinterested lovers of good literature._

-

-August, 1907.

-

-

-

-

-              THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD

-

-

-    ’Twas noon in August, and the sultry heat

-    Had driven me from sunny balcony

-    Into the shaded hall, where spacious doors

-    Stood open wide, and lofty windows held

-    Their sashes up, to woo the breeze, in vain.

-    The filmy lace that curtained them was still,

-    And every silken tassel hung a-plumb.

-    The maps and unframed pictures o’er the wall

-    Gave not a rustle; only now and then

-    Was heard the jingling sound of melting ice,

-    Deep in a massive urn, whose silver sides

-    With trickling dewbeads ran. The little birds,

-    Up in their cages, perched with open beaks,

-    And throbbing throats, upon the swaying rings,

-    Or plashed the tepid water in their cups

-    With eager breast. My favorite pointer lay,

-    With lolling tongue, and rapid panting sides,

-    Beside my chair, upon the matted floor.

-    All things spoke heat, oppressive heat intense,

-    Save swallows twittering up the chimney-flue,

-    Whose hollow flutterings sounded cool alone.

-    To find relief I seized my hat and book,

-    And fled into the park. Along a path

-    Of smoothest gravel, oval, curving white,

-    Between two rows of closely shaven hedge,

-    I passed towards a latticed summer-house;

-    A fairy bower, built in Eastern style,

-    With spires, and balls, and fancy trellis-work,

-    O’er which was spread the jasmine’s leafy net,

-    To snare the straying winds. Within I fell

-    Upon a seat of woven cane, and fanned

-    My streaming face in vain. The very winds

-    Seemed to have fled, and left alone the heat

-    To rise from parchèd lawn and scorching fields,

-    Like trembling incense to the blazing god.

-    The leaves upon the wan and yellow trees

-    Hung motionless, as if of rigid steel;

-    And e’en the feath’ry pendula of spray,

-    With faintest oscillation, dared not wave.

-    The withered flowers shed a hot perfume,

-    That sickened with its fragrance; and the bees

-    Worked lazily, as if they longed to kick

-    The yellow burdens from their patient thighs,

-    And rest beneath the ivy parasols.

-    The butterflies refrained from aimless flight,

-    And poised on blooms with gaudy, gasping wings.

-    The fountain scarcely raised its languid jet

-    An inch above its tube; the basin deigned

-    A feeble ripple for its tinkling fall,

-    And rolled the little waves with noiseless beat

-    Against the marble side. The bright-scaled fish

-    All huddled ’neath the jutting ledge’s shade,

-    Where, burnished like their magnet toy types,

-    They rose and fell as if inanimate;

-    Or, with a restless stroke of tinted fin,

-    Turned in their places pettishly around;

-    While, with each move, the tiny whirlpools spun

-    Like crystal dimples on the water’s face.

-    The sculptured lions crouched upon the edge,

-    With gaping jaws, and stony, fixèd eyes,

-    That ever on the pool glared thirstily.

-    Deep in the park, beneath the trees, were grouped

-    The deer, their noses lowered to the earth,

-    To snuff a cooler air; their slender feet

-    Impatient stamping at the teasing flies;

-    While o’er their heads the branching antlers spread,

-    A mocking skeleton of shade! A fawn,

-    Proud of his dappled coat, played here and there,

-    Regardless of repose; the silver bell,

-    That tinkled from a band of broidered silk,

-    Proclaiming him a petted favorite.

-    Save him alone, all things in view sought rest,

-    And wearied Nature seemed to yield the strife,

-    And smold’ring wait her speedy sacrifice.

-

-    The heat grew hotter as I watched its work,

-    And with its fervor overcome, I rose,

-    And through the grounds, towards an orchard bent

-    My faltering steps in full despair of ease.

-    Down through the lengthened rows of laden trees,

-    Whose golden-freighted boughs o’erlapped the way,

-    I hurried till I reached the last confines.

-    Here stood a gnarléd veteran, now too old

-    To bear much fruit, but weaving with its leaves

-    So dense a shade, the smallest fleck of sun

-    Could not creep through. Beneath it spread a couch

-    Of velvet moss, fit for the slumbers of a king.

-    Here prone I fell, at last amid a scene

-    That promised refuge from the glaring heat.

-    Beyond me stretched the orchard’s canopy

-    Of thick, rank foliage, almost drooping down

-    Upon the green plush carpet underneath.

-    Close at my feet a crystal spring burst forth,

-    And rolled its gurgling waters down the glade

-    Now spreading in a rilling silver sheet

-    O’er some broad rock, then gath’ring at its base

-    Into a foamy pool that churned the sand,

-    And mingling sparks of shining isinglass,

-    It danced away o’er gleamy, pebbly bed,

-    Where, midst the grassy nooks and fibrous roots,

-    The darting minnows played at hide and seek,

-    Oft fluttering upwards, to the top, to spit

-    A tiny bubble out, or slyly snap

-    Th’ unwary little insect hov’ring near;

-    Till, by its tributes widened to a brook,

-    It poured its limpid waters undefiled

-    In to the river’s dun and dirty waves,--

-    A type of childhood’s guileless purity,

-    That mingling with the sordid world is lost.

-

-    Far in the distance, lofty mountains loomed,

-    Their blue sides trembling in the sultry haze.

-    From me to them spread varicultured fields,

-    That formed a patchwork landscape, which deserved

-    The pencil of a Rembrandt and his skill;

-    The hardy yellow stubble smoothly shaved,

-    With boldness lying ’neath the scorching sun;

-    The suffering corn, with tasselled heads all bowed,

-    And twisted arms appealing, raised to Heaven;

-    The meadows faded by the constant blaze;

-    The cattle lying in the hedge’s shade;

-    Across the landscape drawn a glitt’ring band,

-    Where winds the river, like a giant snake,

-    The ripples flashing like his polished scales.

-    Above the scene a lonely vulture wheeled,

-    Turning with every curve from side to side,

-    As if the fierce rays broiled his dusky wings;

-    And circling onwards, dwindled to a speck,

-    And in the distance vanished out of sight!

-    Complete repose was stamped on everything,

-    Save where a tireless ant tugged at a crumb,

-    To drag it o’er th’ impeding spires of moss;

-    And one poor robin, with her breast all pale

-    And feather-scarce, hopped wearily along

-    The streamlet’s edge, with plaintive clock-like chirp,

-    And searching, found and bore the curling worm,

-    Up to the yellow-throated brood o’erhead.

-    Behind the mountains reared the copper clouds

-    Of summer skies, that whitened as they rose,

-    Till bleached to snow, they drifted dreamily,

-    Like gleaming icebergs, through the blue sublime.

-    And as they, one by one, sailed far away,

-    Methought they were as ships from Earth to Heaven,

-    Thus slowly floating to the Eternal Port.

-    The Thunder’s muttered growl my reverie broke,

-    And looking toward the West, I saw a storm,

-    With gloomy wrath, had thrown its dark-blue line

-    Of breastworks, quiv’ring with each grand discharge

-    Of its own ordnance, o’er th’ horizon’s verge.

-    Some time it stood to gloat upon its prey,

-    Then, girding up its strength, began its march.

-    Extending far its black gigantic arms,

-    It grimly clambered up the tranquil sky;

-    Till, half-way up the arch, its shaggy brows

-    Scowled down in rage upon the frightened earth;

-    While through its wind-cleft portals sped the darts,

-    That brightly hurtled through the sultry air.

-    And down the mountain-sides the shadow crept,

-    A dark veil spreading over field and wood,

-    Thus adding gloom to Nature’s awful hush.

-    The fleecy racks had fled far to the East,

-    Where sporting safely in the gilding light,

-    They mocked the angry monster’s cumbrous speed.

-

-    Then, while I marked its progress, came a train,

-    Of dark and doubting thoughts into my mind,

-    And bitterly thus my reflections ran:

-    Strange is the Providence that rules the world,

-    That sets the Medean course of Nature’s laws;

-    Sometimes adapting law to circumstance,

-    But oftener making law fulfilled a curse.

-    Yon brewing storm in verdant summer comes,

-    When vegetation spreads its foliage sails,

-    That, like a full-rigged ship’s, are easier torn;

-    Why comes it not in winter, when the trees,

-    With canvas reefed by Autumn’s furling frosts,

-    Could toss in nude defiance to the blast?

-    The murd’rous wind precedes the gentle shower

-    And ere the suffering grain has quenched its thirst,

-    It bows the heavy head, alone of worth,

-    And from the ripening stalk wrings out the life,

-    While gayly nod the heads of chaff unharmed.

-    The rank miasma floats in summer-time,

-    When man must brave its poisoned breath or starve;

-    It hovers sickliest over richest fields

-    While over sterile lands the air is pure;

-    The tallest oak is by the lightning riven,

-    The hateful bramble on the ground is spared;

-    The crop man needs demands his constant work,

-    The weeds alone spring forth without the plow;

-    The sweetest flowers wear the sharpest thorns,

-    The deadliest reptiles lurk in fairest paths!

-      Wherever Nature shows her brightest smile,

-    ’Tis but a mask to hide her darkest frown.

-    The tropics seem an Eden of luscious fruits

-    And flowers, and groves of loveliest birds, and lakes

-    That mirror their gay plumage flitting o’er;

-    Where man may live in luxury of thought,

-    Without the crime of schemes, or curse of toil--

-    The tropics seem a Hell, when all with life

-    Are stifled with the foul sirocco’s breath;

-    When from the green-robed mountain’s volcan top,

-    A fire-fountain spouts its blazing jet

-    Far up against the starry dome of Heaven;

-    Returning in its vast umbrella shape,

-    Leaps in red cataracts adown the slope,

-    Shaves clean the mountain of its emerald hair,

-    And leaves it bald with ashes on its head.

-    Below, the valley is a crimson sea,

-    Whose glowing billows break to white-hot foam;

-    And as they surge amid the towering trees,

-    They, tottering, bow forever to the waves;

-    The leaves and branches, crackling into flame,

-    Leave only clotted cinders floating there;

-    The darting birds, their gaudy plumage singed,

-    Fall fluttering in, with little puffs of smoke.

-    The fleeing beasts are lapped in, bellowing,

-    And charred to coal, drift idly with the tide.

-    The red flood, breaking through the vale, rolls on

-    Its devious way towards the sea; the glare

-    Illuminating far its winding track,

-    As if a devil flew with flaming torch,

-    Or when an earthquake gapes its black-lined jaws,

-    And, growling, gulps a city’s busy throng

-    Into its greedy bowels. Or the sea bursts forth

-    Its bands of rock, and laughing at “Thus far!”

-    Rolls wildly over peopled towns, and homes

-    In fancied safety; playing fearful pranks,

-    O’er which to chuckle in its briny bed;

-    Jeering the stones because they cannot swim,

-    And crushing like a shell all work of wood;

-    Docking the laden ships upon the hills,

-    And tossing lighter craft about like weeds;

-    Till, wearied with the spoiling, sinks to rest.

-

-    Thus Nature to herself is but half kind,

-    But over man holds fullest tyranny;

-    And man, a creature who cannot prevent

-    His own existence! Why not happy made?

-    For surely ’twere as easy to create

-    Man in a state of happiness and good,

-    And keep him there, as to create at all.

-    If misery’s not deserved before his birth,

-    Then misery must from purest malice flow;

-    Yet malice none assign to Providence.

-      But some may say: Were man thus happy made,

-    He would not be a person, but a thing,

-    And lose the very seed of happiness,

-    The consciousness of merit. Grant ’tis true!

-    Then why does merit rarely meet reward?

-    And why does there appear a tendency,

-    Throughout the polity divine, to mark

-    With disapproval all the good in man,

-    And bless the evil? Through the entire world

-    Is felt this conflict: some strange power within

-    Exciting us to good, while all events

-    Proclaim its folly. Throughout Nature’s laws,

-    Through man in every station, up to God,

-    This fatal contradiction glares. The storm,

-    With ruthless breath, annihilates the cot

-    That, frail and humble, shields the widow’s head;

-    And while she reads within the use-worn Book

-    That none who trusts shall e’er be desolate,

-    The falling timbers crush the promise out,

-    And she is dead beneath her ruined home!

-    The prostrate cottage passed, the very wind

-    Now howls a rough but fawning lullaby

-    Around the marble walls, and lofty dome,

-    That shelter pride and heartless arrogance.

-

-    And when the Boaz Winter throws his skirt

-    Of purest white across the lap of Earth,

-    And decks her bare arborial hair with gems,

-    Whose feeblest flash would pale the Koh-i-noor,

-    The rich, alone, find beauty in the scene,

-    And, clad in thankless comfort, brave the cold.

-    The gliding steels flash through the feathery drifts,

-    The jingling bells proclaiming happiness;

-    Yet ’neath the furry robe the oath is heard,

-    And boisterous laughter at the ribald jest.

-    The coldest hearts beat ’neath the warmest clothes;

-    And often all the blessings wealth can give,

-    Are heaped on one, whose daily life reviles

-    The very name of Him who doth bestow.

-    While in a freezing garret, o’er the coals

-    That, bluely flickering with the feeble flame,

-    Seem cold themselves, a trusting Christian bends;

-    Her faith all mocked by cruel circumstance.

-    The cold, bare walls, the chilling air-swept floor;

-    Some broken stools, a mattress stuffed with straw,

-    Upholstering the apartment. Through the sash,

-    The wind, with jaggèd lips of broken glass,

-    Shrieks in its freezing spite. A cold-blued babe,

-    With face too thin to hold a dimple’s print,

-    With famished gums tugs at the arid breast,

-    Thrusting its bare, splotched arms, in eagerness,

-    From out the poor white blanket’s ravelled edge.

-    Beside the mother sits a little boy,

-    With one red frost-cracked hand spread out, in vain,

-    To warm above the faintly-burning coals;

-    The other pressing hardly ’gainst his teeth

-    A stale and tasteless loaf of smallest size,

-    Which lifting often to the mother’s view,

-    He offers part; she only shakes her head,

-    And sadly smiles upon the gaunt young face.

-    Yet in her basket, on a pile of work,

-    An open Bible lies with outstretched leaves,

-    Whose verses speak in keenest irony:

-    “Do good,” and “verily thou shalt be fed.”

-    And so through all the world, the righteous poor,

-    The wicked rich. Deceit, and fraud, and craft

-    Reap large rewards, while pure integrity

-    Must gnaw the bone of faith with here and there

-    A speck of flesh called consciousness of right,

-    To reach the marrow in another world.

-    But man within himself’s the greatest paradox;

-    “A little animal,” as Voltaire says,

-    And yet a greater wonder than the sun,

-    Or spangled firmament. That little one

-    Can weigh and measure all the wheeling worlds,

-    But finds within his “five feet” home, a Sphinx

-    Whose riddle he can never solve.

-                                     “Thyself,”

-    The oracles of old bade men to know,

-    As if to mock their very impotence;

-    And man, to know himself, for centuries

-    Has toiled and studied deep, in vain.--

-    Not man in flesh, for blest Hippocrates

-    Bright trimmed his lamp, and passed it down the line,

-    And each disciple adding of his oil,

-    It blazes now above the ghastly corpse,

-    Till every fibre, every thread-like vein,

-    Is known familiar as a city’s streets;

-    The little muscle twitching back the lip,

-    Rejoicing in a name that spans the page.

-    But man in mind, that is not seen nor felt,

-    But only knows he is, through consciousness.

-    He sees an outside world, with all its throng

-    Of busy people who care not for him,

-    And only few that know he does exist;

-    And yet he feels the independent world

-    Is but effect produced upon himself,

-    The Universe is packed within his mind,

-    His mind within its little house of clay.

-    What is that mind? Has it a formal shape?

-    And has it substance, color, weight, or force?

-    What are the chains that bind it to the flesh?

-    That never break except in death, though oft

-    The faculties are sent far out through space?

-    Where is it placed, in head, or hands, or feet?

-    And can it have existence without place?

-    And if a place, it must extension have,

-    And if extended, it is matter proven.

-    Poor man! he has but mind to view mind with,

-    And might as well attempt to see the eye

-    Without a mirror! True, faint consciousness

-    Holds up a little glass, wherein he sees

-    A few vague facts that cannot satisfy.

-    For these, and their attendant laws, have fought

-    The mental champions of the world till now

-    That each may deck them in his livery,

-    And claim them as his own discovery.

-

-    Hedged in, man does not know that he is paled,

-    And struggles fiercely ’gainst the boundaries,

-    And strives to get a glimpse of those far realms

-    Of thought sublime, where his short wings would sink

-    With helpless fluttering, through the vast profound.

-    Upon the coals of curiosity,

-    A writhing worm, he’s laid; and twists and turns,

-    To find, in vain, the healing salve of Truth.

-

-    But grant that mind exists in fullest play:

-    How does it work and what its modes of thought?

-    Here consciousness may act, and hold to view

-    A dim outline of powers, contraposed.

-    In such a conflict, every one may seize

-    The doctrine suits him best. Hence different creeds--

-    Desire battling reason, reason will,

-    And will the weathercock of motive’s wind;

-    Motive the cringing slave of circumstance.

-    And here Charybdis rises; no control

-    Has man o’er circumstance, but circumstance

-    Begets the motive governing the will;

-    Then how can man be free? Yet some may say,

-    Man can obey the motive, or can not.

-    He can, but only when a stronger rules.

-    That we without a motive never act,

-    I do declare, though in the face of Reid.

-    That that is strongest which impels, a child

-    Might know, although Jouffroy exclaims,

-    “You’re reasoning in a circle.” Let us place

-    An iron fragment ’twixt two magnet-bars,

-    What one attracts is thereby stronger proved.

-    Or it may be the really weaker one,

-    But yet, because of nearness to the steel,

-    Possess a relatively greater force.

-    And so of motives, howe’er trivial they,

-    The one that moves is strongest to the mind.

-    To illustrate: Suppose I pare a peach;

-    A friend near by me banteringly asserts

-    That I can not refrain from eating it.

-    Two motives now arise--the appetite,

-    And the desire to prove my self-control.

-    I hesitate awhile, then laughing say,

-    “I would not give the peach to prove you wrong.”

-    But as my teeth press on it, pride springs up,

-    And bids me show that I am not the slave

-    Of appetite, and far away I hurl

-    The tinted, fragrant sphere.

-                                 Was not each thought

-    Spontaneous? Could I control their rise?

-    How perfectly absurd to talk of choice

-    Between two motives offered to the mind!

-    As if the motive was a horse we’d choose

-    To pull our minds about. There is no choice

-    Until the motive makes it; then we choose,

-    Not ’tween the motives, but the acts.

-                                          If, then,

-    The spring of action is the motive’s power,

-    The motive being far beyond our sway,

-    Where is our freedom? But a fabled myth!

-    And man but differs from a star in this,--

-    The laws of stars are fixed and definite,

-    And every movement there can be foretold;

-    Of man, no deed can be foreseen till done.

-    At most we can but form a general guess

-    How he will act, at such a time and place.

-    Even if we knew the motives that would rise,

-    We could not prophesy unless we knew

-    Our subject’s frame of mind; for differently,

-    On different minds, same motives often act.

-    Hence, we can tell the conduct of a friend

-    More surely than a stranger’s, since we know,

-    By long acquaintance, how his motives work.

-    But should new motives rise, we cannot tell

-    Until experience gives us data new.

-    Thus we will ride beside a friend alone,

-    And show to him our money without fear,

-    Because we know the motives--love for us,

-    Honor, and horror of disgraceful crime--

-    Are stronger with him than cupidity.

-    But with a stranger we would feel unsafe;

-    Nor would we trust our friend, were we alone

-    Upon an island, wrecked, and without food,

-    And saw his eye with hunger glare, and heard

-    The famished motive whispering to him, “Kill!”

-    If he were free, would we feel slightest fear?

-    For all his soul would shudder from the deed,

-    And never motive could impel such crime.

-

-    Upon this principal all law is made;

-    For were man free he could not be controlled,

-    And all compliance would be his caprice.

-    But since he is the tyrant-motive’s slave,

-    The law to govern motive only seeks

-    And builds its sanction on the base of pain,

-    As motive strongest in the human heart.

-    It only falls below perfection’s height,

-    Because there are exceptions to the rule;

-    When hate and passion, lust and greed of gold,

-    Prove stronger than the fear of distant pain.

-    And could the law know fully every heart,

-    And vary sanction, there would be no crime.

-

-    But law itself, and the obeying world,

-    Are proofs against the grosser form of Fate:

-    That all is preordained, nor can be changed.

-    All human life is vacillating life;

-    We make our plans each day, then alter them.

-    We form resolves one hour that break the next,

-    And no one dares assert that he will act,

-    Upon the morrow, in a certain way;

-    But cries, it all depends on circumstance.

-    And this is strange, that while we cannot change

-    Our lives one tittle by our own free will,

-    We help, each day, to change our neighbor’s course;

-    And he assists the motives changing ours.

-    For all relations to our fellow-men,

-    Are powers that form our lives, in spite of us.

-    But we may change our motives, often do,

-    By changing place, or circumstance of life,

-    By hearing, reading, or reflective thought;

-    Yet are these very things from motives done,

-    And motives mocking all our vain commands.

-    One motive made the object of an act,

-    Another rises subject of the act;

-    And to the final motive we can never reach.

-

-    The world’s a self-adjusting, vast machine,

-    Whose human comparts cannot guide themselves;

-    And each is but a puppet to the whole,

-    Yet adds its mite towards its government;

-    Here, in this motive circle, lies all Fate.

-    Our fellow-men with motives furnish us,

-    While we contribute to their motive fund.

-    The real power, hidden deep within,

-    Escapes the eye of careless consciousness;

-    Who proudly tells us we are action’s cause.

-    Upon this error men, mistaken, raise

-    The edifice of law in all its forms;

-    That yet performs its varied functions well,

-    Because it offers motives that restrain,

-    Till stronger overcome, and crime ensues.

-    The motive gibbet lifts its warning arms;

-    The pillory gapes its scolloped lips for necks;

-    The lash grows stiff with blood and shreds of flesh;

-    The treadmill yields beneath the wearied feet;

-    And Sabbath after Sabbath preachers tell

-    Of judgment, and of awful Hell, and Heaven;

-    All these, to stronger make, than lust of sin.

-    And yet, to lead my reasoning to its end,

-    I find a chaos of absurdity.

-    If I am by an unruled motive driven,

-    Why act at all? Why passive not recline

-    Upon the lap of destiny, and wait her arms?

-    Why struggle to acquire means of life,

-    When Fate must fill our mouths or let us die?

-    Why go not naked forth into the world,

-    And trust to Fate for clothes? Why spring aside

-    From falling weight, or flee a burning house,

-    Or fight with instinct strength the clasp of waves?

-    Because we cannot help it; every act

-    Behind it has a motive, whose command

-    We, willing or unwilling, must obey.

-

-    Law governs motives, motives create law;

-    Between the reflex action man is placed,

-    The helpless shuttlecock of unjust Fate!

-    Now passive driven to commit a crime,

-    Then by the driver laid upon the rack;

-    A Zeno’s slave, compelled by Fate to steal,

-    And then compelled by Fate to bear the lash!

-

-    What gross injustice is the rule of life!

-    A sentient being made without a will,

-    And placed a cat’s-paw in the hands of Fate,

-    Who rakes the moral embers for a sin,

-    That, found, must burn the helpless one alone.

-    All right and wrong, and whate’er makes man man,

-    Are gone, and language is half obsolete;

-    No need of words to tell of moral worth

-    Existing not, nor e’en conceivable;

-    No words of blame or commendation, given

-    According to the intention of a deed;

-    No words of cheer or comfort, to incite,

-    For man must act without our useless tongues;

-    No words of prayer, if Fate supplies our wants;

-    No words of prayer, if Fate locks up her store;

-    No words of love, for fondest love were loathed

-    If fanned by Fate to flame. No words of hate,

-    For all forgive a wrong when helpless done;

-    The buds that bloom upon the desert heart

-    Lose all their sweetness when they’re forced to grow;

-    All pleasure’s marred because it is not earned,

-    And pain more painful since ’tis undeserved.

-

-    Man falling from his high estate, becomes

-    A brute with keener sensibilities;

-    Endowed with mind, upon whose plastic face

-    Fate writes its batch of lies; poor man believes,

-    And prates of moral agency, and cants

-    Of good _he_ does, and evil that _he_ shuns.

-    With blind content, he rests in false belief,

-    And happy thus escapes the mental rack--

-    The consciousness of what he really is.

-

-    And yet why false belief? The world believes,

-    And acting, moves in general harmony;

-    Could harmony from such an error flow?

-    Would all believe, would not some one

-    Have doubted by his works as well as faith?

-    The veriest skeptic walks the earth to-day,

-    As if he held the seal of freest will,

-    And shapes its course, and judges all mankind

-    By freedom’s rule.

-                       Then may not that be true

-    Which most believe, and those who doubt profess

-    In every act; as that which few believe

-    And to which none conform?

-                               Two paths I see,

-    One marked Free-Will, the other Fate. The first,

-    Extending far as human thought can reach,

-    Through lovely meads with sweetest flowers, and fruits

-    Of actions clearly shown as right and wrong,

-    Because of choice ’twixt the two; of laws

-    With sanction suiting agents who are free;

-    Of courts acquitting the insane of crime,

-    Of crime made crime, alone, when done as crime,

-    Of judgment passed by public sentiment

-    On action in the ratio of liberty.

-    Delightful view; but seek an entrance there--

-    The towering bars of unruled motive stand

-    Before the path, and none can overleap.

-

-    The field of Fate lies open; nothing bars

-    Our progress there. A thousand different ways

-    The path diverges. Every by-path leads

-    To some foul pit or bottomless abyss.

-    Along each side are strewed the whitening bones

-    Of venturous pilgrims, lost amid its snares,

-    Some broken on the rocks of gross decree,

-    Who hold an unchanged destiny from birth;

-    Who will not take a medicine if sick,

-    Who cant of “To be, will be,” and the time

-    Unalterably set to each man’s life.

-    Some stranded on the finer form of Fate,

-    Who say it works by means. Hence they believe

-    In using all preventives to disease,

-    In going boating in a rubber belt,

-    In placing Franklin rods upon a house,

-    In preaching, and in praying men repent.

-    These, when one dies, cry out, “It was his time.”

-    Or if he should recover, “It was not.”

-    Their fate is always ex post facto fate,

-    And knowing not the future, they abide

-    The issue of events, and then confirm

-    Their dogged dogmas.

-                         Still another class,

-    Though fewer far in numbers, perish here.

-    These are the sophists; men who deeply dive

-    Beneath the surface of effect, and trace

-    Our actions to their source. They find that man,

-    Made in the glorious image of his God,

-    Is not an independent cause, but works

-    From motive causes out of his control.

-    They find that every mental act must flow

-    From outside source, then fearlessly ascend

-    The chain of being to a height divine,

-    And dare to fetter the Eternal mind,

-    And throw their bonds around Omnipotence.

-    As well a spider in an eagle’s nest

-    Might, from his hidden web among the twigs,

-    Attempt to throw his little gluey thread

-    Around the mottled wing, whose muscled strength

-    Beats hurried vacuums in the ocean’s spray,

-    Or circling upward, parts the thunder-cloud,

-    And bursts above; and shaking off the mists,

-    With rigid feathers bright as burnished steel,

-    Floats proudly through the tranquil air.

-                                             Which realm

-    Shall now be mine, Free-Will or Fate? The one

-    Stands open wide, but all in ruin ends;

-    The other, fair if once within the pale;

-    But how to scale the barriers none can tell.

-    Bah! all is doubt. I’ll leave the mystic paths

-    Where, on each side, are ranged the phantom shapes

-    Of disputants, alive and dead, who fight,

-    With foolish zeal, o’er myths intangible;

-    When each one cries “Eureka!” for his creed.

-    That scarcely lives a day, then yields its place.

-    A Roman ’gainst a Roman, Greek to Greek,

-    A zealous Omar with an Ali paired;

-    A saintly Pharisee in hot dispute

-    With Sadducees. Along th’ illustrious rows

-    Of lesser lights, who advocate the creeds

-    Of their respective masters, we descend

-    To later days and see Titanic minds

-    Exert their giant strength to reach the truth,

-    And, baffled, fall. Locke, ever elsewhere clear,

-    Here mystified Spinoza’s dizzy wing

-    O’erweighted by his strange “imperium;”

-    Hobbes, with his new intrinsic liberty;

-    And Belsham’s quaint reduction too absurd;

-    “Sufficient reason,” reared in Leibnitz’s strength;

-    Reid, Collins, Edwards, Tappan, Priestley, Clarke,

-    All push each other from the door of Truth.

-

-    None ever have, nor ever will, on earth,

-    Reach truth of theory concerning Fate.

-    It stands as whole from every touch of man

-    As ocean’s broad blue scroll, whose rubber waves

-    Erase the furrows of the plowing keels.

-

-    Then, careless whether man be king or slave,

-    I’ll take his actions, whether free or not,

-    And trace them to their sources. Deep the dive,

-    But, throwing off the buoys of Charity

-    And Faith, and all the prejudice of life,

-    I grasp the lead of Doubt, and downward sink

-    Into the cesspool of the human heart,

-    To find the fount, that to the surface casts

-    A thousand bubbles of such varied hues:

-    The pale white bubble of hypocrisy,

-    The murky bubble of revenge and hate,

-    The frail gilt bubble of ambition’s hope,

-    The rainbow bubble of sweet love in youth,

-    The dull slime bubble of a sensual lust,

-    The crystal bubble of true charity!

-    Instead of analyzing every fact

-    Of moral nature, searching for its source,

-    I’ll name a source most probable, and try

-    The facts upon it; if they fit, confirm,

-    If not, reject. With Hobbes and Paley then

-    I join; and here avow that all mankind

-    Have but one source of action--Love of self--

-    Yet not self-love as understands the world,

-    For that’s a name for error shown by few;

-    But natural instinct that impels all men

-    To give self pleasure, and to save it pain;

-    For pain and pleasure are Life’s only modes--

-    No neutral state--we suffer, or enjoy;

-    And every action’s linked with one of these.

-    We cannot act without a consciousness,

-    A consciousness of pleasure or of pain,

-    The very automatic workings of our frames

-    Are pleasures, unmarked from their constancy;

-    But if impeded, they produce a pain.

-    This instinct, teaching us to pleasure seek,

-    And pain avoid, none ever disobey;

-    For be their conduct what it may, a crime

-    Or virtue, greed or pure benevolence,

-    To find the greatest pleasure is their aim.

-    Nay, start not, critic, but attend the proofs.

-    A man exists within himself alone,

-    Himself, or he would lose identity.

-    To him the world exists but by effects

-    Upon himself. His actions toward it then

-    Bear reference to himself. He cannot act

-    Without affecting self. His nature’s law

-    Demands that self be dealt with pleasantly.

-

-    There is no pain or pleasure in the world,

-    But as he feels th’ reality in self,

-    Or fancies it by signs in other men.

-    This fancied pain is never _real_ pain,

-    But yields a _real_ reflex. Others’ pain

-    Is never pain to us, unless we know

-    It does exist. Within a hundred yards

-    A neighbor dies, in agony intense,

-    And yet we feel no slightest trace of pain,

-    Unless informed thereof. ’Tis only when we know,

-    And therefore are affected, that we feel.

-

-    The modes of pain and pleasure are then two,

-    A real and a fancied one. The first acute,

-    In ratio of our sensibilities;

-    The last in ratio of our image-power.

-    These gifts in different men unequal are,

-    And hence life’s varied phases. One may deem

-    A real pain far greater than a pain

-    In fancy formed, from others’ sufferings;

-    He eats alone, and drives the starving off.

-    Another’s fancy paints more vividly,

-    And he endures keen hunger to supply

-    The poor with food. And so of pleasure too,--

-    And this moves all to shun the greatest pain,

-    And find the greatest pleasure.

-                                    Different minds,

-    And each at different times of life, possess

-    A different standard of this highest good.

-    The swaddled infant wails for its own food,

-    Because its highest pleasure is alone in sense;

-    The child will from its playmate hide a cake

-    Until it learns that praise for sharing it

-    Gives greater pleasure than the sweetened taste;

-    One boy at school proves insubordinate,

-    His schoolmates’ praise he deems his highest good;

-    Another studies well, because he values more

-    A parent’s smile. The murderer with his knife,

-    The maiden praying in her purity,

-    The miser dying over hoards of gold,

-    The widow casting thither her two mites,

-    A white-veil bending o’er the dying couch,

-    A stained beauty floating through the waltz,

-    The preacher’s zeal, the gambler’s eager zest;

-    All have one motive, greatest good to self!

-

-    The tender stop their ears, and cry aloud:

-    “What! do you dare assert the gambler seeks

-    With hellish zeal the faintest shade of good?

-    That he is holy as the Man of God?”

-    By no means, yet he seeks his good the same.

-    Not good as you’ve been taught to apprehend,

-    But good, the greatest to his frame of mind.

-    Do not exclaim that good is always good,

-    And never differs from itself. Anon

-    We’ll speak of abstract truths, if such there be

-    That good and pleasure are synonymous

-    At times of action, is most surely plain;

-    For pleasure’s but the consciousness of good,

-    Or satisfaction of our tendencies.

-    If all the gambler’s soul is bent on gain,

-    Then at the moment gain is greatest good;

-    But should you reason with him, and explain

-    Another life, and make it really seem

-    To him the best, he straight would change his course.

-

-    “But,” cries my friend, “the preacher, if he’s true,

-    Must labor, not for self, but others’ good;

-    And in proportion as the self’s forgot,

-    And others cared for, does his conduct rise.”

-

-    But he can not, if conscious, forget self,

-    For everything he does is felt within;

-    But deeds for others’ good a pleasure give;

-    If done in pain to self, the pleasure’s more.

-    To gain the pleasure, self is put to pain,

-    Just as a vesication brings relief.

-    If he refused to undergo the pain

-    Remorse would double it.

-                             Among his flock

-    Some one is sick; to visit him is right,

-    And done, affords a pleasure. Sweeter far

-    That pleasure, if he walks through snow and ice,

-    At duty’s call!

-

-                    Sublime self-sacrifice,

-    Of which men prate, is nothing more nor less

-    Than base self-worship. Little pain endured

-    T’ avoid a great; a smaller pleasure lost

-    To gain a larger!

-

-                      All the preacher’s words,

-    That burn or die upon the stolid ear,

-    Are spoken from this motive, good to self.

-    You stare; but it is true. Why does he preach?

-    To save men’s souls?--Why does he try to save?

-    Because he loves his fellow-men? Not so.

-    His love for them but to the pleasure adds,

-    Which duty done confers; but all his work

-    Must be with reference to himself alone,

-    Though cunning self the real motive hides,

-    And leaves his broad philanthropy and love

-    To claim the merit. Let a score of men,

-    The blackest sinners, die. He knows it not,

-    And feels no pang; but if he is informed,

-    He suffers reflex pain. And if his charge,

-    Remorseful tortures for unfaithfulness.

-    And only is the state of souls to him

-    Of interest, as they are known. When known,

-    It is a source of pleasure or of pain

-    Which all his labor is to gain or shun.

-

-    “This difference then,” says one, “between men’s lives;

-    Some live for present, some for future good.

-    The sensual care for self on earth alone,

-    The mystic cares for self beyond the grave.”

-

-    Both love a present self, in present time.

-    They differ in their notions of its good.

-    The stern ascetic, with his shirt of hair,

-    His bleeding penitential knees, his fasts

-    To almost death, his soul-exhausting prayers,

-    Is seeking, cries the world, good after death.

-    And yet his course of life is that alone

-    Which could yield pleasure in his state of mind.

-    He suffers, it is true, but hope of Heaven

-    Thus rendered sure, as much a present good

-    Is, as the food that feasts the epicure.

-    The contemplation of his future home,

-    Which he is thus securing, is a balm

-    That heals his stripes, and sweetens all their pain.

-    The penance blows upon his blood-wealed breast

-    Are bliss compared to lashes of remorse.

-    So for the greater good, the hope of Heaven,

-    He undergoes “the trivial pain of flesh.”

-    The epicure cares not a fig for Heaven,

-    But finds his greatest good in pleasing sense.

-    And so the man who gives his wealth away

-    Is just as selfish as the money-slave

-    Who grinds out life amid his dusty bags.

-    They both seek happiness with equal zest:

-    The one finds pleasure in the many thanks

-    Of those receiving, or the public’s praise,

-    Or if concealed, in consciousness of right;

-    The other in the consciousness of wealth.

-

-    If all men act from motives just the same,

-    Where is the right and wrong? In the effect?

-    The quality of actions must be judged

-    From their intent, and not their consequence.

-    If two men matches light for their cigars,

-    And from one careless dropped, a house is burned,

-    Is he that dropped it guiltier of crime

-    Than he whose match went out? Most surely no!

-    Then is the miser blameless, though he turn

-    The helpless orphan freezing from his door;

-    And Dives should not be commended more,

-    Though all his goods to feed the poor he gives.

-

-    How then shall we determine quality

-    Of actions, when their sources are the same,

-    And their effects possess no quality?

-    Two dead men lie in blood beside the way,

-    The one shot by a friend, an accident;

-    The other murdered for his gold. ’Tis plain

-    No wrong lies in th’ effects, for both are ’like;

-    And of the agents, he of accident

-    Had no intent, and therefore did no wrong.

-    The other killed to satisfy the self,

-    A motive founding all the Christian work,

-    And right if that is right. The wrong

-    Then lies between the motive and effect,

-    And must exist in the effecting means.

-    Yet how within the means is wrong proved wrong?

-    Jouffroy would say, because a disregard

-    Of others’ rights; for here he places good,

-    When classifying Nature’s moral facts.

-    He makes the child first serve flesh self,

-    Then moral self, and last to others’ good

-    Ascend, and general order. What a myth!

-    As if man thought of others, save effect

-    From them upon himself. But order gives

-    A greater good to self; therefore he joins

-    His strength to others, creates laws that bind

-    Himself and them, and produce harmony.

-    He thus surrenders minor good of self,

-    To gain a greater. This is all the need

-    He has of order, though Jouffroy asserts

-    That order universal is the Good.

-    Yet still he says that private good of each

-    Is but a fragment of the absolute,

-    And that regard for every being’s rights

-    Is binding as the universal law!

-

-    Regard for others’ rights indeed, when men

-    Unharmed agree to hang a man for crime!

-    Not for the crime--that’s past; but to prevent

-    A second crime, which crime alone exists

-    In apprehensive fancy. Thus for wrong

-    That’s but forethought, they do a real wrong.

-    To save their rights from harm they fear may come.

-    They strip a fellow-man of actual right,

-    And highest, right of life; then dare to call

-    Their action pure, divinely just, and good,

-    And all the farce of empty names.

-                                      They make

-    Of gross injustice individual,

-    A flimsy justice, for mankind at large,

-    And cry, Let it be done, though Heaven fall!

-    As if a whole could differ from its parts,

-    Or right be made from wrong. Yet some may say

-    That one is sacrificed for many’s good,

-    Or hung that many may avoid his fate;

-    And that his crime deserved what he received.

-

-    But law must value every man alike,

-    And cannot save one man, or thousand men,

-    From future evil, only possible,

-    By greatest evil to another man,

-    In its own view of justice. Nor can crime

-    Meet punishment, at mortal hands, by right,

-    For murder’s murder, done by one or twelve,

-    And legal murder’s done in colder blood,

-    Whose stains are chalked by vain authority.

-    Authority! the child of numbers and self-love!

-    Regard for rights of things, indeed, when beasts

-    And birds must yield their right of life that man

-    May please his right of taste. When, during Lent,

-    The holy-days of fasting and of prayer,

-    The scaly victims crowd the Bishop’s board,

-    Their flesh unfleshed by Conscience’ pliant rule,

-    Our palates must be for a moment pleased,

-    Though costing something agonies of death;

-    And worse than robbers, what we cannot give,

-    We dare to take.

-                     They have no souls, say you?

-    Nor after death exist?

-                           That nothing’s lost,

-    Philosophy maintains as axiom truth.

-    An object disappears, but somewhere lives

-    In other form. The water-pool to mist

-    Is changed, the powder into flame and smoke.

-    My pointer dies, his body, decomposed,

-    The air, the soil, and vegetation feeds;

-    Yet still exists, although disintegrate.

-    For there was something, while the pointer lived,

-    That was not body, but that governed it,

-    A spirit, essence, call it what you will,

-    A something seen but through phenomena,

-    And by them proved most clearly to exist.

-    A something, not the feet that made them run,

-    A something, not the eyes, but knew they saw,

-    A something, without which the eyes could see

-    As much as glasses can without the eye,

-    The something, “Carlo” named, that knew the name.

-    The pointer dies, and we dissect the flesh.

-    All there, none missing, to the tiniest nerve;

-    Yet something’s gone, the more important part,

-    And can you say that it has ceased to be,

-    When th’ flesh, inferior to it, still exists?

-    The spirit, if existent, must be whole,

-    Nor can be parted till material proven.

-    That Carlo lives, seems plain as I shall live;

-    He lived for self, and so did I; we fare

-    Alike in after-life, we differ here

-    In consciousness of immortality.

-    But I digress.

-                   Where is the right and wrong?

-    This is the Gordian knot no sword can cut,

-    All sages of the world, with wisdom-teeth,

-    Have gnawed this file without the least effect.

-    The thousand savants of old Greece and Rome

-    Proclaimed a thousand theories of good,

-    That each, successive, proud devoid of truth.

-    A myriad moderns have advanced their views,

-    Each gained a few disciples, who avowed their truth,

-    And each, by some one else, been proven wrong.

-    A Bentham marches out utility,

-    A moral test from benefit or harm.

-    As if the good depended on effect,

-    And good would not be good, though universe

-    In all its phases found no use! And Price

-    Parades his “reason,” with its simple good;

-    Who’d rather give the question up, than err,

-    And so declares it cannot be defined.

-    Then Wollaston declares that good is truth,

-    Which no one doubts, far as it goes; it goes

-    Toward good, as far as truth, its attribute;

-    Beyond, it cannot reach. And Montesquieu

-    And Clarke, relation’s order preach; a rule

-    That makes the growing grain, or falling shower,

-    A moral agent, capable of good.

-    Then Wolf and Malebranche perfection see,

-    And therefore good, in God; but their sight fails,

-    And God may mirror good, but man’s weak eyes

-    Ne’er see it. Adam Smith, with “sentiment”

-    Proceeds to dress a thought, and call it, good;

-    And makes the abstract of a Universe

-    Arise from puling human sympathy.

-    The largest concourse follow Hutcheson,

-    Although the greater part ne’er heard of him.

-    The world at large believes in moral sense;

-    They call it conscience! Oh the precious word!

-    Though stretched and warped, they almost deify,

-    And term it man’s tribunal in his breast,

-    Where he may judge his actions, right or wrong.

-    What nonsense! Conscience is but consciousness

-    Of soul, and idea of its good. We form

-    This idea from regard of fellow-men,

-    Association, and from thought. We find

-    Sometimes the good of soul conflicts with flesh,

-    And when we know the soul above the flesh,

-    We yield to that the preference. Hence arise

-    The foolish notions of self disregard.

-    The savage does not know he has a soul,

-    And therefore has no conscience. He can steal

-    Without remorse. But when he learns of soul,

-    He finds it has a good, and by this test

-    Tries moral actions, are they good for soul?

-    And this is conscience.

-                            Yet is conscience changed

-    By circumstance. The Hindoo mother tears

-    The helpless infant from her trickling breast,

-    To feed the crocodile, and save her soul;

-    She’s happier in its conscience-murdered wail

-    Than in its gleeful prattle on her knee.

-    And daily we see one commit a deed

-    Without a pang, another dare not do.

-    If conscience may be warped but one degree

-    By plain Sorites, it may be reversed,

-    And only prove an interested thought.

-

-    To abstract good no man has found the key,

-    Though in the various forms of concrete good

-    We see the similars, and from these frame

-    A good that serves the purposes of life.

-    We pass it as we do the concept, “Man,”

-    But never ope to count the attributes.

-    Our purest right is but approximate

-    To this vague abstract idea, how obtained,

-    We know not. Plato says ’tis memory

-    Of previous life. Perhaps! ’Tis very dim

-    In this; and yet it rocks the cradle world

-    As strongly as the baby man can bear

-    And so of truth, or aught abstract, we know

-    Of such existence somewhere, that is all.

-    “But we,” cries one, “do hold some abstract truth,

-    In perfect form. The truth of science’ laws,

-    The truths of numbers, each are perfect truths.”

-    The truths of science are hypotheses,

-    And only true as far as they explain.

-    But perfect truth must save all facts,

-    That ever rose or possibly can rise.

-    “The priest of Nature” thought he held the truth

-    When throughout space he tracked the motes of light,

-    And ground the sunbeams into dazzling dust.

-    Our quivering waves through subtle ether flash,

-    And drown Sir Isaac’s atoms in a flood

-    Of glorious truth; till some new fact shall rise

-    To give our truth the lie, and cause a change

-    Of theory.

-               Our numbers no truth have,

-    Or but a shadow, cast on Earth by truth

-    Existent in some unknown world. We make

-    Our little numbers fit the shadow’s line

-    As best they can, and boast eternal truth!

-    Yet take a simple form of numbers, “two,”

-    We cannot have a perfect thought of this,

-    Because the mind directly asks, two what?

-    ’Tis not enough chameleon to feed

-    On empty air. Two units, we reply

-    Then what is meant by unity? An “One,”--

-    The mind can only cognize o-n-e,

-    Which makes three units and not one.

-                                         The mind

-    Must have a concrete object to adjust

-    The abstract on, before it comprehends.

-    But two concretes are never two, because

-    They never can be proved exactly ’like.

-    To illustrate: suppose two ivory balls,

-    Of finest mold, and equal weight, precise

-    As hair-hung scales, arranged most delicate,

-    Can prove; yet they can not be shown

-    To differ, not the trillionth of a grain;

-    Or if they could, they may in density

-    Be unlike; then to equal weight, one must

-    Be larger by the trillionth of an inch.

-    Even if alike in density and weight,

-    No one will dare assert that they possess

-    A perfect similarity in all.

-    The abstract two is twice as much as one,

-    But our two balls unlike, perforce must be

-    Greater or less than two of either one;

-    But two of one, the same can never be

-    On poor, imperfect Earth. Thus all our twos

-    Fall, in some measure, short of concept two.

-    And if we paint the concept to the eye,

-    The figure 2 of finest stereotype,

-    Beneath the microscope imperfect shows.

-    And so our perfect numbers, wisdom’s boast,

-    Are faint, uncertain shadows in the mind,

-    That we can never picture to the eye,

-    Nor truthfully apply to anything.

-    We use a ragged, ill-drawn substitute,

-    That answers all the purposes of life.

-    The truths of mathematics, so sublime,

-    Are never true to us, concretely known;

-    And in the abstract so concealed are they,

-    No man can swear he has their perfect form.

-    We can’t conceive a line without some breadth--

-    The perfect line possesses length alone;

-    Earth never saw a pure right-angle drawn,

-    Pythag’ras cannot prove his theorem,

-    The finest quadrant is but nearest truth,

-    The closest measures but approximate,

-    And all from Sanconiathon to Pierce,

-    With grandest soaring into Number’s realms,

-    Have only fluttered feebly o’er the ground,

-    Their heaven-strong wings by feebling matter tied.

-

-    Man is a pris’ner, but the prison walls

-    Are very vast; so vast the universe

-    Lies, like a mote, within their mighty scope.

-    Most are content to grovel on the earth,

-    Some rise a little way, and sink again;

-    And some, on noble wing, soar to the bounds,

-    And eager beat the bars. Beyond these walls

-    The abstract lies, and oft the straggling rays,

-    Through crevices and chinks, stray to our jail;

-    And these we fondly hug as truth.

-                                      Poor man!

-    The glimpses of the great Beyond have roused,

-    For centuries, his curious soul to flight.

-    With eagle eye fixed on the distant goal,

-    He cleaves his way, till dashed against the walls;

-    Some fall with bruiséd wing again to Earth,

-    And some cling bravely there, so eager they

-    To reach the untouched prize, and so intent

-    Their gaze upon its light, they notice not

-    The bounds, till Hamilton, with wary eye,

-    Discovers the Eternal bounding line,

-    And sadly shows its hopeless fixity.

-

-    But man on Earth I love to ridicule,

-    A little clod of sordid selfishness!

-    I’ll take his mental acts of every kind

-    And see how self originates them all;

-    I’ll follow Stewart, since he classifies

-    With shrewd discretion, though his reasoning err,

-    He places first the appetites; and these

-    Perforce are selfish, as our self alone

-    Must feel and suffer with our wants. Our food

-    Tastes good alone to us. The richest feast,

-    In others’ mouths, could never satisfy

-    Our appetite for food; self must be fed.

-    Desires are next; and that of knowledge, first,

-    Is proven selfish, by his quoted line

-    From Cicero--that “knowledge is the food

-    Of mind”--and food is ever sought for self.

-    Desire of social intercourse with men,

-    From thought that it will better self, proceeds.

-    Man’s state is friendly, not a state of war,

-    For instinct teaches him society

-    Will offer many benefits to self;

-    And only when he has a cause to fear

-    That self will suffer, does he learn to war.

-    Desire to gain esteem, is self in search

-    Of approbation; like the appetite,

-    The end pursued affects alone the self.

-    And lastly Stewart boasts posthumous fame,

-    When self, as sacrificed, can seek no good.

-    To prove the motive is a selfish good,

-    I’ll not assert enjoyment after life,

-    But say, the pleasure of the millions’ praise,

-    Anticipated in the present thought,

-    And intense consciousness of heroism,

-    Far more than compensates the pangs of death.

-    A Curtius leaping down the dread abyss,

-    Enjoys his fame enough, before he strikes,

-    To pay for every pain of mangling death.

-    Affections next adorn the moral page.

-    At that of kindred, mothers cry aloud:

-    “For shame! for shame! do you pretend to say

-    I love my child with any thought of self?

-    When I would lay my arm upon the block,

-    And have it severed for his slightest good!”

-    I’ll square your love by Reason’s rigid rule,

-    And test its source. Why do you love him so?

-    For benefit he has conferred, or may?

-    No, as the helpless babe, demanding care,

-    You love him most. Your love is instinct then,

-    And like the cow her calf, you love your child;

-    That you may care for him, before self moves.

-    Then do you love him always just the same,

-    When rude and bad as when obedient?

-    But I’ll dissect your love, and take away

-    Each part affecting self; and see what’s left.

-    He now has grown beyond your instinct love;

-    You love him, first, because he is your son,

-    And you would suffer blame, if you did not;

-    You love him, too, because he does reflect

-    A credit on yourself. You feel assured

-    That others thinking well of him, think well

-    Of you. Because it flatters all your pride

-    To think so fine a life is part of yours;

-    Because his high opinion of your worth

-    Evokes a meet return; because you look

-    Into the future, and see honors bright

-    Awaiting you through him; because you feel

-    The world is praising you for loving him,

-    And would condemn you, did you not. And last,

-    You feel the pleasure deep of self-esteem,

-    Because you fill the public’s and your own

-    Romantic ideas of a mother’s love.

-

-    Let each component part be now destroyed,

-    And see if still you love him. As a man,

-    He plunges into vice of vilest kinds;

-    His bright reflections on yourself are gone,

-    And people think the worse of you, for him;

-    You never smile, but frown, upon him now,

-    But still you love him dearly! To his vice

-    He adds a crime, a foul and blasting crime;

-    Your pride is gone, you feel a bitter shame,

-    A score of opposites to love creep in;

-    A righteous anger at his foolish sins,

-    A just contempt for nature, weak as his;

-    But yet you love him fondly, for the world

-    Is lauding you for “mother’s holy love”;

-    And you delight its clinging strength to show,

-    You gain in public credit by your woes,

-    And get the soothing martyr’s sympathy.

-    But let him still grow worse, and sink so low,

-    That people say you are disgraced through him,

-    Your warmest friends will not acquaintance own,

-    Your love for such an object’s ridiculed,

-    And gains respect from none. Your only chance

-    Is to disown him. How you loud proclaim,

-    “He’s not my child but by the accident

-    Of birth!”

-               Do yet you love him in your heart?

-    This then because you think yourself so good,

-    So heaven-like, for loving him disgraced,

-    You go to see him in the shameful jail;

-    He spits upon, and beats you from his cell,

-    And tells you that he hates your very name.

-    Now all your love is gone, except the glow

-    Of pity for him chained to dungeon floor;

-    But he’s released, and deeper goes in crime;

-    Then, lastly, Pity yields. Your heart is stone!

-

-    But love was only touched in selfish part,

-    Yet should you still deny your love is self’s;

-    Of several children, do you not love most

-    The one whose conduct pleases most yourself?

-    But love, unselfish, never could be moved

-    By anything affecting self alone.

-

-    The throbbing hearts of lovers beat for self,

-    And this I’ll prove, though Pyramus may vow

-    He has no thought but Thisbe.

-                                  Take away

-    Love’s sensual part, which is an appetite,

-    And therefore selfish, by its Nature’s law;

-    And what remains is, first, a slight conceit

-    At our discernment in the choice we’ve made,

-    And then a pride that we have won the prize;

-    A pride, that some one thinks we are the best;

-    A pleasure in her presence, too, we feel,

-    Because in every look she manifests

-    Her preference for us. This is flattering

-    Beyond all else that we have ever known.

-    A friend may raise our self-esteem, indeed,

-    By showing constantly his own esteem,

-    But never can man’s vanity receive

-    A higher tribute than a woman’s love!

-    This tribute, we, of course, reciprocate,

-    And when together, we increase self-love

-    By mutual words expressing our regard.

-    Yet when our love is deepest, if we find

-    Our Self is not so worshipped as we thought,

-    Our love grows cold; and when we are not loved

-    We cease to love. To illustrate permit:

-

-    You’re on the topmost wave of fervid love--

-    A wilder flame than poets ever sung;

-    You’ve passed the timid declaration’s bounds,

-    And revel in a full assured return.

-    There is no need for check upon your heart,

-    It has full leave to pour its gushing tide

-    Of feeling forth, and meet responsive floods.

-    You meet her in the parlor’s solitude,

-    No meddling eye to watch the sacred scene.

-    The purple curtains hang their corded folds

-    Before the tell-tale windows; closed the door,

-    And sealed with softest list. The rich divan

-    Is drawn before the ruddy grate that glows

-    With red between the bars, and blue above.

-    You sit beside The Angel of your dreams,

-    And gaze in adoration. What a form!

-    Revealed in faultless symmetry by robes

-    Of rare, exquisite elegance, and taste,

-    That fit the tap’ring waist and arching neck.

-    And how superbly flow the torrents of her hair!

-    Which she has shaken loose, because “it’s you”;

-    Her great brown eyes that gaze so dreamily

-    Upon the flowers of the vellum-screen

-    That wards the fire from her tinted cheek!

-    One hollow foot, in dainty, bronze bootee,

-    Tapping the tufted lion on the rug;

-    A snowy hand with blazing solitaire--

-    The pledge of your betrothal--nestling soft

-    Within your own.

-                     And thus you sit, and breathe

-    With tones so soft, because the ear’s so near,

-    The mutual confidence of little cares;

-    And how you longed for months to tell your love,

-    But feared a cold rebuke; and how you dared

-    To hope through all the gloom; and how you grieved

-    At every favor shown to other men;

-    How now the clouds have flown away,

-    And all is brightness, joy, and tender love.

-    Then drawing nearer, round the slender waist

-    You pass an arm; and nestling cheek to cheek,

-    Palm throbbing palm, you hush all useless words,

-    And thought meets thought, in silent love.

-    And now and then, you leave the cheek, to kiss

-    The coral lips; yet not with transient touch,

-    But with a fervid, lingering pressure there,

-    As if you longed to force the lips apart,

-    And drink the soul; while both her melting orbs

-    Are drooped beneath your burning inch-near eyes.

-    The parting hour must come. The good-night said,

-    You rise to leave; and turning, at the door,

-    You see her head drooped on the sofa’s arm,

-    You fancy she is sighing that you’re gone;

-    And stealing back on tiptoe, gently raise

-    The beauteous face, and take it ’twixt your palms;

-    And gazing on the features radiant,

-    Distorted queerly by your pressing hands,

-    You feel that life, the parting cannot bear,

-    That you must stay forever there, or die!

-    Another effort, one more nectar sip,

-    You rush from out the room, and slam the door,

-    Just on the steps, you meet your rival’s face.

-    He has an easy confidence, and walks

-    Into the house, as if it were his own.

-    Poor fellow! how you really pity him!

-    You can afford to be magnanimous,

-    And deprecate his certain, cruel fate.

-    You murmur: “Well, he brings it on himself,”

-    And turn to go. The window’s near the ground,

-    And slightly raised. Although you know it’s mean,

-    You cannot now resist, but creep up near,

-    And with a finger part the curtain’s fringe.

-    You see your darling run across the room

-    With both extended hands, and hear her say:

-    “Oh Fred! I am so very glad you’ve come,

-    I feared that stupid thing would never leave,

-    I had to let him take my hand awhile,

-    And mumble over it, to get him off.”

-

-    You grasp the iron railing for support,

-    And, faint and dizzy with the agony

-    Of love’s departure, cling till all has fled;

-    Then stagger home without a trace of love.

-    Yet only Self is touched; her beauty’s there,

-    Her sparkling wit, and her intelligence,

-    Her manner even, towards you, has not changed,

-    And, were you with her, she would be the same.

-    Love’s every motive disappeared with Self,

-    No pride of conquest, no romance of thought;

-    You meet no sympathy, but ridicule!

-

-    A mother’s love may last through injury,

-    Because it reaps the self’s reward of praise

-    For constancy, through wrong. The lover’s flame.

-    Unless supplied with fuel-self, dies out,

-    For, burning, ’twould deserve supreme contempt.

-

-    The less affairs of life are traced to Self.

-    The code of Etiquette, that Chesterfield

-    Defines “Benevolence in little things,”

-    Is but a scheme to give Self consciousness

-    Of excellence in breeding, and to keep

-    “Our Circle” sep’rate by its shibboleth.

-    The stately bow, the graceful sip of wine,

-    The useless little finger’s dainty crook

-    In lifting up the fragile Sevres cup,

-    The holding of the hat in morning calls,

-    The touch of it when passing through the streets,

-    The drawing of a glove, the use of cane--

-    Our every act is coupled with the thought

-    How well Self does all this.

-

-                                 Our very words

-    Are used to gratify the self. Men talk

-    By preference, for they judge their words

-    Will gain them more applause than listening.

-    But if attention yields more fruit to Self,

-    How patiently they hear the longest tale,

-    And laugh in glee at its insipid close!

-    If with superiors, we attend, because

-    Attention pleases more with them than words;

-    But if inferiors, we must talk the most,

-    Since their attention flatters us so much.

-    The cause of converse, Self, is oftenest food.

-    How few the talks that are not spiced with “I,”

-    What “I” can do, or did or will!

-

-                                     Sometimes,

-    The Self is held, on purpose, up for jest;

-    As when men tell a joke upon themselves.

-    But here the shame of conduct or mishap

-    Is more than balanced by the hearty laugh,

-    Which gives its pleasant witness to our wit.

-    We never tell what will present ourselves

-    In such an aspect laughter cannot heal;

-    Although it compliments our telling powers.

-

-    Attentions to the fair, but seek for Self

-    Their smiles of favor. Little deeds of love

-    To those around us, look for their reward.

-    The youth polite, who gives his chair to Age,

-    “Without a thought of Self,” is yet provoked,

-    If Age do not evince, by nod or smile,

-    His obligation to that unthought Self.

-

-    The very qualities we call innate,

-    Arise and rule through Self. Our reverence,

-    Or tendency to worship, is to gain

-    A good. Religion grows this tendency

-    Into the various Churches, all whose ends

-    Are to secure eternal good for Self.

-    And those who preach that man does sacrifice

-    Himself for fellow-men, I ask, why none

-    Will give his soul for others’? Many give

-    The paltry life on Earth for others’ good;

-    The very stones would cry “O! fool!” to him

-    Who’d yield his soul; for that is highest Self,

-    And nothing e’er can compensate its loss.

-

-    In all these things, Self stands behind the scenes,

-    And men see not the force that moves them on.

-    But in the boudoir, ’tis enthroned supreme,

-    And does not care to hide the cloven foot.

-    In every home, the marble and the log,

-    In mammoth trunks, and chests of simple pine,

-    In rosewood cases, and the pasteboard box,

-    Are crammed the slaves of Self, to poor and rich,

-    The clothes that, fine or common, feed its pride.

-    The velvets, satins, silken _robes de flamme_,

-    The worsted, calico, and homespun stripe;

-    The Guipure, Valenciennes, and Appliqué,

-    The gimp, galloon, and shallow bias frill;

-    The Talmas, Arabs, basques and paletots,

-    The coarse plaid shawl, the hood, and woollen scarf;

-    The chignons, chatelaines, and plaited braids,

-    The beaded net, and tight-screwed knot of hair;

-    The dazzling jewels, ranged in season sets,

-    The pinchbeck, gilt, and waxen trinketry;

-    The tinted boots, half-way the silken hose,

-    The shoes that tie o’er cotton blue-and-white;

-    The corset laced to hasten ready Death,

-    The leather belt, that cuts the broad, thick waist;

-    The bosom heaving only waves of wire,

-    The bosom, cotton stuffed, beyond all shape;

-    The belladonna sparkling in the eye,

-    The finger tip, and water without soap;

-    The rouge and carmine for the city cheeks,

-    The berries’ ruddy juice for rural ones;

-    The pearly powder, with its poisoned dust,

-    The cup of flour to ghastlify the face;--

-    All these, and thousand fixtures none can count,

-    Man’s vanity, and woman’s love of show,

-    Appropriate for Self.

-                          And such is Man!

-    The puzzle of the Universe! Within,

-    A giant to himself; without, a babe.

-    A giant that we cannot but despise,

-    A babe we must admire for his power.

-    His mind, Promethean spark divine, can pierce

-    The shadowy Past, and gaze in rapturous awe

-    Upon the birth of worlds, that from the Mind

-    Eternal spring to blazing entities,

-    And whirl their radiant orbs through cooling space;

-    Or place the earth beneath its curious ken,

-    And with an “Open Sesame!” descend

-    Into its rocky chambers, there unfold

-    The stone archives, and read their graven truths--

-    Earth’s history written by itself therein--

-    How age by age, a globe of liquid fire,

-    It dimmer grew, and dark and stiff,

-    And drying, took a rough, uneven face;

-    Above the wave, the mountain’s smoking top

-    Appeared, beneath it gaped the valley’s gorge;

-    But smoking still, it stood a gloomy globe,

-    Naked and without life. And how the trees

-    And herbs their robes of foliage brought; their form

-    And life adapted to their heated bed.

-    And how a stream of animation poured

-    Upon its face, when ready to sustain;

-    Great beasts who trod the cindered soil unscathed,

-    And tramped the fervid plains with unscorched soles.

-    Great fish whose hardened fins hot waters churned

-    That steamed at every stroke. How periods passed

-    And fields and forests teemed with gentler life,

-    The waters wound in rivers to the sea,

-    Then spread their vap’ry wings and fled to land.

-    The oceans tossed in bondage patiently;

-    Volcanic mountains closed their festering mouths,

-    And Earth made ready for her master, Man.

-

-    It traces Man, expelled from Paradise,

-    Along the winding track of centuries.

-    It marks his slow development, from two,

-    To families, and tribes, and nations vast.

-    It gazes on the wondrous scenes of war,

-    And peace, and battle plain, and civic game;

-    And lives through each, with all of real life,

-    Except the body’s presence there. It turns

-    From man to beasts and birds, and careless strokes

-    The lion’s mane, the humbird’s scarlet throat.

-    It tracks the mammoth to his jungle home,

-    Or creeps within the infusoria’s cell.

-    It measures Earth from pole to pole, or weighs

-    The bit of brass, that lights the battery spark.

-    Is Earth too small, it plumes its flight through space;

-    From world to world, as bird from twig to twig,

-    It flies, and furls its wing upon their discs,

-    To tell their weight, and giant size, or breathe

-    Their very air to find its gaseous parts.

-    Now bathing in pale Saturn’s misty rings,

-    Or chasing all the moons of Jupiter

-    Behind his darkened cone. The glorious sun,

-    With dazzling vapor robe, and seas of fire,

-    Whose cyclones dart the forkèd flames far out,

-    To lap so hungrily amid the stars,

-    Is but its playhouse, where it rides the storms,

-    That sweep vast trenches through the surging fire,

-    In which the little Earth could roll unseen;

-    Or bolder still, beyond our system’s bounds,

-    It soars amid the wilderness of worlds;

-    Finds one condemned to meet a doom of fire,

-    And makes its very flames inscribe their names,

-    In dusky lines, upon the spectroscope.

-    With shuddering thought to see a world consumed,

-    The fate prepared for ours, it lingers there

-    Until the lurid conflagration dies.

-    And then seeks Earth, and leaves the laggard,

-    Light,

-    To plod its journey vast.

-                              The smallest mote

-    Of dust that settles on an insect’s wing,

-    It can dissect to atoms ultimate.

-    With these, too small for sight, may Fancy deal,

-    And revel in her Lilliputian realm.

-    These atoms forming all, by Boscovitch

-    Are proved, in everything, to be alike;

-    And ultimate, since indivisible.

-    Each in its place maintained by innate force

-    And relatively far from each, as Earth

-    From Sun.

-              Suppose, then, each to be a world,

-    Peopled with busy life, a human flood,

-    As earnest in their little plans as we,

-    As grand in their opinion of themselves!

-    Oh! what a depth of contrast for the mind!

-    The finest grain of sand, upon the beach,

-    Has in its form a million perfect worlds!

-    Or take the other scale, suppose the Earth,

-    Our great and glorious Earth, to only form

-    The millionth atom of some grain of sand,

-    That shines unnoticed on an ocean’s shore,

-    Whose waves wash o’er our whirling stars and sun

-    Too insignificant to feel their surge.

-    Another step on either side, and mind,

-    In flesh, shrinks from the giant grasp.

-    Yet noble are its pinions, strong their flight;

-    Thrice, only, do they droop their baffled strength,

-    Before the Future, Infinite, Abstract!

-    The first is locked, the second out of reach,

-    The third a maze that none can penetrate.

-    The first, alone to inspiration opes;

-    The second dashed to Earth her boldest wing,

-    Spinoza’s, who essayed the idea God,

-    And grappling bravely with the grand concept,

-    So far above the utmost strength of Man,

-    Placed God’s existence in extent and thought;

-    And filled all space with God. The Universe,

-    A bud or bloom of the Eternal Mind,

-    That opens like a flower into this form,

-    And may retract Creation in Itself!

-    Alas! that effort so sublime should end

-    In mystery and doubt.

-                          A Universe,

-    How vast so ever, has its bounds somewhere,

-    But Space possesses none, and God in Space,

-    Would be so far beyond Creation’s speck,

-    He scarce would know it did exist. That part

-    Of Mind, expressed in matter, would be lost

-    Amid the Infinite domains of thought.

-

-    Yet Man in flesh, the casket of the mind,

-    Whose wondrous power I’ve told, is ever chained,

-    A grovelling worm, to Earth, and never leaves

-    The sod where he must lie. No time is his

-    But present; not a mem’ry of the past.

-    His very food, while in his mouth, alone,

-    Tastes good. He stands a dummy in the world,

-    That only acts when acted on. How great

-    The mystery of union ’tween the two!

-    A feather touches not the body, but the mind

-    Perceives it; yet the mind may live through scenes

-    The body never knew, nor can. Yet not

-    With vivid life--the sense is lacking there.

-    The memory of a banquet may be plain,

-    So that the daintest dish could be described,

-    As well as if the eye and tongue were there;

-    The eye and tongue, alone the present know,

-    And find no good in anything that’s past.

-    All thought is folly, every path is dark;

-    Truth gleaming fairly in the distant haze,

-    On near approach becomes the blackest lie.

-    Man and his soul may go, nor will I fret

-    To learn their mystic bonds. A worm I am,

-    And worm I must remain, till Death shall burst

-    The chrysalis, and free the web-wound wings.

-    Yet, oh! ’twere grand to spurn the clogging Earth

-    And cleave the air towards yonder looming cloud;

-    To stand upon its red-bound crest and dare

-    The storm-king’s wildest wrath.

-

-                                    My thoughts

-    Grew dull, my eyelids slowly closed, the scene

-    Became confused and melted into sleep.

-    And far up in the blue, as yet untouched

-    By clouds, I saw a white descending speck.

-    Methought ’twas but a feather from the breast

-    Of some migrating swan, that Earthward fell,

-    And watched to see it caught upon the wind,

-    And sail a tiny kite to fairy land.

-    But circling down, the speck became a dove,

-    A heron, then a swan, and larger still,

-    Till I could mark a pair of great white wings,

-    Between which hung its wondrous form. Still down

-    It swept, till scarce above the trees it stood,

-    Resting on quivering wings, as if it sought

-    A place to ’light. I saw then what it was,

-    A steed of matchless beauty, agile grace,

-    Combined with muscled strength; but ere I drew

-    The first long breath, that follows such surprise

-    It gently downward swooped, and at my feet,

-    With dainty hoof, the turf impatient pawed.

-    Enrapt, I gazed upon its beauteous form,

-    Its sculptured head, and countenance benign,

-    The soft sad eyes, the arrow-pointed ears,

-    The scarlet nostrils opening like two flowers,

-    The sinewed neck, curved like a swimming swan’s,

-    The splendid mane, a cataract of milk,

-    That poured its foaming torrents half to Earth,

-    The tap’ring limbs, tipped with pink-hued hoofs,

-    That touched our soil with a proud disdain;

-    The dazzling satin coat, and netting veins,

-    And last the glorious wings, whose feathers lapped

-    Like scales of creamy gold. What seemed a cloth

-    Of woven snow, with richest silver fringe,

-    Draped with its gorgeous folds the shining flanks.

-

-    It was perfection’s type, the absolute,

-    Not one defect; the tiniest hair was smooth,

-    The smallest feather’s edge unfrayed. The eyes

-    Without the slightest bloodshot fleck, or mote.

-    No fault the microscope could have revealed,

-    Though magnifying many million times.

-    So great my wonder, that I could not move,

-    But lay entranced, while he stood waiting there;

-    Till wearied with my long delay, he raised

-    His wings half-way, and eager trembled them,

-    As bluebirds do when near their mate; a neigh

-    Of trumpet tone aroused me. Then I sprang

-    Upon his back, and wildly shouted “On!”

-    A spring with gathered feet, a clash of wings,

-    That made me cling in terror, and we swept

-    From Earth into the air. Woods, plains, and streams

-    Flashed by beneath, as, up and on, we charged

-    Straight to the frowning cloud.

-                                    My very brain

-    Reeled with our lightning speed, and dizzy height,

-    And oh! how silent was the air. No sound,

-    Except the steady beat of fanning wings,

-    That hurled us on a rod at every stroke.

-    The bellowing winds were loosed and fiercely met

-    Our flight. They tossed the broad white mane across

-    My shrinking shoulders, like a scarf of silk;

-    They blew the strong-quilled feathers all awry,

-    And like a banner beat the silvered cloth;

-    But swerving not to right or left, we pressed

-    Straight onward to the goal.

-                                 At last I reined

-    My steed upon the shaggy ridge of clouds,

-    And caracoled along the beetling cliffs,

-    Up to the very summit. Then I paused.

-    Behind me lay the world with all its hum

-    Of life, the distant city’s veil of smoke,

-    The village gleaming white amid the trees;

-    The very orchard I had left, now seemed

-    A downy nest of green, and far away

-    I caught the shimmer of the sea, where sails,

-    With glidings, glittered like the snowy gulls.

-    Behind all was serene, before me seethed

-    The caldron of the tempest’s wrath.

-                                        Thick clouds,

-    Thrice tenfold blacker than the black outside

-    We see, deep in the crackling fire-crypts writhed,

-    And boiling rose and fell. A deafening blast

-    Roaring its thunder voice above the scene,

-    As if the fiends of Hell concocted there

-    The scalding beverage of the damned.

-                                         My horse

-    Had snuffed the fumes, and rearing on the brink,

-    That fearful brink, an instant pawed the air,

-    And then sprang off. A suffocating plunge,

-    Through heat and blinding smoke, while to his neck

-    Convulsively I clung! Down through the cloud,

-    Until I gasped for breath, and felt my brain

-    Was bursting with the fervid weight.

-                                         He stopped

-    Before a large pavilion, round whose walls,

-    As faithful guard, a whirlwind fierce revolved,

-    And at whose folded door, with dazzling blade,

-    The lightning stood a sentinel. My steed

-    Was passport, and I passed within, but stopped

-    Upon the threshold, dumb with awe. The walls

-    Seemed blazing mirrors, whose bright polished sides

-    “Threw back in flaming lineaments” the form

-    Of every object there,--a trembling wretch,

-    With pallid countenance, shown ghastly red,

-    Upon a horse of War’s own direful hue,

-    I saw reflected there. The floor seemed made

-    Of tesselated froth, whose bubbles burst,

-    With constant hissing, into rainbow sparks;

-    While like the sulph’rous canopy, that drapes,

-    At evening’s close, a gory battle-field,

-    The roof of crimson vapor drooped and rose,

-    With every breath and every slightest sound.

-    And in the center of the glowing room,

-    Upon a sapphire throne an Angel sat,

-    Upon whose brow Rebuke and Wisdom met.

-    He gazed upon me with such pitying look,

-    And yet withal so stern, that all my pride

-    Was gone, and humble as a conquered child,

-    I ran with trembling haste and near the throne

-    Kneeled down.

-                  “Vain man,” he said, “and hast thou dared

-    To doubt the providence of God; Behold!”

-    And, lo! one side of the pavilion rose,

-    And out before me lay Immensity.

-    The frothy floor, now crumbling from the edge,

-    Dissolved away close to my very feet,

-    The walls contracted their three sides in one,

-    And I, beside a throne I dared not grasp,

-    Stood on a narrow ledge of fragile foam,

-    That clicked its thousand little globes of air,

-    With every motion of my feet.

-                                  Far down

-    Below, the black abyss of chaos yawned,

-    So vast, I gasped while gazing, and so deep,

-    The Sun’s swift arrowy rays flash down for years,

-    And scarcely reach the dark confines, or fade

-    Amid the impenetrable gloom. Methought

-    ’Twas Hell’s wide jaws, that opened underneath

-    The Universe, to catch as crumbs the worlds

-    Condemned, and shaken from their orbit’s track.

-    And long I looked into the vast black throat,

-    To trace the murky glow of hidden fire,

-    Or catch the distant roar. But all was still;

-    No murmur broke the silence of its gloom,

-    No faintest glimmer told of lurking light,

-    No smoky volumes curdled in its depths;

-    As dark as Egypt’s plague, serenely calm,

-    Defying light, the empty hall of Space,

-    Where twinkled not a star nor blazed a sun.--

-    A grand eternal night!

-                           I shuddering turned,

-    With freezing blood to think of falling there,

-    And stretched a palsied hand to touch the throne.

-    The Angel’s eye was sterner, as he waved

-    Towards my steed, who seemed of marble carved.

-    The wings unfolded, and he leaped in air,

-    Beating from off the ledge the flakes of foam

-    That sank, with airy spirals, out of sight.

-    With slanting flight across the gulf he sheared;

-    The moveless wings were not extended straight,

-    But stood, at graceful angle, o’er his back,

-    As, swifter than a swooping kite, he flashed

-    Adown the gloom. His flowing mane broad borne

-    Out level, like another wing; his feet

-    With slow ellipses moving alternate,

-    As if he trod an unseen path. ’Twas grand

-    To see his graceful form, more snowy white

-    Against the black relief, sublimely float

-    Across the dark profound, and down its depths,

-    Pass from my view. As when an Eagle soars

-    Beyond our vision in the azure sky,

-    We wonder what he sees, or whither flies,

-    So I stood wondering if he would return,

-    And what his destination down th’ abyss.

-

-    Above, around, all was infinitude

-    Of light and harmony. The worlds moved on,

-    In mazy multitude, without a jar,

-    Star circling planet, planet sun, and suns

-    In systems, farther yet and farther still,

-    Till multiplying millions mingled formed

-    A sheet of milky hue. And far beyond

-    The last pale star, appeared a dazzling spot,

-    That flamed with brightness so ineffable

-    The eye shrank ’neath its gleam. And from its light,

-    Athwart the endless realms of space, there streamed

-    A radiance that illumed the Universe,

-    And down across the chasm of Chaos flung

-    A wavering band of purple and of gold.

-    And in that distant spot my ’wildered eyes

-    Traced out the figure of a Great White Throne,

-    Round which, in grand and solemn majesty,

-    Slow swept Creation’s boundless macrocosm.--

-    I felt too insignificant to pray,

-    But mutely waited for the Angel’s words.

-    He spoke not, but the curtains closer drew,

-    And left a narrow opening in front.

-    Then with a speed the lightning ne’er attained,

-    Our cloud pavilion swiftly whirled through space.

-    A seed that would have slain me with its haste,

-    Had not the Angel been so near.

-                                    As on the cars,

-    We dash through towns, and mark the hurrying lights,

-    Or shudder at an engine rattling by;

-    So through our door, I marked the countless worlds,

-    In clustering systems, chained by gravity,

-    Flash by an endless course. A second’s time

-    Sufficed to pass our little group of stars,

-    That waltz about our Sun, as if it lit

-    The very Universe. Then systems came,

-    Round which our system moves, and these

-    Round others, till the series grew so vast

-    I shrank from looking. Great Alcyone,

-    Our telescopic giantess, a babe

-    Amid the monsters of the starry tribe,

-    The last familiar face in Heaven’s throng,

-    Blazed by the door; an instant, out of sight!

-    And after all that we have known or named

-    On Earth were far behind, the millions came

-    In endless multitude; and on we swept,

-    Till worlds became a dull monotony,

-    And all the wonders of the Heavens were shown.

-    A planet wheels its huge proportions past,

-    Its pimpled face with red volcanoes thick,

-    That, with our speed, seem girdling bands of light;

-    A Sun, whose flame would fade our yellow spark,

-    Roars out a moment at our narrow door

-    As through its blaze we fly, then dies away,

-    Casting a weird and momentary gleam

-    Over the Angel’s unrelenting face;

-    A meteor tears its whizzing way along,

-    All showering off the scintillating sparks

-    That mark its trail. Far off, a comet runs

-    Its bended course, the mighty fan-like tail

-    Lit with a myriad globes of dancing fire,

-    That seemed like Argus’ eyes on Juno’s bird.

-    And on we sped, till one last Sun appeared,

-    A monstrous hemisphere of concave shape,

-    And brilliancy intense; it seemed to stand

-    On great Creation’s bounds, a lense of light.

-    Close by its vast red rim we shaved, and passed

-    Beyond, to empty space unoccupied.

-    No world, no sun, no object passed the door;

-    The steady blue, tinged with a brightening gold,

-    Alone was seen. Still on and on we flew,

-    Until a score of ages seemed elapsed,

-    And I had near forgotten Earth and home.

-

-    And yet the air grew brighter, till I feared

-    That we approached a sun, so infinite

-    In light, that I should sink in dazzled death.

-

-    We came to rest, the curtains fell away,

-    And lo! I stood within the light of Heaven.

-    And oh! its glorious light! No angry red,

-    Nor blinding white, nor sickly yellow glare,

-    But one vast golden flood, sublime, serene,

-    No object near, on which it could reflect,

-    It formed the very atmosphere itself,

-    An air in which the soul could bathe and breathe,

-    And ever live without its fleshly food.

-

-    No object near, for on the farthest bounds

-    Of space immense as mortal can conceive,

-    Creation hung, a group of clustering motes,

-    Where only suns were seen as tiny specks,

-    And Earth and smaller stars were out of sight.

-    No object near, for farther than the motes,

-    The walls of Heaven, in glorious grandeur loomed,

-    Yet near as flesh and blood could bear.

-                                            How grand!

-    From infinite to infinite extent

-    The glittering battlements were spread, the height

-    Above conception, built of purest gold,

-    Yet gold transparent, for I could discern

-    Though indistinctly, domes and spires beyond,

-    And all the wondrous workmanship divine,

-    That blazed with jewels, flashing varied hues

-    In perfect union; and bright happy fields,

-    That bloomed with flowers immortal, in whose midst

-    The crystal river ran. And through the scenes

-    Thronged million forms, that each sought happiness,

-    From million varied, purified desires.

-    Each face serenely bright as Evening’s star,

-    And some I thought I knew, were dear to me;

-    But as I gazed, they ever disappeared.

-

-    Along the walls, twelve gates of pearl were seen,

-    So great their breadth, and high their jewelled arch,

-    That Earth could almost trundle in untouched,

-    And in each arch was fixed a giant bell

-    Of silver, with a golden tongue that hung,

-    A pendant sun. So wide the silver lips,

-    That Chimularee plucked up by the roots,

-    And as a clapper swung within its circ,

-    Would tinkle, like a pebble, noiselessly

-    Against the rigid side. And as the saved

-    Were brought in teeming host, by Angel bands,

-    Before the gates, the bells began their swing;

-    And to and fro the ponderous tongue was hurled,

-    Till through the portals marched the shouting throng,

-    And then it fell against the bounding side.

-    And loud and long their booming thunder

-    Rends the golden air asunder,

-    While the ransomed, passing under,

-      Fall in praise beneath the bells,

-      Whose mighty throbbing welcome tells;

-    And the Angels hush their harps in wonder--

-      Bells of Heaven, glory booming bells!

-

-    Gentler now, the silver’s shiver

-    Purls the rippling waves that quiver

-    Through the ether’s tide forever,

-      Mellow as they left the bells,

-      Whose softening vibrate welcome tells;

-    And the quavers play adown the river--

-      Bells of Heaven, softly sobbing bells!

-

-    Then the dreamy cadence dying,

-    Sings as soft as zephyrs sighing;

-    Faintest echoes cease replying

-      To the murmur of the bells,

-      Whose stilling tremor welcome tells,

-    Faintly as the snow-flakes falling, lying--

-      Bells of Heaven, dreamy murmuring bells!

-

-    And in and out those Gates of Pearl, there streamed

-    A ceaseless throng of Angels, errand bound.

-    From one came forth a band of choristers,

-    With shining harps, and sweeping out through space,

-    Their long white lines bent gracefully, they sang.

-    Although so far away, that purest air

-    Brought every note exquisite to my ear.

-    ’Twas richly worth life’s toil, to catch one bar

-    Of Heavenly melody. Oh! I would give

-    My pitiful existence, once again

-    To hear the strains that floated to me then,

-    So full, so deep, so ravishingly sweet;

-    Now gentle as a mother’s lullaby,

-    They almost died away, then louder rose,

-    And rolled their volumes through the boundless realms,

-    That trembled with the diapason grand;

-    Until eternal echoes caught the strain,

-    And glory in the highest swelled sublime.

-

-    Entranced, I lay with ’wildered half-closed eyes,

-    Till from another gate, another host

-    Marched forth, the armies of the living God.

-    Beneath their thunder-tread all Heaven shook,

-    And at their head the tall Archangel strode.

-    How grandly terrible his mien! His face

-    Lit with a soul that only kneels to Three;

-    The lofty brows drawn slightly to a frown

-    The eyes that beam with vast intelligence,

-    The depths of distance piercing with their glance;

-    The chiselled lips, compressed with stern resolve,

-    Yet marked with lines and curves of tender love,

-    That ever with a sigh Wrath’s vial broke

-    Upon the doomed. His splendid form so tall,

-    That as he paused a moment in the gate

-    His dazzling crest just grazed the silver bell.

-    He wore no arms nor armor, save a sword

-    Without a sheath, that blazed as broad and bright

-    As sunset bars that shear the zenith’s blue--

-    A sword, that falling flatly on the host

-    Of Xerxes, would have crushed them as we crush

-    A swarm of ants. An edge-stroke on the Earth

-    Would gash the rocky shell to caverned fire.

-    Unfolding wings would shake a continent,

-    He floated down the depths. Behind him came

-    A million foll’wers, counterparts in all,

-    Save presence of command.

-                              I wondered not

-    That one should breathe upon the Syrian might,

-    And still the sleeping hearts, four thousand score.

-

-    And from Creation’s little corner came

-    The Guardian Angels, bearing in their arms

-    Their charges during life. As laden bees,

-    They flew to Heaven’s hive; and some passed by

-    So closely I their burdens could discern;

-    And though they came from far-off, unseen Earth,

-    The stiffened forms were borne all tenderly.

-    Some bore the dimpled babe, with soft-closed eyes,

-    As if upon its mother’s breast; its hands,

-    Unhardened yet by toil of life, its face

-    Unfurrowed yet by care’s sharp plough; and some

-    The age-bent form, with ghostly silvered hair,

-    And features gaunt in death, that would have seemed

-    A hideous sight, in any light but Heaven’s;

-    Some bore the rich, who made of Mammon friends,

-    Who wore the purple with a stainless soul;

-    Some bore the poor, who mastered poverty,

-    And broke the ashen crust beneath God’s smile;

-    Their work-worn hands now folded peacefully,

-    And passing towards the harp, the weary feet,

-    So often blistered in life’s bitter dust,

-    To tread with kings the golden streets of Heaven;

-    And some the maiden form bore lovingly,

-    So fair, they seemed twin sisters.

-                                       And I saw,

-    That, passing through the amber air, they caught

-    Its glowing dust upon them, and were changed,

-    The livid to the radiant. Then as they

-    Approached the City, all the walls were thronged,

-    And all the harps were throbbing to be swept.

-    And mid the throng there moved a dazzling Form,

-    The jewels of whose crown were shaped like thorns.

-    He stood to welcome, and the gates unclosed,

-    And passing through them, all the death sealed eyes

-    Were opened, and they lived!

-                                 And then I knew

-    What happiness could mean. To leave the Earth,

-    With all its torturing pains and ills of flesh;

-    The lingering, long disease, the wasted frame,

-    And, e’en in health, the constant dread of death,

-    That like the sword of Damocles impends,

-    And none may tell its fall.

-                                And worse than flesh,

-    The tortures of the mind in fetters bound;

-    Its chafings at its puling impotence,

-    Its longing after things beyond its reach,

-    Its craving after knowledge never given,

-    Its constant discontent with present time,

-    Its looking towards a future, that but breaks

-    To light alone in distance, never near;

-    Its maddening retrospect o’er wasted life,

-    And loss of golden opportunities;

-    Its consciousness of merit none admit,

-    Its sense of gross injustice from the world;

-    The forced reflections on the sway of self,

-    And consequent contempt for all mankind,

-    Or shameful servitude to their regard;

-    The poisoned thorns, that skirt the “Narrow Way”;

-    The sneering laugh, the tongue of calumny,

-    The envious spites and hates ’tween man and man,

-    The doubts that swarm with thought about our soul,

-    That whispers all our labor here is vain,

-    That death is but extinction, Heaven a myth!

-

-    To leave all these, and find a perfect life,

-    To know that Heaven is sure eternally,

-    That sickness ne’er again will waste our frame,

-    That death shall never come again. The mind

-    In perfect peace and happiness; the hidden

-    Spread out before its ken; a sweet content

-    Pervading every thought, because “just now”

-    Yields happiness as great as future years;

-    Because Life’s highest end is now attained.

-    The consciousness of merit, with reward

-    Surpassing far all we deserved. A Home

-    Of perfect peace, no envious spite or hate

-    Within its sacred walls, but all pure love

-    Towards our fellows, gratitude to God,

-    A gratitude that all Eternal life

-    Will not suffice to prove. ’Twere joy enough

-    To lie before the Throne, and ever cry

-    Our thanks for mercy so supreme! And oh!

-    The vast tranquillity of those who feel

-    That life on Earth is ended, Heaven gained!

-    The Angel marked my gaze of rapt delight,

-    And said, “Wouldst thou go nearer?” Swift as light

-    We moved towards the City. On the steps,

-    In dreamy ecstasy, I lay, afraid to move,

-    Lest all the panorama should dissolve.

-    I cared not that I was unfit to go,

-    I cared not that I must return to Earth;

-    I felt one moment in the Golden walls

-    Was worth a dungeon’s chains “threescore and ten.”

-    The glory of its music, and its light,

-    Grew too intense, and sense forsook my brain.

-

-    Again my eyes unclosed, and ’mid the stars,

-    Familiar faces of the telescope,

-    We sped, while on the last confines of space,

-    The City lay with golden halo girt.

-    The systems passed, we neared old homelike Earth;

-    And far enough to take a hemisphere

-    At single glance, we paused. The little globe

-    Was puffing on, like Kepler’s idea-beast,

-    With breath like tides, and echo sounds of life;

-    Thus trundling on its journey round the sun

-    While o’er its back swarmed men the parasites.

-    As rustic lad, who visits some great town,

-    Returns ashamed of humble country home,

-    So I now blushed to own the world I’d thought

-    Was once so great.

-                       The Angel pointed down,

-    And said, “Behold the vast domains of Earth!

-    Behold the wondrous works of man, that calls

-    Himself the measure of the Universe!

-    Those gleaming threads are rivers, and the pools

-    His boundless oceans. Those slow-gliding dots

-    The gallant ships, in which he braves the storms

-    The largest white one, see, is laboring now

-    Beneath a cloud, your hand from here might span;

-    What tiny tossings, like a jasmine’s bloom

-    That drifts along the ripples of a brook!

-    Now on the wave, now ’neath it, now ’tis gone;

-    The pool hath gulfed it like a flake of snow.

-    See, there are railroad lines, what works of art!

-    Thou canst not see the blackened threadlike tracks,

-    But thou mayst see the thundering train, that creeps

-    Across the landscape like a score of ants

-    Well laden, tandem, crawl across the floor.

-    ’Twill take a day to reach yon smoky patch

-    Of pebbles! ’Tis a great metropolis!

-    Where Man is proud in power and lasting strength;

-    Where Art hath budded into perfect bloom,

-    Where towering domes defy the touch of Time,

-    And rock-ribbed structures reck not of his scythe

-    On every side, proclaimed Creation’s lord,

-    Poor flattered Man the title proudly takes--

-    One little gap of Earth, and not a spire

-    Would lift its gilded vane; the very dust

-    Would never rise above the chasm’s mouth.

-    And mark yon crowd outside the city’s bounds,

-    They hail Man’s triumph over Nature’s laws;

-    He conquers gravity, and dares to fly!

-    The speck-like globe slow rises in the air,

-    While all the throng below shout, “God-like Man!”

-    How pitiful! The flag-decked car but drags

-    Its way, a finger’s breadth above their heads,

-    And falls, a few leagues off, into the sea;

-    When ships must rescue Man, the king of air!

-    “He soon will touch the stars,” enthusiasts cry;

-    His highest flights ne’er reach the mountain-top,

-    That lifts its mole-hill head above the plain.

-

-    What different views above and underneath!

-    From one, the silken pear cleaves through the cloud,

-    And floats, beyond your vision, in the blue,

-    And franchised Man no longer wears Earth’s chain;

-    The other sees him drifting o’er the ground,

-    Beneath the level of the hills around,

-    The captive still of watchful gravity.

-

-    Upon yon strip of land, two insect swarms

-    Are drawn up, front to front, in serried lines;

-    These are the armies, ’neath whose trampling tread

-    The very Earth doth tremble, now they join

-    In dreadful conflict. From the battling ranks

-    Leap tiny bits of flame, and puffs of smoke,

-    Where thundering cannon belch their carnage forth;

-    The heated missile cleaves its sparkling way,

-    The screaming shell its smoke-traced curve; the sword

-    Gleams redly with the varnish of its blood,

-    The bayonets like ripples on a lake.

-    How palsied every arm, how still each heart!

-    If one discharge of Heaven’s artillery roared

-    Above their heads--not that faint mutter thou

-    Perchance hast heard from some electric cloud,

-    But when a meteor curves immensity,

-    And bursts in glittering fragments that would dash

-    Thy world an atom from their path. But God

-    Hath thrown the blanket of His atmosphere

-    Around the Earth, and shield, it from the jar

-    Of pealing salvos, that reverberate

-    Through Heaven’s illimitable dome.

-                                       Yet thou,

-    The meanest of thy race of worms, hast dared

-    To question God’s designs. Know then that He

-    Ordains that all, His glory shall work out.

-    The coral architect beneath the wave

-    Doth magnify Him, as the burning sun

-    That lights a thousand worlds. His power directs

-    The mechanism of a Universe,

-    Whose vastness thou hast been allowed to see,

-    And yet the mottled sparrow in the hedge

-    Falls not without His notice. Magnitude

-    Is not the seal of power, though man thinks so;

-    The least brown feather of the sparrow’s wing,

-    In adaptation to its end displays

-    God’s wisdom, as the ocean. Harmony

-    Is Heaven’s watchword, key to all designs.

-    A tendency towards perfection’s end

-    Pervades Creation; to this perfect end,

-    The polity Divine is leading Earth.

-    Endowed with reason, Man, perforce, is free;

-    And God, forseeing how he’ll freely act,

-    Adjusts all circumstance accordingly.

-    The order of this sequence, Man doth learn

-    In part; adapts himself to these fixed laws;

-    And thus is formed a general harmony.

-    Although the individual may oppose,

-    His forseen freedom, acting in a net

-    Of circumstance, secures the wished-for end.

-    The bloodiest wars are sources of great good,

-    Invasive floods rouse national energies,

-    Or, mingling, form a greater people still;

-    Hume’s skepticism foils its own design,

-    And rouses lusty champions of the Truth,

-    Who build its walls far stronger than before.

-    Poor sordid Man! like all your gold-slave race,

-    You deem wealth happiness. Hence, all your doubts

-    About God’s providence are based on gold.

-    The wicked have it, and the righteous not.

-    What you assert is oftenest reversed,

-    And in a census of the world, you’d find

-    The good, in every land, the wealthiest.

-    But Earth is not the bar where Man is judged;

-    But only where free-will and circumstance

-    May join in general progress. Gold is good!

-    Then good depends on use of circumstance,

-    And not on moral merit. Well ’tis so!

-    For were the righteous only blessed, all men

-    Would righteousness pursue, from sordid aims,--

-    The most devout, who love their money best;

-    And thus good actions’ essence would be lost,

-    That they be done for good, within itself,

-    And not for benefit to be conferred.

-

-    Then for your doubts about the righteous poor;

-    A certain law is fixed for general good,--

-    Some actions yield a gain and some a loss.

-    A wicked man may use the first, and gain,

-    A righteous man may use the last, and lose;

-    The wicked does not gain by wickedness,

-    But by compliance with this natural law.

-    The righteous, still as righteous, might have gained

-    By different course of conduct, had he known;

-    But his condition now, can but be changed

-    By special miracle; but miracles,

-    In favor of the righteous, would destroy

-    All strife for good as good.

-    Their compensation in another world;

-                                         The poor may find

-    And even here, in consciousness of right,

-    In surety of Heav’n, and peace of mind.

-    And in the case you’ve stated, like all those

-    Who talk as you have done, you overdraw,

-    And color more with Fancy than with Truth.

-    You’ll find no widow, perfect in her trust,

-    As you’ve described, who is so destitute.

-    Go search the lanes and alleys; where you find

-    The greatest squalor, there is greatest crime;

-    For poverty is oftenest but a name

-    For reckless vice, and vile depravity.

-    Your case is but exception to the rule,

-    And not the rule, of Providence. To give

-    The righteous, only, wealth and worldly store

-    Would take away Man’s freedom, and all good.

-

-    But I will answer in your folly’s mode.

-    The justice, then, of Nature’s laws you doubt,

-    Forgetting they are fixed for general good,

-    And not for individual. These laws,

-    In their effects, you praise as very good;

-    Yet, in their causes, call the most unjust.

-    The fertile fields, with grain for man’s support,

-    Are nourished by a miasmatic air,

-    That, sickening but a few, feeds all the world.

-    While, were the air all pure, a few were well,

-    And millions starving. In the tropics, too,

-    The scenes you deprecate, themselves but cause

-    The very beauties you admire. Unjust,

-    You would enjoy effects without a cause.

-    The goods of Nature often take their rise

-    From what to man proves evil. For the goods,

-    He makes his mind to meet the evils; then

-    Can he complain, or think it hard to bear?

-    But Nature’s dealings towards Man are just.

-    He knows that he is free, and Nature not;

-    If he opposes Nature’s laws and falls,

-    Is Nature to be blamed? The widow’s cot

-    Is frail; the laws of general good require

-    A storm; it comes, and shattered falls the cot.

-    Should God have saved it by a miracle,

-    Then all His people could demand the same,

-    And Earth would soon become the bar of God,

-    God may exert a special providence,

-    But Man may not detect it, as the rule

-    Invariable of life, and still be free;

-    For he were thus compelled to seek the good.

-    Then Nature, over Man, holds not a tyranny,

-    But keeps the perfect pandect of her laws,

-    And Man is free to obey them, or oppose.

-

-    Like shallow-thoughted reasoners of Earth,

-    You make assertions without slightest proof,

-    Or faintest shade of truth. Your thesis, this:

-    God marks with disapproval all the good,

-    And blesses all the evil with His smile.

-    Entirely false in every case! The good

-    Are ever happiest, in peace of mind,

-    In ease of conscience, and the hope of Heaven.

-    The wicked may be even rich, but wealth

-    And happiness are far from synonyms.

-    Is happiness the child of circumstance,

-    Or is it not the offspring of the mind?

-    And if the mind be tranquil and serene,

-    Does happiness not follow everywhere?

-    The cause of doubt in you, and many more,

-    Is that the thousands who profess the good,

-    Are ever mourning their unhappy lot,

-    And sighing o’er the gloomy, narrow way;

-    The tribulation of the promise read,

-    Without its good cheer context. These are they

-    Who stamp with misery’s blackest seal, a life

-    Of righteousness. By these you cannot judge,

-    For they are not what they profess, and would

-    Be miserable in Heaven, unless changed.

-    But take the truly good, one who’s content

-    To take whate’er befalls, submissively;

-    Who feels assured that all works for the best;

-    Take him, in all conditions, rich or poor,

-    In sickness or in health, in pain or ease;

-    Compare your happy wicked, with his gold,

-    ’Twill not require a moment to decide

-    Which one is happier!

-                          Again, you ask

-    Why Man was not created happy, and kept so?

-    His very freedom and intelligence

-    Prevents a forcèd happiness. The ends

-    Of all Creation would be marred, and Man

-    Lose personality. A happiness

-    Made universal, asks morality

-    That’s universally compelled; and lost

-    Is all the scheme of virtue and reward.

-    Man, forced to action would degenerate

-    Into a listless, lifeless thing; the world

-    Lose all its fine machinery of thought

-    Combined with action. Beautiful variety

-    Could not exist, dull sameness would be life.

-    But Man is placed, with free intelligence,

-    Amid surroundings from which he may cull

-    A happiness intense, whate’er their nature be.

-    If bright, the consciousness they are deserved;

-    If gloomy, sweet reflections that they drape

-    A future all the brighter for their gloom.

-

-    But Man, within himself, your puzzle proves;

-    And not to you alone, for Angel wings

-    Have hovered o’er your globe, and Angel minds

-    Peered curiously into his soul, to learn

-    Its mysteries, in vain. The Mind Supreme

-    That formed the soul, alone can understand

-    Its wondrous depths. ’Tis not surprising then

-    That Man has tried in vain to know himself.

-    His mind, compared with his body, seems so great,

-    He deems its power unlimited. He finds

-    It weak, before the barriers of thought,

-    That gird it, mountain high, on every side.

-    No path can he pursue that’s infinite.

-    And few exist, that do not thither lead.

-    Hence all the vagaries that have obtained

-    Among your race. The doubt of everything,

-    Is only too far tracing of a thought

-    Into absurdity intense. If you

-    Deem all the world effect upon yourself,

-    A principle of fairness would demand

-    That you accord the right to other men.

-    The question then arises, who is he

-    That really does exist, and all the rest

-    His ideas? Sure your neighbor has the right

-    To claim the honor, just as well as you!

-    Hume’s foolish thought, extended to its length,

-    Will answer not a single end of life,

-    And terminates in nonsense none believe.

-

-    The conflict of the mental powers defeats

-    Your inquiries. You cannot reconcile

-    The unruled circumstance, with Man’s free-will

-    You deem the motive free, and Man its slave;

-    As if the motive, unintelligent,

-    Could have a freedom, or a slavery!

-    You make the motive to exist within the mind,

-    When it, perforce, must be without. You get

-    The unruled motive from the circumstance,

-    When this itself must act upon the mind,

-    And if _free_ motives rise within the mind,

-    They are a _part_, and therefore _mind_ is free.

-    And what you deemed a motive to the mind,

-    Was mental action, and its modes of thought.

-    The motive is confined to circumstance,

-    And mind the circumstance can oft control,

-    And even when it cannot, acts at will.

-

-    The mind may to a kingdom be compared,

-    Where Reason occupies the throne. Beneath

-    Its scepter bow, in perfect vassalage,

-    The faculties, desires, and appetites.

-    These then are acted on by motive powers,

-    And straight report the action to their king,

-    Who does impartially decide for each.

-    The unruled motive is without the mind,

-    And forms no part of it, although the parts,

-    Receiving motive action, so are called.

-    Thus when you hunger, the desire of food,

-    Confined to mind, is not a motive power;

-    But urged by motive bodily demand,

-    It tells the need to Reason, who decides.

-    Thus when you pare your peach, the tempting fruit

-    And fleshly need, move on the appetite,

-    Who begs the Reason for consent to eat;

-    Your friend’s opinion of your self-control,

-    Is motive to Desire of esteem,

-    Who begs the Reason to refuse consent.

-    The Reason, then, like righteous judge, decrees

-    In favor of that one, more strongly shown;

-    And feels a perfect freedom in its choice.

-

-    ’Tis most unfair to wait the action’s end,

-    Then cry, the mind was forced to choose this act;

-    But choice is Reason’s free decree. Sometimes

-    The Reason errs, and evil then ensues;

-    But Reason, now more conscious that ’tis free,

-    Regrets it had not acted otherwise.

-    By knowing what your reason deems the best,

-    You judge how other men will act. You learn,

-    By intercourse, what they permit to change

-    The Reason’s sentence. So, while with a friend,

-    You show your wealth, because you know he’s free,

-    And can, and will, resist impulse to crime.

-    Were he not free, you’d dare not go alone

-    With him, for, any moment, might arise

-    A motive irresistible, and he

-    Would kill and rob, because that motive’s slave.

-    Were he not free, you were no more secure,

-    In pleasant parlance, than on desert isle.

-

-    The laws are made for man, alone, as free.

-    For, otherwise, the motives they present

-    Were blind attempts so coincide with Fate.

-    They would complete the gross absurdity,

-    Of Man collective governing himself,

-    And therefore free, while individuals

-    Are helpless slaves of motives they but aid

-    To furnish.

-                Fate, as held in fullest form,

-    Yourself has proved the theory of fools;

-    For were it true, a blind passivity

-    Were Man’s perfection on the Earth. Compare

-    The two; Free-will as held, whate’er their faith,

-    By every one, in daily practices;

-    A world of harmony, for very wars

-    Yield good; a mechanism complicate,

-    That even Angels, wondering at, admire;

-    A world, whose wondrous progress is maintained

-    By practical belief in liberty.

-    And on the other hand, behold a world

-    Of universal inactivity!

-    Its millions starving for delinquent Fate;--

-    I doubt your faith would last till dinner-time,

-    A morning’s lapse would change a hungry globe

-    To firm belief in free-will work for food.

-

-    With many, God’s foreknowledge binds free-will;

-    He knows the future, how each man will act,

-    And man can never change from what God knows.

-    They reason thus, that prescience is decree,

-    And what God knows will happen, must take place.

-    That God may know the future of _free_-will

-    I prove by this. Suppose two worlds alike,

-    And governed by two Gods. Each one can see,

-    And foresee all transpires in both the worlds,

-    Yet each o’er th’ other’s world exerts no power.

-    A man in one does wrong; the other God

-    May have foreseen the action for an age,

-    Yet had not slightest power to cause or stop.

-    Does his foreknowledge qualify the act?

-    If thus you can suppose, why not believe,

-    When errors flow from opposite belief?

-    God in the future stands, and waits for man,

-    Who works the present, only gift of Time.

-    There is no future save in God’s own mind.

-    Man’s future means continued present time;

-    God’s future is but present time to Him,

-    In which He lives, not will live when it comes.

-    Man’s acts He sees as done, not to be done.

-    And God compels not more than Man does Man,

-    Who sees his fellow’s deeds, not causes them.

-    Man only knows Man’s present acts; but God

-    The future sees, as present to His mind.

-

-    To end with perfect proof, you know you’re free.

-    This all the world attests, and each believes.

-    How subtle soe’er may his reasoning be,

-    He contradicts it throughout all his life;

-    And all his plans, and all the right and wrong

-    Of self and friends he bases on free-will.

-    If disbelief no inconvenience prove,

-    Few men believe what is not understood;

-    And yet the most familiar things of life

-    Are far beyond their comprehensions’ power.

-    Who understands the turning of the food

-    To sinew, muscle, blood, and bone? yet who

-    Will starve because he knows not how ’tis done?

-    Who understands the mystery of birth,

-    And when and where the soul originates?

-    And yet a million mothers bend, to-day,

-    O’er tender babes, and know that they exist;

-    A billion people know they once were born.

-    Who understands the mystery of death,

-    And how the soul is severed from its clay?

-    Yet who has not wept o’er departed ones,

-    Received the dying clasp, the dying look,

-    And known, full well, Death’s bitter, bitter truth?

-    None comprehends the movement of a limb,

-    Yet many boast the powers of their’s might.

-    Then why doubt freedom of the will, when life,

-    In every phase, but proves its certain truth?

-    The edifice of shallow theorists

-    Before the sweeping blade of practice falls.

-

-    Your dive into the heart yields folly’s fruit;

-    The selfish theory, carried to its end,

-    Makes wrong of right, and overturns the world.

-    And strong it is in seeming; for the self,

-    In human conduct, plays important part.

-    But ’tis not action’s only source, nor dims

-    The quality of every action’s worth.

-    ’Tis true that Man exists in self alone,

-    And in himself feels pain or pleasure. True,

-    An instinct teaches to avoid the one,

-    And seek the other; true, that every act,

-    How small soe’er, gives pleasure or gives pain.

-    Yet thousand deeds are done without regard

-    To one or other, or effect on Self.

-    Howe’er an action may affect the Self,

-    If he that acts has not a thought of it,

-    The action is not selfish. You appeal

-    To Man, and so will I appeal to you.

-    You find a helpless brute, with broken limb,

-    Upon the roadside, moaning out its pain.

-    Now, though to aid will surely pleasure give,

-    And to neglect will cause remorseful pain,

-    Is there a single thought of this, when you,

-    With kindest hand, bind up the swollen bruise,

-    And hold the grateful water to its mouth?

-    Is not each thought to ease the sufferer’s pain?

-    Is not the Self first found, when on your way

-    You go, with lighter heart, for kindness done?

-    And while you think with pleasure on the deed,

-    Would you not feel despised in your own eyes,

-    If consciousness revealed ’twas done for Self?

-    But should you say that Self was thus concealed,

-    And still evoked the deed, the argument

-    The same; if Self was out of thought, the deed

-    Had other source.

-                      In all, you thus mistake

-    The deed’s effect, unthought of, for its source.

-    God, in His wisdom, hath affixed to good

-    Performed, a pleasure, and to evil, pain.

-    But selfish actions are not good, you’ve said,

-    And therefore cannot slightest pleasure yield.

-    Here, then, your system contradicts itself;

-    All actions emanate from love of Self,

-    To find the highest pleasure for that Self;

-    And yet the pleasure’s lost by very search;

-    What good soe’er apparently is sought,

-    The consciousness of selfish aims destroys.

-    And here is wisdom manifest. When Self

-    Would seek the good, for pleasure to the Self,

-    The pleasure is not found; but when it seeks

-    The good alone, true pleasure is conferred.

-    I mean the Self of soul, not Self of flesh;

-    For pleasure to the sense, to be attained

-    Is sought; these two are mingled intricate

-    (And hard to separate), in thousand ways.

-    But when Man’s higher Self would seek its good,

-    It must forget the Self. In every case

-    You instanced, Self of soul must be unthought,

-    For pleasure will not come at call of Self.

-    Your gambler none will doubt has selfish ends;

-    Not so the preacher, for his pleasure sought,

-    Would ne’er be found; it must be out of thought.

-    His burning eloquence, his pastoral care,

-    Can not proceed from any love of Self,

-    For Self would suffer, when it knew their source;

-    But as he acts from love of good as good,

-    The Self is happy. When he ascertains

-    That some have died in sin through his neglect,

-    The Self is grieved, not that it was uncared,

-    For care of Self would not allay the pain,

-    But that a duty had not been performed;

-    That good had been neglected, as a good.

-    The gambler’s object may be highest good

-    For Self, according to his estimate;

-    The preacher seeks a good, but not for Self;

-    When Self appears, the good to evil turns.

-    Nor is the mystic selfish in his cave,

-    Save that he buries talents in himself,

-    That might avail for good to other men;

-    But all his mind is bent on pleasing God,

-    His only thought of Self is for its pain;

-    And this he deems acceptable to Heaven.

-    You can not judge by your analysis,

-    But by what passes in the actor’s mind.

-    One surely then could not be selfish termed,

-    Who only lived to mortify the Self,

-    Howe’er mistaken may his conduct be.

-    Nor is the man, who gives his wealth away,

-    If from right principles he gives. ’Tis true,

-    He finds a pleasure in the deed when done,

-    But if to gain that pleasure he has given,

-    It turns to gall and wormwood in his grasp.

-    If two men matches light, and know full well,

-    If one is dropped, a house will be consumed,

-    He is the most guilty that allows its fall.

-    The miser, then, who knows he does a wrong,

-    Is by that knowledge rendered criminal.

-    “The quality of actions must be judged”

-    From their intents, that often differ wide;

-    The man who shoots his friend by accident

-    Has no intent, and therefore does no wrong;

-    But he who murders does a score of wrongs,--

-    A score of basest motives prompt the deed,

-    All centred in the Self. The Christian’s work

-    Must, from its very nature, have no Self,

-    Or it becomes unchristian. Man can judge,

-    Not from effect, but motives ascertained

-    By inference, and experience. The law

-    Is formed hereon, and modified by years.

-    Time teaches men that punishment will stop,

-    And only punishment, the spread of crime.

-    Instinct and Nature’s order teaches you

-    That pain must follow wrong. A man commits

-    A crime; if left unpunished, he repeats;

-    And others, seeing his security,

-    Will do as he has done. So all mankind

-    Would hasten on to lawlessness and ruin.

-    But law, for real wrong inflicts a wrong,

-    Which would be just did it no farther go;

-    But it is proved expedient, inasmuch

-    As it prevents continued crime. Then death

-    By law can not be murder termed, since good

-    In aim and end, without malicious thought.

-    Thus good to many flows from wrong to one

-    (If that may wrong be termed that takes the rights

-    By conduct forfeited), who should receive,

-    Though none reaped benefit. For many’s good,

-    The law is made, yet never does a wrong

-    To individuals, unless deserved.

-

-    Throughout your reas’ning, like all Earthly minds,

-    When dataless, essaying hidden truths,

-    You wander blindly in conjecture’s field,

-    And if you find the truth, it is a chance.

-    You fain would raise a stone of skepticism,

-    By granting souls immortal unto beasts;

-    You prove your pointer must possess a soul,

-    And by your argument, the trees have souls;

-    For when an oak has fallen, every twig

-    May still be there, and something, life, be gone.

-    A chair, a table, anything you see,

-    Possesses something, not of any parts,

-    But that to which the parts are said, belong,

-    Then, one by one, take all the parts away,

-    The something called the table must exist,

-    For ’twas not in a part, nor is removed.

-

-    The mind of beasts exists but through their flesh,

-    And is developed subject to its laws,

-    And flesh is the condition of their life.

-    When flesh dissolves, the mind disintegrates,

-    And ceases to exist. Man feels within,

-    The consciousness of soul, that would survive

-    Though flesh were torn to shreds upon the wheel.

-    The parts of soul that live alone through flesh,

-    Must perish with it in the hour of death.

-

-    But having postulated Self, as source

-    Of human conduct, you compel the acts

-    To fit your theory. You change effect

-    For cause. Where’er a moral pleasure’s found,

-    You judge that for its gain the deed was done;

-    As if the pleasure could be gained by search!

-    That Self does enter largely into inner life

-    Is very plain, for everything affects,

-    In some way, Self; but does the mind regard

-    Effect, or is its object something else?

-    The appetites, affections, and desires,

-    You make of selfish origin, yet know

-    That is not selfish, which alone affects;

-    But acting with a reference to effect.

-    The appetites are instincts; as you breathe,

-    You hunger, thirst, in helplessness. Not Self,

-    But food or drink, the object of your thought.

-    And even while the taste is in your mouth,

-    The mind dwells on the taste, not on the Self.

-    Desires are partly selfish in their mode;

-    Desire of knowledge, seeking honor’s meed,

-    Is selfish; led by curiosity,

-    ’Tis not more selfish than an appetite.

-    Desire of power, esteem, and wide-spread fame,

-    Is selfish, when the thought of their effect

-    On Self shapes out the conduct; when desired

-    For their own sake, unselfish.

-                                   On the list

-    Affections terminate, you falsely rail

-    The mother, and the lover; both sincere,

-    And both without a thought of selfish aim.

-    ’Tis no reproach to say the mother’s love,

-    In fervid instinct, and development,

-    Is like the cow’s, that God in wisdom gives.

-    No love so pure as that which moves the cow

-    To hover round her young, to bear the blows

-    Impatient hunger deals the udder drained,

-    To smooth with loving tongue the tender coat,

-    Or meet the playful forehead with her own;

-    With threatening horn, to guard approach of harm;

-    And watch, with ceaseless care, the charge in sleep.

-    Her careful love continues, till the calf

-    Has grown beyond her need, and ceases then.

-    A mother loves because it is her child:

-    This is the surest reason you could give.

-    Th’ affection is spontaneous in her breast,

-    But fed and strengthened by his life, if good.

-    The opposites to love you named, affect

-    Her love, by not an injury done to Self,

-    But by their evil, which her soul abhors.

-    Her son’s antagonism’s not to her,

-    But to the good she loves. Her heart withdraws

-    Its twining tendrils from unworthiness.

-    As usual, you select supposed effects,

-    And then assume their causes. Could you see

-    The mother’s heart, you’d find the loss of love

-    Caused not by wrong to her, but wrong abstract

-    Developed in the concrete deeds of crime.

-    Her love is governed by a moral sense,

-    Or idea of the good; the people’s thought

-    About herself comes in as after-part.

-    Bad treatment to herself, although it pain,

-    Deals not a fatal blow to love, except

-    As showing lack of principle in him.

-    And so your lover is not hurt in Self,

-    But moral sense. The loved one’s perfidy,

-    And not her ridicule, beheads your love;

-    Her stunning words were playful pleasantry,

-    Did they not show the baseness of the heart.

-    Indeed, to turn your reasoning on yourself,

-    Her manner even towards you has not changed,

-    And were you present, she would still seem yours;

-    Her eaves-dropped words do not affect the Self,

-    Save as they show her falsity of heart.

-    And tossing on your pillow, through the night,

-    The crushing thought of wrecked integrity

-    Gives deeper pain than all her ridicule.

-    And Self, though pained at thought of being duped,

-    Enjoys relief in thought of its escape.

-    To show that Love is built on higher grounds

-    Than paltry good for Self; that it must have,

-    As corner-stone, a percept of the good,

-    Existing in the object loved, suppose

-    You’re on the topmost height of wildest love,

-    Your arm around her, and your lingering kiss

-    Upon her lips; and Self is king of love.

-    She, nestling on your shoulder, finds ’tis wrong,

-    That love, however true, may grow too warm;

-    That every kiss, however pure, abstracts

-    Some little part from maiden modesty,

-    And steals a pebble from her honor’s wall

-    And rising with the firm resolve, says, “Cease,

-    Unwind your arm, restrain your fervid lips;

-    It may be wrong, and right is surely safe!”

-    Now though the Self is bitterly denied,

-    The rapturous clasp and tender kiss forbid,

-    Is not your love increased a thousand-fold?

-    Do not you feel intensely gratified

-    At this assurance of her moral worth?

-    And would you, for the world, breath aught to cause

-    Her pain, or least regret for her resolve?

-    How firm your trust, how sweet your confidence!

-    You know ’twas not capricious prudery,

-    For your caresses had been oft received;

-    Nor was it sly hypocrisy to win

-    Your heart, for that was long since hers. No thought,

-    But spotless purity, inspired the act;

-    And you are happy, though the Self’s denied.

-

-    The little things of life, that men account

-    Without a moral value, may be done

-    With reference to Self; but oftenest,

-    The mind regards the act, not its effect

-    Upon the Self. The code of Etiquette,

-    The small amenities of social life,

-    The converse, and the articles of dress,

-    May all belong to Self; but moral acts,

-    Those known as right or wrong, have higher source

-    Than Self in any mode.

-                           Within Man’s breast

-    There’s something, apprehending good and bad,

-    Called conscience, or the moral sense; it views,

-    Impartially, each act of his, decides

-    Its quality by rule of right and wrong;

-    All trust its judgments most implicitly.--

-    The good is found, yields greatest happiness;

-    Yet seek it for the sake of happiness,

-    And good is evil, with its misery!

-    The good must be pursued, because a good,

-    The evil shunned, because an evil. Thus,

-    The moral sense discerns these qualities

-    In others, and directs our love.

-                                     A blow

-    The deadliest to our love, would be a blow

-    Aimed at the principle of good. A love,

-    Existing through the injuries done to Self,

-    May meet the public’s praise, and feel its own;

-    But love would merit self-contempt, that loved

-    Whate’er opposed the good. The son may treat

-    The mother with unkindness, yet her love

-    Be undiminished; if he lie, or steal,

-    Her love is less; she cannot love his deed,

-    And cannot love the heart from which they flow

-    So with the youth who gives his chair to Age,

-    He does not so resent that Self’s denied

-    Its meed of thanks, as that ingratitude

-    Should thus be manifest, in little things.

-    A comrade, served the same, would anger cause.

-

-    But him who would give up the highest Self,

-    The soul, for others’ good, you deem a fool;

-    And ask why sacrifice ne’er claimed a soul?

-    Because the soul cannot be sacrificed;

-    No harm to that can others benefit.

-    But if it could, how truly grand the man

-    Who’d take eternal woe for fellow-men!

-    But God, who makes the soul the care of life,

-    Makes every soul stand for itself alone,

-    And in His wisdom hath ordained this law:

-    The greater good man gets for his own soul,

-    The greater good on others’ he confers,

-    While evil to himself, an evil gives.

-

-    Then comes the question of this abstract good,

-    That moral sense declares the end of life.

-    What is its nature? whence does it arise?

-    And whence does man derive the half-formed thought?

-    You have compared the systems that define,

-    Each in its way, the hidden theory.

-    None satisfy, though each some element

-    Sets forth in clear distinctness. Take them all,

-    Select the true of each, as Cousin does,

-    And will eclecticism satisfy?

-    And does the soul not cry for something more?

-    For something that it feels ’twill never reach,

-    The good, as known to minds unclogged with flesh?

-    Man takes the dim outlines of abstract thought,

-    And seeking to evolve their perfect form,

-    The very outlines grow more indistinct;

-    As gazing at a star will make it fade.

-    Man’s only forms of good are blent with flesh,

-    And when he seeks to take the flesh away,

-    And leave the abstract, he is thus confused,

-    As if he should withdraw the wick and oil,

-    And seek to find the flame still in the lamp.

-

-    To learn the source of ideas of the Good,

-    Trace Man collective, to his babyhood;

-    For ’mid the prejudice of full-grown thought,

-    The truth would be effectually concealed.

-    Through every people scattered o’er the globe,

-    There does prevail some idea of a God;

-    Though rude and barbarous this idea be,

-    It still, in some form, does exist. The good,

-    With all, bears reference to this thought;

-    And what this Deity approves is good,

-    And what He disapproves is bad. Men learn

-    What He approves, and what He disapproves,

-    By revelation, inference, and instinct.

-    God’s sanction then is origin of Good,

-    Though afterwards men learn the sweet effects,

-    And practise it for its own sake; and call

-    Their little effort, grandest abstract truth.

-    Developing in intellectual strength,

-    They plaster up this good in various forms,

-    Until, refined beyond all subtilty,

-    It seems to them a self-existent good.

-

-    The good is then a certain quality,

-    In actions, or existence, that assures

-    Divine approval. This vast idea, God,

-    Creation sows in every human heart;

-    All Nature’s grand designs demand a God,

-    A God intelligent. The same instinct

-    That tells His being, teaches what He loves;

-    And what He loves with every people’s good.

-    But different nations entertain ideas

-    Diverse in reference to a Deity,

-    And different notions of what pleases Him.

-    One deems the care of God’s child-gift her good;

-    Another tears the heart-strings from her babe,

-    And feeds, for good, the sacred crocodile.

-

-    The good lies in the thought of pleasing God:

-    The consciousness that God is pleased with us,

-    A pleasure yields, and good might there be sought

-    For pleasure’s sake, and prove a selfish aim;

-    But moral selfishness a pain imparts,

-    And good, for pleasure sought, defeats the search.

-

-    The good is sought, because it pleases God,

-    Not with the doer, but with what is done.

-    Good has its origin in th’ idea God,

-    And what He loves; but to continue good

-    It must retain approval in the act,

-    And not transfer it to the agent’s self.

-    The consciousness that God approves a deed,

-    Makes Man approve, and thus his mind is brought

-    In correlation with the Mind Divine.

-    The man who does an alms, if done to gain

-    God’s favor for himself, feels selfish pain;

-    But if because the act, not he, will please,

-    He finds the pleasure. Man, as time rolls on,

-    Finds general laws that please or displease God,

-    And ranging, under these, subordinates

-    Amenable to them and not to God,

-    The moral quality of lesser deeds

-    He reckons by these laws, nor does ascend

-    To God, that gives their moral quality.

-    Jouffroy, in Order, placed the Abstract Good,

-    And paused a step below the real truth,

-    The idea God, whence Order emanates.

-

-    Thus Man, progressing, good withdraws from God

-    And seems an independent entity,

-    And man denominates it, Abstract Good.

-    He can attain the Abstract but in part;

-    When mind is freed from flesh, he may attain

-    To its full grandeur. Here, at most, he grasps

-    A faint outline, and fits it on concrete.

-    No concept occupies one act of mind,

-    But opening the lettered label, he

-    May count the attributes, and by an act

-    Complex, of memory and cognition, gain

-    Some idea of his Abstract. Thus of “Man,”

-    One act can only cognize M-A-N,

-    But opening, he finds the attributes,

-    As “mammal,” “biped,” “vertebrate.” This act

-    Is complex, and he cannot unitize,

-    Save by the bundle of a word. You’ve said

-    It answers all the purposes of life,

-    Then why seek more? lest speculation vain

-    Point out dim realms, where Man can never tread,

-    These baffling thoughts are given, as peacocks’ feet,

-    To Man’s fond pride. The simplest avenue

-    Of thought, pursued, will reach absurdity,

-    To comprehension finite.

-                             Even the truth

-    Of numbers you presume to doubt. Two balls,

-    You claim, can ne’er be two unless alike.

-    You mingle quantity and number, foolishly,

-    As if a ball the size of Earth, and one,

-    A tiny mustard-seed, would not be two!

-    You deem all Mathematics wide at fault,

-    Because Man’s powers to illustrate are weak.

-    Earth has oft seen a pure right angle drawn,

-    Because Man’s sight could not detect a flaw;

-    And if to his discernment perfect made,

-    He must admit its perfect form. If life,

-    In every intricate demand, finds truth,

-    Why seek to overturn by sophistry?

-    You see and know Achilles far beyond

-    The tortoise, yet the super-wise must prove

-    That he can never pass the creeping thing,

-    Although his speed a hundred times as swift!

-    When Man commences, he may find a doubt

-    In everything; his life, his neighbor’s life,

-    The outside world, may all be but a myth;

-    Then let him so believe, but let him act

-    Consistently; but does the skeptic so?

-    He crams all Nature in his little mind,

-    Yet how he cringes to her slightest law!

-    He flees the rain, and wards the cold, or fears

-    The lightning’s glittering blow. He doubts his frame

-    Can work by mechanism so absurd,

-    Yet will not for a day refrain from food!

-

-    When Man compares his body and his mind,

-    And tries the power of each, he magnifies

-    The mind to Deity, and yet how small

-    Compared with what it has to learn! The more

-    Man knows, the more he finds he does not know;

-    And as a traveller toiling up the hill,

-    Each upward step reveals a wider view

-    Of fields of thought sublime he dares not hope

-    To ever reach in life; and wearily he sits

-    Him down upon the mountain-side, so far

-    Beneath its untrod top, and recklessly

-    Doubts everything, because beyond his grasp.

-

-    All skeptic reasoning ends, as did your own,

-    No fruit but blind bewilderment of thought!

-    And none but fools will e’er believe sincere

-    The faith that doubts alone by theory,

-    And yet approves by practice. Such is yours;

-    The stern necessities of life demand

-    A practical belief, and such is given;

-    And still, forsooth, because your narrow mind

-    Cannot contain the Truth in perfect form,

-    You dare deny it does exist. But few

-    Of skeptic minds are let to live on Earth,

-    And even these made instruments of good,

-    In calling forth defenders of the Truth,

-    Who add their strength to its Eternal Walls.

-    Then here behold God’s wisdom manifest!

-    Amid the care of countless greater orbs,

-    He watches Earth, and knows its smallest thing.

-    While Man, as individual, is free,

-    Collective Man is being surely led

-    Towards an end, but when it will be reached,

-    God knows alone. Then Man will be removed

-    Into a higher or a lower sphere,

-    As he has worthy proved. With Man ’twill be

-    A great event; his awful Judgment-day!

-    When from those far-off realms, the Son shall come

-    With Angel retinue, and through the worlds,

-    Shall lead their solemn flight, to where we stand;

-    And as the trump shall peal its clarion tones,

-    And beat away Earth’s gauze of atmosphere,

-    The millions living, and the billions dead,

-    Will leave the sod, and “caught up in the air,”

-    Shall stand before the Throne, to hear their doom.

-    Then, faces pale with fear, and trembling limbs,

-    Will be on every side, as on the air

-    They rest, with nothing solid ’neath their feet;

-    And see dismantled Earth burst into flames,

-    And reel along its track, a globe of fire,

-    The volumed smoke, a dusky envelope;

-    Its revolutions wrapping pliant flames,

-    In scarlet girdles, round its bulging waist,

-    And hurling streams of centrifugal sparks,

-    In broad red tangents, from the burning orb.

-    Upon the conflagration Man will gaze,

-    With shuddering horror; ’tis his only home,

-    The scene of all his fame, the source of wealth,

-    For which he toiled so wearily. All gone!

-    He would not touch a mountain of pure gold,

-    For ’twould be useless now! Poor, pauper Man,

-    Without his money, chiefest aim of life,

-    Stands homeless ’mid a Universe, to learn

-    If God will be his Father, or his Foe!

-    And from the blackness underneath, the swarms

-    Of Evil ones are thronged, their hideous forms

-    Half shown in lurid light, as here and there

-    They flit, like sharks, expectant of their prey.

-    Then comes the closing scene. The sentence passed,

-    The righteous breaking forth to joyous praise,

-    Shall thread Creation’s wondrous maze of life,

-    And with their Leader, sweep towards yon Heaven;

-    While down the black abyss, with cries of woe

-    That make the darkness tremble, the condemned

-    Are dragged, into its gloom,--and all is o’er--

-    Earth’s ashes float in scattered clouds through space--

-    To Man the grandest era of all Time,

-    To God, completion of Salvation’s scheme!

-

-    But Man deems Judgment too far off for thought,

-    Nor will prepare for such a distant fate;

-    Yet there is something, far more sure than aught

-    Uncertain life can offer; its decision, too,

-    Is just as final as the Judgment doom;

-    And still ’tis oftenest farthest from the thought.

-    ’Tis Death, the welcome or unwelcome guest

-    Of every man, and yet how few prepare

-    For its approach! They give all else a care;

-    Wealth, honor, fame, get all their time,

-    While certain Death’s forgotten, till disease

-    Gives warning; then with hasty penitence,

-    The knees are worn, the heart’s thick rubbish cleared;

-    But oft too late; the heart will not be cleared,

-    The stubborn knees will not consent to bend,

-    The house is set in order, while the guest,

-    In sable robes, stands at the throbbing door.

-

-    And now to close thy lesson, look through this!

-    He gave to me a strangely fashioned glass,

-    Through which, when I had looked to Earth, I saw

-    A long black wall, that towered immensely high,

-    So none might see beyond. Before its length,

-    Mankind were ranged, all weaving busily;

-    The young and old, the maiden and the man;

-    The infant hands unconscious plied the thread,

-    The aged with a feeble, listless move.

-    They wove the warp of Life, and drew its thread

-    From o’er the wall; none knew how far its end

-    Was off, nor when ’twould reach the busy hand,

-    Nor did they care, in aught by action shown,

-    But bending o’er their work, without a glance

-    Towards the thread, that still so smoothly ran,

-    They threw the shuttle back and forth again,

-    Till suddenly the ravelled end appeared,

-    Fell from the wall, and to the shuttle crept;

-    And then the weaver laid his work aside,

-    With folded hands, was wrapped within his warp,

-    To wait the Master’s sentence on his task.

-    I saw the thread, in passing through their hands,

-    Received the various colors, from their touch,

-    And tinged the different patterns that they wove.

-    And oh! how different in design! Some wove

-    A spotless fabric, whose pure simple plan

-    Was always ready for the ending thread;

-    Come when it would, no part was incomplete;

-    But what was done, could bear th’ Inspector’s eye.

-    And others wove a dark and dingy rag,

-    That bore no pattern, save its filthiness;

-    Fit garment for the fool who weaves for flames!

-    Some wove the great red woof of war,

-    With clashing swords, and crossing bayonets,

-    With ghastly bones, and famished widows’ homes,

-    With all the grim machinery of Death,

-    To gain a paltry crown, or curule chair;

-    Perchance, before the crown or chair is reached,

-    The thread gives out, the work is incomplete,

-    And in the gory cloak his hands have wrought,

-    With all its stains unwashed, the hero sleeps.

-    Some shuttles shape the gilded temple, Fame,

-    And count on thread to weave its topmost dome;

-    But ere the lowest pinnacle is touched,

-    The brittle filament is snapped. Some weave

-    The bema, with its loud applause; and some

-    The gaudy chaplet of the bacchanal,

-    And others sweated bays of honest toil.

-    But all the fabrics bear the yellow stain

-    Of gold, o’er which the sinner and the saint

-    Unseemly strive, and he seems happiest

-    Whose work is yellowest.

-                             Along the wall,

-    “A fountain filled with blood,” plays constantly,

-    Where man may cleanse the fabric as he weaves;

-    Yet few avail themselves; the waters flow,

-    While Man works on, without regard to stains,

-    Till thread worn thin arouses him to fear,

-    Or breaks before the damning dyes are cleansed.

-

-    And down the line I ran my anxious eyes,

-    To find a weaver I might recognize,

-    And saw, at last, a form by mirrors known.

-    Oh! ’twas a shameful texture that I wove,

-    So dark its hue, so little saving white,

-    Such seldom bathing in the fountain stream,

-    I could not look, but bowed my blushing face,

-    And like the publican of old, cried out,

-    “Be merciful to me a sinner!”

-                                  “Rise!”

-    The Angel said, “And worship God alone,

-    Return to Earth, enjoy an humble faith,

-    Whose simple trust shall make thee happier

-    Than all the grandeur of philosophy.

-    Should doubts arise, remember, God’s designs

-    Above a finite comprehension stand,

-    And finite doubts, about the Infinite,

-    Assume absurdity’s intensest form.

-    Man, from the stand-point of the Present, looks,

-    And disappointed, bitterly complains

-    Of what would move his deepest gratitude,

-    Could he the issue of the morrow know.

-    God sees the future, and in kindness deals

-    To every man his complement of good.

-      Remember then the weakness of thy mind,

-    Nor doubt because thou canst not understand.

-      To gather scattered jewels thou must kneel;

-    So on thy knees seek truth, and thou shalt find;

-    The nearer Earth thy face, the nearer Heaven

-    Thy heart. And now farewell!”

-                                  I sprang to clasp

-    His hand in gratitude, but with a wave

-    Of parting benediction, he was gone!

-    Then in an instant, like an aerolite,

-    With naught to bear me up, I fell to Earth,

-    Swifter and swifter, with increasing speed!

-    Now bursting through a sunlit bank of cloud,

-    And clutching, vainly, at the yielding mist,

-    Or through a cradling storm, with thunder charged,

-    Down through the open air, whose parted breath

-    Hissed death into my ears, while all below

-    Seemed rushing up to meet and mangle me.

-    I shrieked aloud, “Oh save me!”--

-                                      And awoke.

-    The day was o’er, and night had drawn her shades;

-    The twinkling eyes of Heaven shone through the leaves,

-    And lit the tiny rain-globes on the grass;

-    The cloud had passed, and on th’ horizon’s verge,

-    A monster firefly, with shimmering flash,

-    It slowly crawled behind the curve of death.

-    And evening’s silence deeper seemed than noon’s,

-    For not a sound disturbed the hush of night,

-    Save katydids, with quavering monotones,

-    Returning contradictions from the trees.

-    All drenched and chilled, with trembling limbs I rose,

-    And homeward bent my steps; and pondering

-    Upon my dream, this moral from it drew:

-    Man cannot judge the Eternal Mind by his,

-    But must accept the mysteries of Life,

-    As purposes Divine, with perfect ends.

-    And in our darkest clouds, God’s Angels stand,

-    To work Man’s present and eternal good.

-

-

-

-

-              THE VILLAGE ON THE TAR

-

-DEDICATED TO PETTIGREW COUNCIL NO 1. F. OF T.

-

-

-    A drunkard in a distant town lay dying on his bed,

-    There was lack of woman’s gentle touch about his fevered head,

-    But a comrade stood beside him, and wiped the foam away,

-    That bubbled through his frothy lips, to hear what he might say.

-    The poor inebriate faltered, as he caught that comrade’s eye,

-    And he said, “’Tis hard, far, far from home ’mid strangers thus to die.

-    Take a message and a token to my friends away so far,

-    For Louisburg’s my native place, the village on the Tar.

-

-    “Tell my brothers and companions, should they ever wish to know

-    The story of the fallen, ah! the fallen one so low,

-    That we drank the whole night deeply, and when at last ’twas o’er,

-    Full many a form lay beastly drunk along the barroom floor.

-    And there were ’mid those wretches some who had long served sin,

-    Their bloated features telling well what faithful slaves they’d been;

-    And some were young and had not on the Hell-path entered far--

-    And one was from the village, the village on the Tar.

-

-    “Tell my mother that her other sons may still some comfort prove,

-    But I, in even childhood, would scorn that mother’s love;

-    And when she called the children to lift up the evening prayer,

-    One form was always missing, there was e’er one vacant chair,

-    For my father was a drunkard, and even as a child

-    He taught my little feet to tread the road to ruin wild;

-    And when he died and left us to dispute about his will,

-    I let them take whate’er they would, but kept my father’s ‘still,’

-    And with sottish love I used it till its venomed ‘worm’ did gnaw

-    My soul, my mind, my very life, in the village on the Taw.[A]

-

-    “Tell my sister oft to weep for me with sad and drooping head,

-    When she sees the wine flow freely, that poison ruby red,

-    And to turn her back upon it, with deep and burning shame,

-    For her brother fell before it and disgraced the fam’ly name.

-    And if a drunkard seeks her love, oh! tell her, for my sake,

-    To shun the loathsome creature, as she would a deadly snake,

-    And have the old ‘still’ torn away, its fragments scattered far,

-    For the honor of the village, the village on the Tar.

-

-    “There’s another, not a sister; in the merry days of old,

-    You’d have known her by the dark blue eye, and hair of wavy gold;

-    Too gentle e’er to chide me, too devoted e’er to hate,

-    She loved me, though oft warned by all to shun the dreaded fate.

-    Tell her the last night of my life--for ere the morning dawn,

-    My body will be tenantless, my clay-chained spirit gone--

-    I dreamed I stood beside her, and in those lovely blue depths saw

-    The merry light that cheered me, in the village on the Taw.[A]

-

-    “I saw the old Tar hurrying on its bubbles to the sea,

-    As men on life’s waves e’er are swept towards eternity;

-    And the rippling waters mingled with the warbling of the birds,

-    Returned soft silvery echoes to my deep impassioned words;

-    And in those listening ears I poured the sweet tho’ time-worn story,

-    While swimming were those love-lit eyes, in all their tear-pearled glory;

-    And her little hand was closely pressed in mine so brown and braw,

-    Ah! I no more shall meet her, in the village on the Taw.”[A]

-

-    He ceased to speak, and through his frame there ran a shiver slight,

-    His blood-shot eyes rolled inward and revealed their ghastly white,

-    His swollen tongue protruded, o’er his face a pallor spread,

-    His comrade touched his pulse--’twas still--and he was with the dead.

-    The moon from her pavilion, in the blue-draped fleecy cloud,

-    Through the window o’er the corpse had thrown her pale but ghostly shroud,

-    The same moon that gazing upon that couch of straw.

-    Was bathing in a silver flood the village on the Taw.[A]

-

-[A] The Indian name of this river was _Taw_.--PUBLISHER.

-

-

-

-

-              REQUIESCAM

-

-

-    Oh! give me a grave in a lone, gloomy dell,

-      By the side of a deep, swift creek,

-    Where the ripples run like a tinkling bell,

-    Through the grassy nooks, where love so well

-      The minnows to play hide and seek!

-

-    Where in summer the thick twining foliage weaves

-      A green, arching roof upon high,

-    And the rain-drops fall from the dripping eaves,

-    Like tears of grief from the weeping leaves

-      On the face upturned to the sky!

-

-    Where the silence frightens the birds away,

-      And all is still, dreary and weird,

-    Except, perchance at the close of day,

-    The bittern’s boom or the crane’s hoarse bray,

-      Floating over the swamp, is heard.

-

-    Where the dusky wolf and the antlered deer

-      Ever shun the dark, haunted ground;

-    Where the crouching panther ventures near,

-    His tawny coat all bristling with fear,

-      At the sight of the low, red mound.

-

-    Where at twilight gray, the lone whippoorwill

-      May perch on the stake at my head,

-    And with its unearthly, tremulous trill

-    The dreary gloom of the whole place fill

-      With a requiem over the dead.

-

-    Where the greater the ruin in earth’s damp mold,

-      The greater the contrast will prove,

-    When the weary wings of my spirit I fold,

-    In heaven, and swell with a bright harp of gold,

-      The grand pealing anthem of love.

-

-    _February 9th, 1867_

-

-

-

-

-              LINES TO AN ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY

-

-            KNOWN TO THE STUDENTS AS “MISS ANNIE”

-

-        WRITTEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1866

-

-

-    At “Elysium” chum and I were sitting,

-    Across our vision memories flitting,

-    Talking, smoking, often spitting

-      On the hearth, not on the floor;

-    When suddenly we heard a spluttering,

-    As of book leaves madly flutt’ring,

-    Some one there seemed slowly mutt’ring,

-      At the bookcase, not the door.

-

-    Wildly springing to my feet

-    (Chum with fright seemed tied t’ his seat),

-    Dreading, fearing I should meet

-      What so like a ghost had spoken--

-    Fellow members, if you’re able

-    To believe what seemed a fable,

-    I saw “Miss Annie” on the table,

-      With rage and anger almost choking.

-

-    Then without a bow or bend,

-    Sitting up upon one end,

-    Without preface thus began--

-      While we both in wonder stared:

-    “O ye worthless lazy scamps!

-    Talk about your midnight lamps,

-    While I’m in the bookcase crampt,

-      To what can such Sophs be compared?

-

-    “Here you’ll sit and smoke and talk,

-    To-morrow morn to black-board walk,

-    Seize your ‘ruler’ and your chalk,

-      Then I hope get badly ‘rushed.’

-    Oh! the present generation,

-    Such neglect to education,

-    Blood and scissors! thunderation!”

-      She was so mad the tears forth gushed.

-

-    Chum and I had heard enough

-    To put us both in quite a huff,

-    So just to stop her noisome stuff

-      I sprang and seized her by the collar.

-    George jumped up and grabbed the poker,

-    Shouted, “Edwin, try to choke her!

-    We’ll stop her mouth, a darned old croaker,

-      Squeeze her tight and make her ‘holloa.’”

-

-    To the fire we held her near,

-    Still she showed no signs of fear.

-    “Shall the red coals be your bier?”

-      She shook her leaves and fluttered, “No.”

-    Now my face with anger flushes,

-    Covered first with scarlet blushes,

-    I cried, “Will you again e’er ‘rush’ us?”

-      Quoth Miss Annie, “Evermore.”

-

-    “Book or fiend,” I cried, up starting,

-    “Be that word our sign of parting.”

-    Then I, in my vengeance darting,

-      Hurled her in the embers red.

-    She slightly quivered, slowly burned;

-    From the sickening sight I turned,

-    Yet from her this lesson learned,

-      Prepare before you go to bed.

-

-

-

-

-              LINES TO COUSINS C. AND E.

-

-       ON THE BIRTH OF THEIR LITTLE DAUGHTER

-

-

-    The marriage over, from the train

-    Of watching seraphs, one long strain

-        Of gratulation broke.

-    And then were still the rustling wings,

-    And fingers hushed the throbbing strings,

-        While thus an angel spoke:

-

-    “Who’ll go to earth to bless this pair

-    With angel child, beneath their care

-        Be trained for bliss or woe?”

-    He ceased, and from the throng sprang three,

-    Faith, Love, and spotless Purity.

-        These knelt, and said “We’ll go.”

-

-    Dear cousins, to you these are sent,

-    Three spirits in one being blent.

-        It is a jewel rare.

-    Oh! keep her pure as when first given,

-    Guide her faith from Earth to Heaven,

-        Guard her love with care.

-

-    _May, 1867._

-

-

-

-

-              THE DEVIL OUTDONE;

-

-                   OR,

-

-         THE GUARD OF THE SULPHUR LAKE

-

-

-To her who sent me the Valentine with the cutting irony, “Don’t I look

-pretty in church?” these lines are respectfully inscribed. Not knowing

-her name, I will call her “Taters,” as she drew her elegant and tasty

-simile from that vegetable.

-

-    The Devil was sitting one morning below,

-    And he seemed much perplexed as to what he must do,

-    For his dark brows would knit, and he’d stamp on the ground,

-    And flap his great wings till floating around

-    Were the ashes and feathers.

-                                 At last with an air

-    Of resolve he threw himself back in his chair,

-    Lit a brimstone cigar, and touched a small bell.

-    An imp appeared, bowed, and on his face fell.

-    “Cloven-foot,” said the D----, “what’s the news from the fire?”

-    “My liege, the great ape has ceased to inspire

-    The victims with terror; they fear him no more,

-    And continually crawl from the flames to the shore.”

-    “Well, Cloven-foot, I had most certainly thought

-    When from Africa’s wilds that baboon you brought,

-    He’d prove such a guard for the great Sulphur Lake

-    The wretches would ne’er cease before him to quake.

-    Now go up to earth, and search till you find

-    Something uglier far, then quick seize and bind

-    And bring it to me; and if it beats the baboon

-    I’ll reward you. Be sure to return just as soon

-    As ’tis possible, and above all things to choose

-    An object whose countenance never will lose

-    Its hideous novelty.” The imp bowed and withdrew,

-    And swiftly to earth on his errand he flew;

-    But in vain did he search where the gorillas roam,

-    Or the jungles of Bengal, the fierce tiger’s home.

-    In vain throughout Europe he searched every place;

-    Nowhere could he find the requisite face.

-    Frustrated and weary, with deep despair frantic,

-    He was skimming the waves of the tossing Atlantic.

-    A few pinion strokes, and he stood on the shore

-    Of the New World, and through it began to explore.

-    But all was in vain, till he chanced to alight

-    In a sweet little village, one smiling morn bright.

-    Disguising himself, he attended the church,

-    Not hoping to find the object of search,

-    But just for the fun.

-                          As he stood with the throng

-    That were watching the College girls marching along,

-    He caught a slight glimpse of Miss “Tater’s” sweet face;

-    He sprang to her side, clasped her in embrace,

-    And as he plunged downward he said to himself,

-    “Here’s one will compete with the African elf.”

-    He soon furled his wing on the Plutonian shore,

-    And to his dark ruler his fair burden bore.

-    As the Valentine sender came into sight

-    The Devil himself started back with affright.

-    “Whew! whew!” whistled he, “she’ll do, I declare!

-    Go bring the baboon, and let them compare.”

-    The imp disappeared, then returned with the ape,

-    A creature most frightful in feature and shape.

-    His head was oblong and perfectly bald,

-    Running back from his eyes--no forehead at all;

-    His eyeballs were white, their sockets deep red;

-    His long, glistening teeth strung with human-flesh shred,

-    The gore of his victims from his fingers’ ends flowed;

-    And round his lank limbs candescent chains glowed,

-    In front of Miss “Taters” this creature was led;

-    He gave a look, yelled, and fainted stone dead.

-    “By my tongs,” quoth the Devil, “she’s rather too hard

-    For the old fellow; she’ll make a capital guard.

-    Take her down to the fire.” The imp led the way

-    And far down they went from the clear light of day,

-    Down, down, till the air was all smoky and red,

-    Till the tumult of hell seemed bursting her head;

-    Down, down, till the piteous wails and the moans

-    Of the tortured but echoed the jeers and the groans

-    Of the fiends. Down, down, till they came to the lake

-    That scorches and scalds, but never will slake

-    The thirst of its victims. Far out on its breast

-    It would heave them anon on the red foaming crest

-    Of a billow, then plunge them far deeper beneath

-    Its boiling bosom, in torture to seethe.

-    Along the hot shore the poor creatures would crawl,

-    To pant and to rest from their terrible thrall.

-    From their bodies all smoking the lava would stream,

-    While the shriveled flesh peeled from each quiv’ring limb,

-    And their heart-piercing shrieks rose higher and higher,

-    As the tongue of each wave licked them back in the fire.

-    But as soon as Miss “Taters” had come where they were

-    Every noise was hushed, not a sound could you hear.

-    ’Twas a wonder indeed, and the wonder increased,

-    When the billows of crimson their torture surge ceased.

-    When the imp had examined more closely, he found

-    The victims had fainted, the fire gone down.

-    He hurried her back to his master and said,

-    “The fires are out, and the wretches are dead.”

-    “What, the fires extinguished! those fires of old!

-    Take her back! I begin e’en myself to feel cold!

-    She’ll ruin us all with her terrible face;

-    She’s rather hard-favored for even this place.”

-

-    _April, 1867._

-

-

-

-

-              THE SUNFLOWER

-

-     LINES SUGGESTED BY OBSERVING GEN. PETTIGREW’S NAME OMITTED IN MRS.

-     DOWNING’S “MEMORIAL FLOWERS” AND IN THE “SOUTHERN BOUQUET”

-

-

-    When poets cull memorial flowers,

-      With which our martyrs’ graves to strew,

-    They choose no one in Nature’s bowers

-            For Pettigrew.

-

-    Yet there is one, and only one,

-      Which truly represents his name;

-    A flower that revels in the sun,

-            And drinks his flame.

-

-    A flower that opens when, all red,

-      The sun hath kissed the eastern skies;

-    But westward turned, it droops its head

-            And proudly dies.

-

-    Thus when the sun of victory sheared

-      Its gory way o’er clouds of war,

-    This flower’s tow’ring crest appeared

-            A beacon star.

-

-    And in its gorgeous, glorious rays,

-      This flower basked, and only bowed

-    When coming conquest’s bloody haze

-            That sun did shroud.

-

-    Crushed flower, with thy broken stem,

-      I’ll keep thee near to typify

-    The fallen form; the hero’s fame

-            Can never die.

-

-    _June 19th, 1867._

-

-

-

-

-              AN ELEGY

-

-WRITTEN ON THE ROTUNDA STEPS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 1868

-

-

-    The bell the knell of evening lecture tolls,

-      The thronging students pour from every door;

-    The tutor gathers up his notes and rolls,

-      And homeward wends his weary way once more.

-

-    The noisy crowd is gone, there is a pause,

-      And hushed is all the busy hum and whirl,

-    Save where from yonder room breaks loud applause

-      That welcomes some professor’s parting “curl.”

-

-    Save that from yonder plain, the lower lawn,

-      Some base-ball novice makes harsh rhyms to _psalm_,

-    Because a veteran, with his hands of horn,

-      Has “pitched” too “hot” a ball for his soft palm.

-

-    Beneath those balconies, along those rows,

-      Where sinks the wall in many a jail-like cell,

-    Each wrapped in silence now and in repose,

-      The minstrels of the “Calathump” do dwell.

-

-    The whispered call of evil-masking night,

-      The signal whistle of the well-known crew,

-    The bumping bang of “blowers” beat with might,

-      Will often rouse the “Nippers of Peru.”

-

-    For them in vain for hours their hearts will burn,

-      While busy housewives tremble at their noise,

-    And frightened children to their fathers turn,

-      Too badly scared to think of play or toys.

-

-    Oft has th’ rotunda echoed to their songs,

-      In dulcet strains that on the still air broke;

-    Oft has the lawn resounded with their gongs,

-      That roared and rattled ’neath their sturdy stroke.

-

-    Let not their victims mock th’ infernal din,

-      Coal-scuttle drums, and clarion paper trump;

-    But let them hear with a sardonic “grin,”

-      The hideous clamor of a “Calathump.”

-

-    The boast of Mozart, or Beethoven’s pride,

-      The sweetest notes Von Weber ever gave,

-    Alike would prove harsh dissonance beside

-      The gushing concord of one college stave.

-

-    To-night upon their pillows will be laid

-      Heads that are pregnant with some secret plan;

-    Hands that a “poker” often may have swayed,

-      Or waked to ecstasy an old tin pan.

-

-    In vain grave study holds before their gaze

-      Her ample page and honor’s glittering roll;

-    The fire of “frolic” in their bosom plays,

-      And warms the devilish current of their soul.

-

-    Full many a mind that might have nations hurled

-      About as toys, has hid its talents rare;

-    And many a voice that might have moved a world,

-      Has cracked in shoutings on the midnight air.

-

-    Some village Hampden here by night may bawl,

-      Some unknown Milton, but by no means mute;

-    Some David that may soothe a savage Saul,

-      As yet entirely guiltless of a lute.

-

-    The applause of gaping urchins to command,

-      The darkies’ laughter at their quaint disguise,

-    A few short words from some one to the band,

-      This is their sole reward, their hard-earned prize.

-

-    But who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

-      Would start to nip with dry and husky throttle?

-    Whene’er they march along the Devil’s way,

-      They take his own peculiar seal, the bottle.

-

-    Amid the madding crowd that gathers thick,

-      A moving pandemonium they stray,

-    And down those much frequented walks of brick

-      They hold the noisy tenor of their way.

-

-

-              THE EPIGRAM

-

-    Here go at last, all yelling to the town,

-      A band of youths to Judson’s too well known;

-    Fair science ever met their darkest frown,

-      And foul intemperance marked them for her own.

-

-    Small is their bounty, but “a drink” they chime,

-      As round the crowded counter many jam;

-    Each gives to Judson (all he has) a dime,

-      Each gets from him (’tis all he wants) a dram.

-

-    _January, 1868._

-

-

-

-

-              FIRE EYES

-

-

-    Hast thou on summer’s eve ere marked

-      The storm on cloud wings soaring high,

-    And spreading far his pinions black,

-      Across the blue good-natured sky?

-    And hast thou seen from ’neath his brow

-      The lightning’s eye gleam fiercely bright,

-    As if to pierce a thousand foes

-      With daggers of his living light?

-    As flash the lightnings in the skies,

-    So gleam, when angry, “Fire Eyes.”

-

-    Hast thou on autumn eve e’er seen

-      The sun just nestling on his pillow,

-    While sapphire clouds were silver-fringed,

-      As seafoam crests the surging billow?

-    And hast thou seen the golden gaze

-      The sun bestows on Nature fair,

-    That dyes the gorgeous landscape o’er

-      And almost melts the amber air?

-    As beams the sun on autumn skies

-    So smile, when pleased, bright “Fire Eyes.”

-

-

-

-

-              MY DARLING’S JESSAMINE

-

-

-    ’Twas only a sprig of white jessamine,

-      That came in a letter she wrote;

-    But I value it more than the costliest vine

-    Whose tendrils o’er marble-carved trellis-work twine:

-      _’Twas worn at my darling one’s throat_.

-

-    A throat that encages the nightingale’s trill,

-      And sweetens each silvery note,

-    And I think as I hear, in a rapturous thrill,

-    Her voice, whose volume can heaven’s dome fill,

-      That the _angels have lent her a throat_.

-

-    More sweet than exotics that Fashion dupes wear

-      As through the gay ballroom they float!

-    In the leaves of my Bible I laid it with care,

-    More _sacredly dear_ than a _buried friend’s hair_

-      Since worn at my darling one’s throat!

-

-    _July, 1870._

-

-

-

-

-              THE PARTING SHIP

-

-

-    In pensive mood I stood upon the quay,

-    Where busy Commerce plied her energy;

-    Where loading vessels hung their sails at rest,

-    And rose and fell, upon the water’s breast.

-    Where busy little tugs with hissing steam

-    Buried their noses in the foaming stream.

-    Near by, a steamer in a paneled wharf

-    Chafed at her chains and panted to be off.

-    A strange, mysterious ship, no pennon bold

-    Her nation or her destination told;

-    No crew was seen, no farewell song was sung,

-    No parting loved ones to each other clung;

-    No wife was weeping on her husband’s neck,

-    No mother blessed her wayward boy on deck.

-    A ceaseless throng pressed through the cabin door,

-    As if they longed to leave their native shore;

-    No backward glance, no tearful farewell view,

-    And no one seemed to think home worth adieu.

-    At last the bell was rung, the plank was drawn,

-    And with a shivering sigh, the ship was gone.

-    Then as I marked her curving track of foam,

-    I wondered in what waters she would roam;

-    I thought of those on board, the reckless air

-    Of their departure, and I breathed a prayer.

-    A red-haired man stood turning up a wheel,

-    That wound a clanking chain upon a reel;

-    I laid a coin upon his brawny hand,

-    And asked him, “Who thus leave their native land?”

-    He leaned upon his wheel and closed one eye,

-    As if the lid were burdened with a sty;

-    Then with a laugh he answered, “By the devil’s spleen and liver,

-    It’s on’y a Fulton ferry-boat a’gwine a’gross East River.”

-

-

-

-

-              TO M----, FROM E----

-

-        WRITTEN ON THE FLY-LEAF OF A BIBLE

-

-

-    One year of sweetest love intense!

-    One year of mutual confidence!

-    One year of gazing into eyes,

-    In which the love-light never dies!

-    One year of clasping hands, that thrill

-    With throbbing love from life’s red rill

-    One year of clouds, whose transient shade

-    The after glory brighter made!

-    One year of doubts, whose fleeting rust

-    Could not corrode our links of trust!

-    One year of prayer, whose pleading tone

-    Has for _each other_ sued the Throne!

-    One year _together_--may it prove

-    Prophetic of our earthly love!

-    One year _each other’s_--may it be

-    A type of our _eternity_!

-

-    _Sunday, May, 1871._

-

-

-

-

-              UNDER THE PINES

-

-“TELL THEM TO BURY ME UNDER THE PINES AT HOME.” FROM “SEA GIFT.”

-

-

-    I would not rest in the moldering tomb

-      Of the grim church-yard, where the ivy twines,

-    But make me a grave in the forest’s gloom,

-    Where the breezes wave, like a soldier’s plume,

-      Each dark-green bough of the dear old pines;

-

-    Where the lights and shadows softly merge,

-      And the sun-flakes sift through the netted vines;

-    Where the sea winds, sad with the sob of the surge,

-    From the harp-leaves sweep a solemn dirge

-      For the dead beneath the sighing pines.

-

-    When the winter’s icy fingers sow

-      The mound with jewels till it shines,

-    And cowled in hoods of glistening snow,

-    Like white-veiled sisters bending low,

-      Bow, sorrowing, the silent pines.

-

-    While others fought for cities proud,

-      For fertile plains and wealth of mines,

-    I breathed the sulph’rous battle cloud,

-    I bared my breast, and took my shroud

-      For the land where wave the grand old pines.

-

-    Though comrades sigh and loved ones weep

-      For the form shot down in the battle lines,

-    In my grave of blood I gladly sleep,

-    If the life I gave will help to keep

-      The Vandal’s foot from the Land of Pines.

-

-           *       *       *       *       *

-

-    The Vandal’s foot hath pressed our sod,

-      His heel hath crushed our sacred shrines;

-    And, bowing ’neath the chastening rod,

-    We lift our hearts and hands to God,

-      And cry: “Oh! save our Land of Pines!”

-

-

-

-

-              THE LAST LOOK

-

-                TO MARY

-

-

-    Do not fasten the lid of the coffin down yet;

-    Let me have a long look at the face of my pet.

-    Please all quit the chamber and pull to the door,

-    And leave me alone with my darling once more.

-

-    Is this little Ethel, so cold, and so still!

-    Beat, beat, breaking heart, ’gainst God’s mystic will,

-    Remember, O Christ, thou didst dread thine own cup,

-    And while I drink mine, let thine arm bear me up.

-

-    But the moments are fleeting: I must stamp on my brain,

-    Each dear little feature, for never again

-    Can I touch her; and only God measures how much

-    Affection a mother conveys by her touch.

-

-    Oh! dear little head, oh! dear little hair,

-    So silken, so golden, so soft, and so fair,

-    Will I never more smooth it? Oh! help me, my God,

-    To bear this worst stroke of the chastening rod.

-

-    Those bright little eyes that used to feign sleep,

-    Or sparkle so merrily, playing at peep,

-    Closed forever! And yet they seemed closed with a sigh,

-    As if for our sake she regretted to die.

-

-    And that dear little _mouth_, once so warm and so soft,

-    Always willing to kiss you, no matter how oft,

-    Cold and rigid, without the least tremor of breath,

-    How could you claim _Ethel_, O pitiless death!

-

-    Her hands! No, ’twill kill me to think how they wove

-    Through my daily existence a tissue of love.

-    Each finger’s a print upon memory’s page,

-    That will brighten, thank God! and not dim with my age.

-

-    Sick or well, they were ready at every request

-    To amuse us: sweet hands! they deserve a sweet rest.

-    Their last little trick was to wipe “Bopeep’s” eye,

-    Their last little gesture, to wave us good-bye.

-

-    Little feet! little feet, how dark the heart’s gloom,

-    Where your patter is hushed in that desolate room!

-    For oh! ’twas a sight sweet beyond all compare,

-    To see little “Frisky” rock back in her chair.

-

-           *       *       *       *       *

-

-    O Father! have mercy, and grant me thy grace

-    To see, through this frown, the smile on thy face;

-    To feel that this sorrow is sent for the best,

-    And to learn from my darling a lesson of rest.

-

-    _February 16th, 1875._

-

-

-

-

-LINES WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF AN UNKNOWN FRIEND

-

-

-    We’ve never met; I’ve never pressed your hand,

-      Nor caught the light of Friendship in your eyes;

-    Yet bound by grief, between two graves we stand,

-      And mingle tears, and hear each other’s sighs.

-

-    The same dark wings have taken from each hearth

-      The brightest jewel of the circle there,

-    And poor Faith stumbles at the mound of earth,

-      And feebly yields her place to wan Despair.

-

-    The same dear Christ that took our little one,

-      And laid her precious head upon His breast,

-    In tender love called home your darling son

-      To enter early his eternal rest.

-

-    But who could stand beside the open tomb,

-      And hear the clods fall on the coffin lid,

-    And see deep underneath the earthen gloom,

-      The dearest love of life forever hid?

-

-    Could we not hear the grave’s red lips proclaim,

-      “I am the Resurrection and the Life,”

-    And realize that Death in Jesus’ name

-      Is only rest from labor, pain, and strife?

-

-    ’Tis hard to feel assured our sainted dead

-      Are happy _there_, as we could make them here;

-    We love them so we give them up with dread,

-      And lay them in Christ’s arms with doubt and fear.

-

-    Oh! for a faith that sees in all God sends

-      The kindness of a father to his son;

-    That prays, in every trial--if it ends

-      In joy or grief, “Thy will, O Lord, be done.”

-

-    Beneath the same dark shadow let us kneel,

-      And lift our broken hearts in prayer to God

-    That while He chastens, He will help us feel

-      The wisdom of His purpose in the rod.

-

-    We are not strangers now; from heart to heart

-      The electric chords of mutual sorrow thrill.

-    And clasping hands across the miles apart,

-      We stand resolved, to “suffer and be still.”

-

-

-

-

-              OUT IN THE RAIN

-

-

-    The night is dark and cold, a beating rain

-    Falls ceaselessly upon the dripping roof;

-    The dismal wind, with now a fierce, wild shriek,

-    And now a hollow moan, as if in pain,

-    Circles the eaves, and bends the tortured trees that wring

-    Their long, bear hands in the bleak blast.

-                                               Within

-    Our chamber all is bright and warm. The fire

-    Burns with a ruddy blaze. The shaded lamp

-    Softens the pictures on the wall, and glows

-    Upon the flowers in the carpet, till they seem

-    All fresh and fragrant. Stretched upon the rug,

-    His collar gleaming in the fire-light, little Pip

-    Is sleeping on, defiant of the storm without.

-    The very furniture enjoys the warmth,

-    And from its sides reflects the cheerful light.

-    Up in its painted cage, the little bird,

-    His yellow head beneath his soft, warm wing,

-    Is hiding. Oh! my God, out in the storm

-    _Our little yellow head_ is beaten by the rain.

-    So lonely looks that precious little face

-    Up at the cold, dark coffin’s lid above,

-    In the bleak graveyard’s solitude!

-    Oh! Ethel darling, do you feel afraid?

-    Or is Christ with you in your little grave?

-    When last we gazed upon those lovely eyes

-    They looked so tranquil, in their last repose,

-    We knew that Christ’s own tender hand had sealed

-    Their lids with His eternal peace.

-    Oh! darling, are you happy up in heaven?

-    And do the angels part that golden hair

-    As tenderly as we? O Saviour dear,

-    Thou knowest childhood’s tenderness. Amid

-    The care of countless worlds, sometimes descend

-    From thine almighty throne of power, and find

-    That little yellow head, and lay it on thy breast,

-    And smooth her brow with thine own pierced hand;

-    She’ll kiss the wound and try to make it well.

-    And tell her how we love her memory here;

-    And let her sometimes see us, that she may

-    Remember us. O Jesus, we can trust

-    Her to thy care; and when we lay us down

-    To rest, beside that lonely, little grave,

-    Oh! let her meet us with her harp.

-    God help us both to make that meeting sure!

-

-

-

-

-              THE LILY AND THE DEW-DROP

-

-

-    Deep in a cell of darkest green,

-    Rayless and murky with unbroken gloom,

-    With downcast head and shrinking, modest mien,

-    A lily of the valley shed her rare perfume,

-    Breathed softly, as a sea shell’s murmur, from her bloom

-    An odor so exquisite, none can tell,

-    If ’tis an odor or a whispered sigh

-    That like the dying echoes of a bell

-    Falls on the raptured sense so dreamily,

-    The soul swoons in the tearful clasp of memory.

-

-    So when an old man hears a harvest song

-    He used to sing, or smells the new-mown hay,

-    A host of saddened recollections throng

-    The dusty chambers of his heart, and play

-    Upon the cobwebs there a soft Æolian lay.

-

-    (_Unfinished._)

-

-

-

-

-              LINES,

-

-   WRITTEN AFTER HAVING A HEMORRHAGE FROM THE LUNGS

-

-Written a short time before his death and handed to his wife with the

-request, “Do not open this until I am well, or until my death.”

-

-

-    Life bloomed for me as if my path thro’ Eden

-    Led its flowery way. Success had crowned

-    In many ways my efforts. No dark strife

-    With adverse Fate its portent shadows cast

-    Across the calm blue scope of heaven.

-                                          And though

-    Pride often chafed at plain commercial life,

-    It was but transient, for ambitious Hope

-    Kept ever in my view Fame’s gilded dome,

-    Upon whose highest pinnacle I chose my niche,

-    For vain conceit had whispered in my ear

-    That I had Genius to encharm the world,

-    And I looked forward to the loud applause

-    Of nations as a simple thing of time.

-    Of death I thought but as a fright for those

-    Who have no destiny but dying. Mine

-    Would come in age, but as a pallid seal

-    To Honor gained, and Life’s long labors done.

-    Yet I had felt the breath of Asrael’s wing

-    When from my youthful head he took my father’s hand,

-    And from my manhood’s arms my only child,

-    And down the past a little mound of earth,

-    Tombed with the darkest sorrow of our hearts,

-    Still stands, though veiling in the folds of time.

-    Of heaven I thought but as a distant home,

-    A place of sweetest rest that I would gain,

-    When weary of the burden of the world.

-    Thus gay of thought and bright of hope, I moved

-    Amid the flowers of my way.

-                                At once,

-    With scarce a rustle in the rose leaves, came

-    A shadowy form, and standing silently

-    Before my pathway, breathed a whispered sigh,

-    As if it loathed its office to perform;

-    Then laid Consumption’s ghastly banner on my breast,

-    Its pale folds crossed with fatal red.

-                                           The sky

-    Grew dark, the rose leaves withered, as the form

-    Withdrew, still silently; while I, alone

-    Upon the roadside, kneeled to pray for light.

-    The stunned surprise of sudden shattered hopes,

-    The faith of self-appointed destiny,

-    Still turned my eyes toward the Temple Fame.

-    Across its gilded dome a spotless cloud

-    Had drifted, hiding it from view, but lo!

-    The cloud, unfolding snowy depths, disclosed

-    The glories of that “House not made with hands,”

-    And bending from it, so full of tenderness,

-    I could discern the loved ones “gone before.”

-    And over all I recognized the Form

-    Whose brow endured Gabbatha’s shameful crown,

-    Whose woe distilled itself in trickling blood,

-    By Cedron’s murmuring wave.

-                                As tenderly

-    As ever mother touched her babe, He bore

-    Within His arms a little angel form,

-    With golden hair and blue expressive eyes,

-    One dimpled hand lay on His willing cheek,

-    While He bent down to meet the sweet caress,

-    The other, with that well-remembered look

-    She kissed, and threw the kiss to me.

-                                          Then down

-    I bowed my face, and longed to know mine end.

-    ’Twere very sweet to leave all toil and care

-    And join the blessed ones beyond the tide;

-    And still ’twere sweet beyond compare to wait

-    Till eventide with loved ones here, and share

-    Their weal or woe.

-                       Then came a flute-like voice

-    That thrilled the solemn air:

-                                  “Pursue thy way,

-    Yet humbly walk and watch, and if I come

-    At midnight, or at noon, be ready.”

-                                        Thus

-    I wish to live, life’s aims subserved to God;

-    And each continued day and hour regard

-    As special gifts to be improved for Him;

-    To wear the girdle of the world about my loins

-    So loosely that a moment will suffice

-    To break the clasp, and lay it down.

-

-

-                THE END

-

-

-

-

-

-End of Project Gutenberg's The Angel in the Cloud, by Edwin W. (Wiley) Fuller

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+Project Gutenberg's The Angel in the Cloud, by Edwin W. (Wiley) Fuller
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: The Angel in the Cloud
+
+Author: Edwin W. (Wiley) Fuller
+
+Release Date: July 14, 2018 [EBook #57504]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               THE ANGEL
+                             IN THE CLOUD
+
+                                  BY
+
+                            EDWIN W. FULLER
+
+                           PRIVATELY PRINTED
+                                MCMVII
+
+
+
+
+                           _Copyright, 1907
+                         Sumner Fuller Parham_
+
+
+
+
+                                TO THE
+
+                     HALLOWED MEMORY OF MY FATHER,
+
+                                 WHO,
+
+             EVEN WHILE I WAS GAZING UPON THE GOLDEN CITY
+
+                       PASSED WITHIN ITS WALLS,
+
+                   THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS INSCRIBED,
+
+                              WITH TEARS.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+To those who may favor these pages with perusal, I make this earnest
+request: that, if they commence, they will read all. Knowing that the
+best mode of dealing with doubts is to state and refute, successively, I
+regret that the plan of the present work forces a separation of the
+statement and refutation. To read one without the other were to defeat
+the object in view; hence my request.
+
+Many of the subjects of thought are worn smooth with the touch of ages,
+so that hope for originality is as slender as the bridge of Al Sirat;
+but in the bulrush ark of self-confidence, pitched with Faith, I commit
+my first-born to the Nile of public opinion; whether to perish by
+crocodile critics, or bask in the palace of favor, the Future, alone,
+must determine. May Pharaoh’s daughter find it!
+
+                                                      E. W. F.
+
+LOUISBURG, Jan. 17th, 1871.
+
+
+
+
+A NOTE
+
+
+_First published more than thirty-five years ago, in the lifetime of the
+poet, THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD has long since passed not only out of print
+but out of the memory of most living men. Of the copies of the original
+edition, only few are known to exist. Upon his surviving family is
+imposed the obligation, and to them comes the privilege, of rescuing
+from the realm of forgotten things these evidences of a graceful and
+genuine poetic gift in one whose memory they revere and whose genius
+they are unwilling to have die. It is therefore with the sense of
+performing a grateful duty that they have caused to be printed this new
+edition of Edwin Fuller’s poems, in the hope and belief that others,
+like themselves, will value it both as friends of the gentle poet and as
+disinterested lovers of good literature._
+
+August, 1907.
+
+
+
+
+              THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD
+
+
+    ’Twas noon in August, and the sultry heat
+    Had driven me from sunny balcony
+    Into the shaded hall, where spacious doors
+    Stood open wide, and lofty windows held
+    Their sashes up, to woo the breeze, in vain.
+    The filmy lace that curtained them was still,
+    And every silken tassel hung a-plumb.
+    The maps and unframed pictures o’er the wall
+    Gave not a rustle; only now and then
+    Was heard the jingling sound of melting ice,
+    Deep in a massive urn, whose silver sides
+    With trickling dewbeads ran. The little birds,
+    Up in their cages, perched with open beaks,
+    And throbbing throats, upon the swaying rings,
+    Or plashed the tepid water in their cups
+    With eager breast. My favorite pointer lay,
+    With lolling tongue, and rapid panting sides,
+    Beside my chair, upon the matted floor.
+    All things spoke heat, oppressive heat intense,
+    Save swallows twittering up the chimney-flue,
+    Whose hollow flutterings sounded cool alone.
+    To find relief I seized my hat and book,
+    And fled into the park. Along a path
+    Of smoothest gravel, oval, curving white,
+    Between two rows of closely shaven hedge,
+    I passed towards a latticed summer-house;
+    A fairy bower, built in Eastern style,
+    With spires, and balls, and fancy trellis-work,
+    O’er which was spread the jasmine’s leafy net,
+    To snare the straying winds. Within I fell
+    Upon a seat of woven cane, and fanned
+    My streaming face in vain. The very winds
+    Seemed to have fled, and left alone the heat
+    To rise from parchèd lawn and scorching fields,
+    Like trembling incense to the blazing god.
+    The leaves upon the wan and yellow trees
+    Hung motionless, as if of rigid steel;
+    And e’en the feath’ry pendula of spray,
+    With faintest oscillation, dared not wave.
+    The withered flowers shed a hot perfume,
+    That sickened with its fragrance; and the bees
+    Worked lazily, as if they longed to kick
+    The yellow burdens from their patient thighs,
+    And rest beneath the ivy parasols.
+    The butterflies refrained from aimless flight,
+    And poised on blooms with gaudy, gasping wings.
+    The fountain scarcely raised its languid jet
+    An inch above its tube; the basin deigned
+    A feeble ripple for its tinkling fall,
+    And rolled the little waves with noiseless beat
+    Against the marble side. The bright-scaled fish
+    All huddled ’neath the jutting ledge’s shade,
+    Where, burnished like their magnet toy types,
+    They rose and fell as if inanimate;
+    Or, with a restless stroke of tinted fin,
+    Turned in their places pettishly around;
+    While, with each move, the tiny whirlpools spun
+    Like crystal dimples on the water’s face.
+    The sculptured lions crouched upon the edge,
+    With gaping jaws, and stony, fixèd eyes,
+    That ever on the pool glared thirstily.
+    Deep in the park, beneath the trees, were grouped
+    The deer, their noses lowered to the earth,
+    To snuff a cooler air; their slender feet
+    Impatient stamping at the teasing flies;
+    While o’er their heads the branching antlers spread,
+    A mocking skeleton of shade! A fawn,
+    Proud of his dappled coat, played here and there,
+    Regardless of repose; the silver bell,
+    That tinkled from a band of broidered silk,
+    Proclaiming him a petted favorite.
+    Save him alone, all things in view sought rest,
+    And wearied Nature seemed to yield the strife,
+    And smold’ring wait her speedy sacrifice.
+
+    The heat grew hotter as I watched its work,
+    And with its fervor overcome, I rose,
+    And through the grounds, towards an orchard bent
+    My faltering steps in full despair of ease.
+    Down through the lengthened rows of laden trees,
+    Whose golden-freighted boughs o’erlapped the way,
+    I hurried till I reached the last confines.
+    Here stood a gnarléd veteran, now too old
+    To bear much fruit, but weaving with its leaves
+    So dense a shade, the smallest fleck of sun
+    Could not creep through. Beneath it spread a couch
+    Of velvet moss, fit for the slumbers of a king.
+    Here prone I fell, at last amid a scene
+    That promised refuge from the glaring heat.
+    Beyond me stretched the orchard’s canopy
+    Of thick, rank foliage, almost drooping down
+    Upon the green plush carpet underneath.
+    Close at my feet a crystal spring burst forth,
+    And rolled its gurgling waters down the glade
+    Now spreading in a rilling silver sheet
+    O’er some broad rock, then gath’ring at its base
+    Into a foamy pool that churned the sand,
+    And mingling sparks of shining isinglass,
+    It danced away o’er gleamy, pebbly bed,
+    Where, midst the grassy nooks and fibrous roots,
+    The darting minnows played at hide and seek,
+    Oft fluttering upwards, to the top, to spit
+    A tiny bubble out, or slyly snap
+    Th’ unwary little insect hov’ring near;
+    Till, by its tributes widened to a brook,
+    It poured its limpid waters undefiled
+    In to the river’s dun and dirty waves,--
+    A type of childhood’s guileless purity,
+    That mingling with the sordid world is lost.
+
+    Far in the distance, lofty mountains loomed,
+    Their blue sides trembling in the sultry haze.
+    From me to them spread varicultured fields,
+    That formed a patchwork landscape, which deserved
+    The pencil of a Rembrandt and his skill;
+    The hardy yellow stubble smoothly shaved,
+    With boldness lying ’neath the scorching sun;
+    The suffering corn, with tasselled heads all bowed,
+    And twisted arms appealing, raised to Heaven;
+    The meadows faded by the constant blaze;
+    The cattle lying in the hedge’s shade;
+    Across the landscape drawn a glitt’ring band,
+    Where winds the river, like a giant snake,
+    The ripples flashing like his polished scales.
+    Above the scene a lonely vulture wheeled,
+    Turning with every curve from side to side,
+    As if the fierce rays broiled his dusky wings;
+    And circling onwards, dwindled to a speck,
+    And in the distance vanished out of sight!
+    Complete repose was stamped on everything,
+    Save where a tireless ant tugged at a crumb,
+    To drag it o’er th’ impeding spires of moss;
+    And one poor robin, with her breast all pale
+    And feather-scarce, hopped wearily along
+    The streamlet’s edge, with plaintive clock-like chirp,
+    And searching, found and bore the curling worm,
+    Up to the yellow-throated brood o’erhead.
+    Behind the mountains reared the copper clouds
+    Of summer skies, that whitened as they rose,
+    Till bleached to snow, they drifted dreamily,
+    Like gleaming icebergs, through the blue sublime.
+    And as they, one by one, sailed far away,
+    Methought they were as ships from Earth to Heaven,
+    Thus slowly floating to the Eternal Port.
+    The Thunder’s muttered growl my reverie broke,
+    And looking toward the West, I saw a storm,
+    With gloomy wrath, had thrown its dark-blue line
+    Of breastworks, quiv’ring with each grand discharge
+    Of its own ordnance, o’er th’ horizon’s verge.
+    Some time it stood to gloat upon its prey,
+    Then, girding up its strength, began its march.
+    Extending far its black gigantic arms,
+    It grimly clambered up the tranquil sky;
+    Till, half-way up the arch, its shaggy brows
+    Scowled down in rage upon the frightened earth;
+    While through its wind-cleft portals sped the darts,
+    That brightly hurtled through the sultry air.
+    And down the mountain-sides the shadow crept,
+    A dark veil spreading over field and wood,
+    Thus adding gloom to Nature’s awful hush.
+    The fleecy racks had fled far to the East,
+    Where sporting safely in the gilding light,
+    They mocked the angry monster’s cumbrous speed.
+
+    Then, while I marked its progress, came a train,
+    Of dark and doubting thoughts into my mind,
+    And bitterly thus my reflections ran:
+    Strange is the Providence that rules the world,
+    That sets the Medean course of Nature’s laws;
+    Sometimes adapting law to circumstance,
+    But oftener making law fulfilled a curse.
+    Yon brewing storm in verdant summer comes,
+    When vegetation spreads its foliage sails,
+    That, like a full-rigged ship’s, are easier torn;
+    Why comes it not in winter, when the trees,
+    With canvas reefed by Autumn’s furling frosts,
+    Could toss in nude defiance to the blast?
+    The murd’rous wind precedes the gentle shower
+    And ere the suffering grain has quenched its thirst,
+    It bows the heavy head, alone of worth,
+    And from the ripening stalk wrings out the life,
+    While gayly nod the heads of chaff unharmed.
+    The rank miasma floats in summer-time,
+    When man must brave its poisoned breath or starve;
+    It hovers sickliest over richest fields
+    While over sterile lands the air is pure;
+    The tallest oak is by the lightning riven,
+    The hateful bramble on the ground is spared;
+    The crop man needs demands his constant work,
+    The weeds alone spring forth without the plow;
+    The sweetest flowers wear the sharpest thorns,
+    The deadliest reptiles lurk in fairest paths!
+      Wherever Nature shows her brightest smile,
+    ’Tis but a mask to hide her darkest frown.
+    The tropics seem an Eden of luscious fruits
+    And flowers, and groves of loveliest birds, and lakes
+    That mirror their gay plumage flitting o’er;
+    Where man may live in luxury of thought,
+    Without the crime of schemes, or curse of toil--
+    The tropics seem a Hell, when all with life
+    Are stifled with the foul sirocco’s breath;
+    When from the green-robed mountain’s volcan top,
+    A fire-fountain spouts its blazing jet
+    Far up against the starry dome of Heaven;
+    Returning in its vast umbrella shape,
+    Leaps in red cataracts adown the slope,
+    Shaves clean the mountain of its emerald hair,
+    And leaves it bald with ashes on its head.
+    Below, the valley is a crimson sea,
+    Whose glowing billows break to white-hot foam;
+    And as they surge amid the towering trees,
+    They, tottering, bow forever to the waves;
+    The leaves and branches, crackling into flame,
+    Leave only clotted cinders floating there;
+    The darting birds, their gaudy plumage singed,
+    Fall fluttering in, with little puffs of smoke.
+    The fleeing beasts are lapped in, bellowing,
+    And charred to coal, drift idly with the tide.
+    The red flood, breaking through the vale, rolls on
+    Its devious way towards the sea; the glare
+    Illuminating far its winding track,
+    As if a devil flew with flaming torch,
+    Or when an earthquake gapes its black-lined jaws,
+    And, growling, gulps a city’s busy throng
+    Into its greedy bowels. Or the sea bursts forth
+    Its bands of rock, and laughing at “Thus far!”
+    Rolls wildly over peopled towns, and homes
+    In fancied safety; playing fearful pranks,
+    O’er which to chuckle in its briny bed;
+    Jeering the stones because they cannot swim,
+    And crushing like a shell all work of wood;
+    Docking the laden ships upon the hills,
+    And tossing lighter craft about like weeds;
+    Till, wearied with the spoiling, sinks to rest.
+
+    Thus Nature to herself is but half kind,
+    But over man holds fullest tyranny;
+    And man, a creature who cannot prevent
+    His own existence! Why not happy made?
+    For surely ’twere as easy to create
+    Man in a state of happiness and good,
+    And keep him there, as to create at all.
+    If misery’s not deserved before his birth,
+    Then misery must from purest malice flow;
+    Yet malice none assign to Providence.
+      But some may say: Were man thus happy made,
+    He would not be a person, but a thing,
+    And lose the very seed of happiness,
+    The consciousness of merit. Grant ’tis true!
+    Then why does merit rarely meet reward?
+    And why does there appear a tendency,
+    Throughout the polity divine, to mark
+    With disapproval all the good in man,
+    And bless the evil? Through the entire world
+    Is felt this conflict: some strange power within
+    Exciting us to good, while all events
+    Proclaim its folly. Throughout Nature’s laws,
+    Through man in every station, up to God,
+    This fatal contradiction glares. The storm,
+    With ruthless breath, annihilates the cot
+    That, frail and humble, shields the widow’s head;
+    And while she reads within the use-worn Book
+    That none who trusts shall e’er be desolate,
+    The falling timbers crush the promise out,
+    And she is dead beneath her ruined home!
+    The prostrate cottage passed, the very wind
+    Now howls a rough but fawning lullaby
+    Around the marble walls, and lofty dome,
+    That shelter pride and heartless arrogance.
+
+    And when the Boaz Winter throws his skirt
+    Of purest white across the lap of Earth,
+    And decks her bare arborial hair with gems,
+    Whose feeblest flash would pale the Koh-i-noor,
+    The rich, alone, find beauty in the scene,
+    And, clad in thankless comfort, brave the cold.
+    The gliding steels flash through the feathery drifts,
+    The jingling bells proclaiming happiness;
+    Yet ’neath the furry robe the oath is heard,
+    And boisterous laughter at the ribald jest.
+    The coldest hearts beat ’neath the warmest clothes;
+    And often all the blessings wealth can give,
+    Are heaped on one, whose daily life reviles
+    The very name of Him who doth bestow.
+    While in a freezing garret, o’er the coals
+    That, bluely flickering with the feeble flame,
+    Seem cold themselves, a trusting Christian bends;
+    Her faith all mocked by cruel circumstance.
+    The cold, bare walls, the chilling air-swept floor;
+    Some broken stools, a mattress stuffed with straw,
+    Upholstering the apartment. Through the sash,
+    The wind, with jaggèd lips of broken glass,
+    Shrieks in its freezing spite. A cold-blued babe,
+    With face too thin to hold a dimple’s print,
+    With famished gums tugs at the arid breast,
+    Thrusting its bare, splotched arms, in eagerness,
+    From out the poor white blanket’s ravelled edge.
+    Beside the mother sits a little boy,
+    With one red frost-cracked hand spread out, in vain,
+    To warm above the faintly-burning coals;
+    The other pressing hardly ’gainst his teeth
+    A stale and tasteless loaf of smallest size,
+    Which lifting often to the mother’s view,
+    He offers part; she only shakes her head,
+    And sadly smiles upon the gaunt young face.
+    Yet in her basket, on a pile of work,
+    An open Bible lies with outstretched leaves,
+    Whose verses speak in keenest irony:
+    “Do good,” and “verily thou shalt be fed.”
+    And so through all the world, the righteous poor,
+    The wicked rich. Deceit, and fraud, and craft
+    Reap large rewards, while pure integrity
+    Must gnaw the bone of faith with here and there
+    A speck of flesh called consciousness of right,
+    To reach the marrow in another world.
+    But man within himself’s the greatest paradox;
+    “A little animal,” as Voltaire says,
+    And yet a greater wonder than the sun,
+    Or spangled firmament. That little one
+    Can weigh and measure all the wheeling worlds,
+    But finds within his “five feet” home, a Sphinx
+    Whose riddle he can never solve.
+                                     “Thyself,”
+    The oracles of old bade men to know,
+    As if to mock their very impotence;
+    And man, to know himself, for centuries
+    Has toiled and studied deep, in vain.--
+    Not man in flesh, for blest Hippocrates
+    Bright trimmed his lamp, and passed it down the line,
+    And each disciple adding of his oil,
+    It blazes now above the ghastly corpse,
+    Till every fibre, every thread-like vein,
+    Is known familiar as a city’s streets;
+    The little muscle twitching back the lip,
+    Rejoicing in a name that spans the page.
+    But man in mind, that is not seen nor felt,
+    But only knows he is, through consciousness.
+    He sees an outside world, with all its throng
+    Of busy people who care not for him,
+    And only few that know he does exist;
+    And yet he feels the independent world
+    Is but effect produced upon himself,
+    The Universe is packed within his mind,
+    His mind within its little house of clay.
+    What is that mind? Has it a formal shape?
+    And has it substance, color, weight, or force?
+    What are the chains that bind it to the flesh?
+    That never break except in death, though oft
+    The faculties are sent far out through space?
+    Where is it placed, in head, or hands, or feet?
+    And can it have existence without place?
+    And if a place, it must extension have,
+    And if extended, it is matter proven.
+    Poor man! he has but mind to view mind with,
+    And might as well attempt to see the eye
+    Without a mirror! True, faint consciousness
+    Holds up a little glass, wherein he sees
+    A few vague facts that cannot satisfy.
+    For these, and their attendant laws, have fought
+    The mental champions of the world till now
+    That each may deck them in his livery,
+    And claim them as his own discovery.
+
+    Hedged in, man does not know that he is paled,
+    And struggles fiercely ’gainst the boundaries,
+    And strives to get a glimpse of those far realms
+    Of thought sublime, where his short wings would sink
+    With helpless fluttering, through the vast profound.
+    Upon the coals of curiosity,
+    A writhing worm, he’s laid; and twists and turns,
+    To find, in vain, the healing salve of Truth.
+
+    But grant that mind exists in fullest play:
+    How does it work and what its modes of thought?
+    Here consciousness may act, and hold to view
+    A dim outline of powers, contraposed.
+    In such a conflict, every one may seize
+    The doctrine suits him best. Hence different creeds--
+    Desire battling reason, reason will,
+    And will the weathercock of motive’s wind;
+    Motive the cringing slave of circumstance.
+    And here Charybdis rises; no control
+    Has man o’er circumstance, but circumstance
+    Begets the motive governing the will;
+    Then how can man be free? Yet some may say,
+    Man can obey the motive, or can not.
+    He can, but only when a stronger rules.
+    That we without a motive never act,
+    I do declare, though in the face of Reid.
+    That that is strongest which impels, a child
+    Might know, although Jouffroy exclaims,
+    “You’re reasoning in a circle.” Let us place
+    An iron fragment ’twixt two magnet-bars,
+    What one attracts is thereby stronger proved.
+    Or it may be the really weaker one,
+    But yet, because of nearness to the steel,
+    Possess a relatively greater force.
+    And so of motives, howe’er trivial they,
+    The one that moves is strongest to the mind.
+    To illustrate: Suppose I pare a peach;
+    A friend near by me banteringly asserts
+    That I can not refrain from eating it.
+    Two motives now arise--the appetite,
+    And the desire to prove my self-control.
+    I hesitate awhile, then laughing say,
+    “I would not give the peach to prove you wrong.”
+    But as my teeth press on it, pride springs up,
+    And bids me show that I am not the slave
+    Of appetite, and far away I hurl
+    The tinted, fragrant sphere.
+                                 Was not each thought
+    Spontaneous? Could I control their rise?
+    How perfectly absurd to talk of choice
+    Between two motives offered to the mind!
+    As if the motive was a horse we’d choose
+    To pull our minds about. There is no choice
+    Until the motive makes it; then we choose,
+    Not ’tween the motives, but the acts.
+                                          If, then,
+    The spring of action is the motive’s power,
+    The motive being far beyond our sway,
+    Where is our freedom? But a fabled myth!
+    And man but differs from a star in this,--
+    The laws of stars are fixed and definite,
+    And every movement there can be foretold;
+    Of man, no deed can be foreseen till done.
+    At most we can but form a general guess
+    How he will act, at such a time and place.
+    Even if we knew the motives that would rise,
+    We could not prophesy unless we knew
+    Our subject’s frame of mind; for differently,
+    On different minds, same motives often act.
+    Hence, we can tell the conduct of a friend
+    More surely than a stranger’s, since we know,
+    By long acquaintance, how his motives work.
+    But should new motives rise, we cannot tell
+    Until experience gives us data new.
+    Thus we will ride beside a friend alone,
+    And show to him our money without fear,
+    Because we know the motives--love for us,
+    Honor, and horror of disgraceful crime--
+    Are stronger with him than cupidity.
+    But with a stranger we would feel unsafe;
+    Nor would we trust our friend, were we alone
+    Upon an island, wrecked, and without food,
+    And saw his eye with hunger glare, and heard
+    The famished motive whispering to him, “Kill!”
+    If he were free, would we feel slightest fear?
+    For all his soul would shudder from the deed,
+    And never motive could impel such crime.
+
+    Upon this principal all law is made;
+    For were man free he could not be controlled,
+    And all compliance would be his caprice.
+    But since he is the tyrant-motive’s slave,
+    The law to govern motive only seeks
+    And builds its sanction on the base of pain,
+    As motive strongest in the human heart.
+    It only falls below perfection’s height,
+    Because there are exceptions to the rule;
+    When hate and passion, lust and greed of gold,
+    Prove stronger than the fear of distant pain.
+    And could the law know fully every heart,
+    And vary sanction, there would be no crime.
+
+    But law itself, and the obeying world,
+    Are proofs against the grosser form of Fate:
+    That all is preordained, nor can be changed.
+    All human life is vacillating life;
+    We make our plans each day, then alter them.
+    We form resolves one hour that break the next,
+    And no one dares assert that he will act,
+    Upon the morrow, in a certain way;
+    But cries, it all depends on circumstance.
+    And this is strange, that while we cannot change
+    Our lives one tittle by our own free will,
+    We help, each day, to change our neighbor’s course;
+    And he assists the motives changing ours.
+    For all relations to our fellow-men,
+    Are powers that form our lives, in spite of us.
+    But we may change our motives, often do,
+    By changing place, or circumstance of life,
+    By hearing, reading, or reflective thought;
+    Yet are these very things from motives done,
+    And motives mocking all our vain commands.
+    One motive made the object of an act,
+    Another rises subject of the act;
+    And to the final motive we can never reach.
+
+    The world’s a self-adjusting, vast machine,
+    Whose human comparts cannot guide themselves;
+    And each is but a puppet to the whole,
+    Yet adds its mite towards its government;
+    Here, in this motive circle, lies all Fate.
+    Our fellow-men with motives furnish us,
+    While we contribute to their motive fund.
+    The real power, hidden deep within,
+    Escapes the eye of careless consciousness;
+    Who proudly tells us we are action’s cause.
+    Upon this error men, mistaken, raise
+    The edifice of law in all its forms;
+    That yet performs its varied functions well,
+    Because it offers motives that restrain,
+    Till stronger overcome, and crime ensues.
+    The motive gibbet lifts its warning arms;
+    The pillory gapes its scolloped lips for necks;
+    The lash grows stiff with blood and shreds of flesh;
+    The treadmill yields beneath the wearied feet;
+    And Sabbath after Sabbath preachers tell
+    Of judgment, and of awful Hell, and Heaven;
+    All these, to stronger make, than lust of sin.
+    And yet, to lead my reasoning to its end,
+    I find a chaos of absurdity.
+    If I am by an unruled motive driven,
+    Why act at all? Why passive not recline
+    Upon the lap of destiny, and wait her arms?
+    Why struggle to acquire means of life,
+    When Fate must fill our mouths or let us die?
+    Why go not naked forth into the world,
+    And trust to Fate for clothes? Why spring aside
+    From falling weight, or flee a burning house,
+    Or fight with instinct strength the clasp of waves?
+    Because we cannot help it; every act
+    Behind it has a motive, whose command
+    We, willing or unwilling, must obey.
+
+    Law governs motives, motives create law;
+    Between the reflex action man is placed,
+    The helpless shuttlecock of unjust Fate!
+    Now passive driven to commit a crime,
+    Then by the driver laid upon the rack;
+    A Zeno’s slave, compelled by Fate to steal,
+    And then compelled by Fate to bear the lash!
+
+    What gross injustice is the rule of life!
+    A sentient being made without a will,
+    And placed a cat’s-paw in the hands of Fate,
+    Who rakes the moral embers for a sin,
+    That, found, must burn the helpless one alone.
+    All right and wrong, and whate’er makes man man,
+    Are gone, and language is half obsolete;
+    No need of words to tell of moral worth
+    Existing not, nor e’en conceivable;
+    No words of blame or commendation, given
+    According to the intention of a deed;
+    No words of cheer or comfort, to incite,
+    For man must act without our useless tongues;
+    No words of prayer, if Fate supplies our wants;
+    No words of prayer, if Fate locks up her store;
+    No words of love, for fondest love were loathed
+    If fanned by Fate to flame. No words of hate,
+    For all forgive a wrong when helpless done;
+    The buds that bloom upon the desert heart
+    Lose all their sweetness when they’re forced to grow;
+    All pleasure’s marred because it is not earned,
+    And pain more painful since ’tis undeserved.
+
+    Man falling from his high estate, becomes
+    A brute with keener sensibilities;
+    Endowed with mind, upon whose plastic face
+    Fate writes its batch of lies; poor man believes,
+    And prates of moral agency, and cants
+    Of good _he_ does, and evil that _he_ shuns.
+    With blind content, he rests in false belief,
+    And happy thus escapes the mental rack--
+    The consciousness of what he really is.
+
+    And yet why false belief? The world believes,
+    And acting, moves in general harmony;
+    Could harmony from such an error flow?
+    Would all believe, would not some one
+    Have doubted by his works as well as faith?
+    The veriest skeptic walks the earth to-day,
+    As if he held the seal of freest will,
+    And shapes its course, and judges all mankind
+    By freedom’s rule.
+                       Then may not that be true
+    Which most believe, and those who doubt profess
+    In every act; as that which few believe
+    And to which none conform?
+                               Two paths I see,
+    One marked Free-Will, the other Fate. The first,
+    Extending far as human thought can reach,
+    Through lovely meads with sweetest flowers, and fruits
+    Of actions clearly shown as right and wrong,
+    Because of choice ’twixt the two; of laws
+    With sanction suiting agents who are free;
+    Of courts acquitting the insane of crime,
+    Of crime made crime, alone, when done as crime,
+    Of judgment passed by public sentiment
+    On action in the ratio of liberty.
+    Delightful view; but seek an entrance there--
+    The towering bars of unruled motive stand
+    Before the path, and none can overleap.
+
+    The field of Fate lies open; nothing bars
+    Our progress there. A thousand different ways
+    The path diverges. Every by-path leads
+    To some foul pit or bottomless abyss.
+    Along each side are strewed the whitening bones
+    Of venturous pilgrims, lost amid its snares,
+    Some broken on the rocks of gross decree,
+    Who hold an unchanged destiny from birth;
+    Who will not take a medicine if sick,
+    Who cant of “To be, will be,” and the time
+    Unalterably set to each man’s life.
+    Some stranded on the finer form of Fate,
+    Who say it works by means. Hence they believe
+    In using all preventives to disease,
+    In going boating in a rubber belt,
+    In placing Franklin rods upon a house,
+    In preaching, and in praying men repent.
+    These, when one dies, cry out, “It was his time.”
+    Or if he should recover, “It was not.”
+    Their fate is always ex post facto fate,
+    And knowing not the future, they abide
+    The issue of events, and then confirm
+    Their dogged dogmas.
+                         Still another class,
+    Though fewer far in numbers, perish here.
+    These are the sophists; men who deeply dive
+    Beneath the surface of effect, and trace
+    Our actions to their source. They find that man,
+    Made in the glorious image of his God,
+    Is not an independent cause, but works
+    From motive causes out of his control.
+    They find that every mental act must flow
+    From outside source, then fearlessly ascend
+    The chain of being to a height divine,
+    And dare to fetter the Eternal mind,
+    And throw their bonds around Omnipotence.
+    As well a spider in an eagle’s nest
+    Might, from his hidden web among the twigs,
+    Attempt to throw his little gluey thread
+    Around the mottled wing, whose muscled strength
+    Beats hurried vacuums in the ocean’s spray,
+    Or circling upward, parts the thunder-cloud,
+    And bursts above; and shaking off the mists,
+    With rigid feathers bright as burnished steel,
+    Floats proudly through the tranquil air.
+                                             Which realm
+    Shall now be mine, Free-Will or Fate? The one
+    Stands open wide, but all in ruin ends;
+    The other, fair if once within the pale;
+    But how to scale the barriers none can tell.
+    Bah! all is doubt. I’ll leave the mystic paths
+    Where, on each side, are ranged the phantom shapes
+    Of disputants, alive and dead, who fight,
+    With foolish zeal, o’er myths intangible;
+    When each one cries “Eureka!” for his creed.
+    That scarcely lives a day, then yields its place.
+    A Roman ’gainst a Roman, Greek to Greek,
+    A zealous Omar with an Ali paired;
+    A saintly Pharisee in hot dispute
+    With Sadducees. Along th’ illustrious rows
+    Of lesser lights, who advocate the creeds
+    Of their respective masters, we descend
+    To later days and see Titanic minds
+    Exert their giant strength to reach the truth,
+    And, baffled, fall. Locke, ever elsewhere clear,
+    Here mystified Spinoza’s dizzy wing
+    O’erweighted by his strange “imperium;”
+    Hobbes, with his new intrinsic liberty;
+    And Belsham’s quaint reduction too absurd;
+    “Sufficient reason,” reared in Leibnitz’s strength;
+    Reid, Collins, Edwards, Tappan, Priestley, Clarke,
+    All push each other from the door of Truth.
+
+    None ever have, nor ever will, on earth,
+    Reach truth of theory concerning Fate.
+    It stands as whole from every touch of man
+    As ocean’s broad blue scroll, whose rubber waves
+    Erase the furrows of the plowing keels.
+
+    Then, careless whether man be king or slave,
+    I’ll take his actions, whether free or not,
+    And trace them to their sources. Deep the dive,
+    But, throwing off the buoys of Charity
+    And Faith, and all the prejudice of life,
+    I grasp the lead of Doubt, and downward sink
+    Into the cesspool of the human heart,
+    To find the fount, that to the surface casts
+    A thousand bubbles of such varied hues:
+    The pale white bubble of hypocrisy,
+    The murky bubble of revenge and hate,
+    The frail gilt bubble of ambition’s hope,
+    The rainbow bubble of sweet love in youth,
+    The dull slime bubble of a sensual lust,
+    The crystal bubble of true charity!
+    Instead of analyzing every fact
+    Of moral nature, searching for its source,
+    I’ll name a source most probable, and try
+    The facts upon it; if they fit, confirm,
+    If not, reject. With Hobbes and Paley then
+    I join; and here avow that all mankind
+    Have but one source of action--Love of self--
+    Yet not self-love as understands the world,
+    For that’s a name for error shown by few;
+    But natural instinct that impels all men
+    To give self pleasure, and to save it pain;
+    For pain and pleasure are Life’s only modes--
+    No neutral state--we suffer, or enjoy;
+    And every action’s linked with one of these.
+    We cannot act without a consciousness,
+    A consciousness of pleasure or of pain,
+    The very automatic workings of our frames
+    Are pleasures, unmarked from their constancy;
+    But if impeded, they produce a pain.
+    This instinct, teaching us to pleasure seek,
+    And pain avoid, none ever disobey;
+    For be their conduct what it may, a crime
+    Or virtue, greed or pure benevolence,
+    To find the greatest pleasure is their aim.
+    Nay, start not, critic, but attend the proofs.
+    A man exists within himself alone,
+    Himself, or he would lose identity.
+    To him the world exists but by effects
+    Upon himself. His actions toward it then
+    Bear reference to himself. He cannot act
+    Without affecting self. His nature’s law
+    Demands that self be dealt with pleasantly.
+
+    There is no pain or pleasure in the world,
+    But as he feels th’ reality in self,
+    Or fancies it by signs in other men.
+    This fancied pain is never _real_ pain,
+    But yields a _real_ reflex. Others’ pain
+    Is never pain to us, unless we know
+    It does exist. Within a hundred yards
+    A neighbor dies, in agony intense,
+    And yet we feel no slightest trace of pain,
+    Unless informed thereof. ’Tis only when we know,
+    And therefore are affected, that we feel.
+
+    The modes of pain and pleasure are then two,
+    A real and a fancied one. The first acute,
+    In ratio of our sensibilities;
+    The last in ratio of our image-power.
+    These gifts in different men unequal are,
+    And hence life’s varied phases. One may deem
+    A real pain far greater than a pain
+    In fancy formed, from others’ sufferings;
+    He eats alone, and drives the starving off.
+    Another’s fancy paints more vividly,
+    And he endures keen hunger to supply
+    The poor with food. And so of pleasure too,--
+    And this moves all to shun the greatest pain,
+    And find the greatest pleasure.
+                                    Different minds,
+    And each at different times of life, possess
+    A different standard of this highest good.
+    The swaddled infant wails for its own food,
+    Because its highest pleasure is alone in sense;
+    The child will from its playmate hide a cake
+    Until it learns that praise for sharing it
+    Gives greater pleasure than the sweetened taste;
+    One boy at school proves insubordinate,
+    His schoolmates’ praise he deems his highest good;
+    Another studies well, because he values more
+    A parent’s smile. The murderer with his knife,
+    The maiden praying in her purity,
+    The miser dying over hoards of gold,
+    The widow casting thither her two mites,
+    A white-veil bending o’er the dying couch,
+    A stained beauty floating through the waltz,
+    The preacher’s zeal, the gambler’s eager zest;
+    All have one motive, greatest good to self!
+
+    The tender stop their ears, and cry aloud:
+    “What! do you dare assert the gambler seeks
+    With hellish zeal the faintest shade of good?
+    That he is holy as the Man of God?”
+    By no means, yet he seeks his good the same.
+    Not good as you’ve been taught to apprehend,
+    But good, the greatest to his frame of mind.
+    Do not exclaim that good is always good,
+    And never differs from itself. Anon
+    We’ll speak of abstract truths, if such there be
+    That good and pleasure are synonymous
+    At times of action, is most surely plain;
+    For pleasure’s but the consciousness of good,
+    Or satisfaction of our tendencies.
+    If all the gambler’s soul is bent on gain,
+    Then at the moment gain is greatest good;
+    But should you reason with him, and explain
+    Another life, and make it really seem
+    To him the best, he straight would change his course.
+
+    “But,” cries my friend, “the preacher, if he’s true,
+    Must labor, not for self, but others’ good;
+    And in proportion as the self’s forgot,
+    And others cared for, does his conduct rise.”
+
+    But he can not, if conscious, forget self,
+    For everything he does is felt within;
+    But deeds for others’ good a pleasure give;
+    If done in pain to self, the pleasure’s more.
+    To gain the pleasure, self is put to pain,
+    Just as a vesication brings relief.
+    If he refused to undergo the pain
+    Remorse would double it.
+                             Among his flock
+    Some one is sick; to visit him is right,
+    And done, affords a pleasure. Sweeter far
+    That pleasure, if he walks through snow and ice,
+    At duty’s call!
+
+                    Sublime self-sacrifice,
+    Of which men prate, is nothing more nor less
+    Than base self-worship. Little pain endured
+    T’ avoid a great; a smaller pleasure lost
+    To gain a larger!
+
+                      All the preacher’s words,
+    That burn or die upon the stolid ear,
+    Are spoken from this motive, good to self.
+    You stare; but it is true. Why does he preach?
+    To save men’s souls?--Why does he try to save?
+    Because he loves his fellow-men? Not so.
+    His love for them but to the pleasure adds,
+    Which duty done confers; but all his work
+    Must be with reference to himself alone,
+    Though cunning self the real motive hides,
+    And leaves his broad philanthropy and love
+    To claim the merit. Let a score of men,
+    The blackest sinners, die. He knows it not,
+    And feels no pang; but if he is informed,
+    He suffers reflex pain. And if his charge,
+    Remorseful tortures for unfaithfulness.
+    And only is the state of souls to him
+    Of interest, as they are known. When known,
+    It is a source of pleasure or of pain
+    Which all his labor is to gain or shun.
+
+    “This difference then,” says one, “between men’s lives;
+    Some live for present, some for future good.
+    The sensual care for self on earth alone,
+    The mystic cares for self beyond the grave.”
+
+    Both love a present self, in present time.
+    They differ in their notions of its good.
+    The stern ascetic, with his shirt of hair,
+    His bleeding penitential knees, his fasts
+    To almost death, his soul-exhausting prayers,
+    Is seeking, cries the world, good after death.
+    And yet his course of life is that alone
+    Which could yield pleasure in his state of mind.
+    He suffers, it is true, but hope of Heaven
+    Thus rendered sure, as much a present good
+    Is, as the food that feasts the epicure.
+    The contemplation of his future home,
+    Which he is thus securing, is a balm
+    That heals his stripes, and sweetens all their pain.
+    The penance blows upon his blood-wealed breast
+    Are bliss compared to lashes of remorse.
+    So for the greater good, the hope of Heaven,
+    He undergoes “the trivial pain of flesh.”
+    The epicure cares not a fig for Heaven,
+    But finds his greatest good in pleasing sense.
+    And so the man who gives his wealth away
+    Is just as selfish as the money-slave
+    Who grinds out life amid his dusty bags.
+    They both seek happiness with equal zest:
+    The one finds pleasure in the many thanks
+    Of those receiving, or the public’s praise,
+    Or if concealed, in consciousness of right;
+    The other in the consciousness of wealth.
+
+    If all men act from motives just the same,
+    Where is the right and wrong? In the effect?
+    The quality of actions must be judged
+    From their intent, and not their consequence.
+    If two men matches light for their cigars,
+    And from one careless dropped, a house is burned,
+    Is he that dropped it guiltier of crime
+    Than he whose match went out? Most surely no!
+    Then is the miser blameless, though he turn
+    The helpless orphan freezing from his door;
+    And Dives should not be commended more,
+    Though all his goods to feed the poor he gives.
+
+    How then shall we determine quality
+    Of actions, when their sources are the same,
+    And their effects possess no quality?
+    Two dead men lie in blood beside the way,
+    The one shot by a friend, an accident;
+    The other murdered for his gold. ’Tis plain
+    No wrong lies in th’ effects, for both are ’like;
+    And of the agents, he of accident
+    Had no intent, and therefore did no wrong.
+    The other killed to satisfy the self,
+    A motive founding all the Christian work,
+    And right if that is right. The wrong
+    Then lies between the motive and effect,
+    And must exist in the effecting means.
+    Yet how within the means is wrong proved wrong?
+    Jouffroy would say, because a disregard
+    Of others’ rights; for here he places good,
+    When classifying Nature’s moral facts.
+    He makes the child first serve flesh self,
+    Then moral self, and last to others’ good
+    Ascend, and general order. What a myth!
+    As if man thought of others, save effect
+    From them upon himself. But order gives
+    A greater good to self; therefore he joins
+    His strength to others, creates laws that bind
+    Himself and them, and produce harmony.
+    He thus surrenders minor good of self,
+    To gain a greater. This is all the need
+    He has of order, though Jouffroy asserts
+    That order universal is the Good.
+    Yet still he says that private good of each
+    Is but a fragment of the absolute,
+    And that regard for every being’s rights
+    Is binding as the universal law!
+
+    Regard for others’ rights indeed, when men
+    Unharmed agree to hang a man for crime!
+    Not for the crime--that’s past; but to prevent
+    A second crime, which crime alone exists
+    In apprehensive fancy. Thus for wrong
+    That’s but forethought, they do a real wrong.
+    To save their rights from harm they fear may come.
+    They strip a fellow-man of actual right,
+    And highest, right of life; then dare to call
+    Their action pure, divinely just, and good,
+    And all the farce of empty names.
+                                      They make
+    Of gross injustice individual,
+    A flimsy justice, for mankind at large,
+    And cry, Let it be done, though Heaven fall!
+    As if a whole could differ from its parts,
+    Or right be made from wrong. Yet some may say
+    That one is sacrificed for many’s good,
+    Or hung that many may avoid his fate;
+    And that his crime deserved what he received.
+
+    But law must value every man alike,
+    And cannot save one man, or thousand men,
+    From future evil, only possible,
+    By greatest evil to another man,
+    In its own view of justice. Nor can crime
+    Meet punishment, at mortal hands, by right,
+    For murder’s murder, done by one or twelve,
+    And legal murder’s done in colder blood,
+    Whose stains are chalked by vain authority.
+    Authority! the child of numbers and self-love!
+    Regard for rights of things, indeed, when beasts
+    And birds must yield their right of life that man
+    May please his right of taste. When, during Lent,
+    The holy-days of fasting and of prayer,
+    The scaly victims crowd the Bishop’s board,
+    Their flesh unfleshed by Conscience’ pliant rule,
+    Our palates must be for a moment pleased,
+    Though costing something agonies of death;
+    And worse than robbers, what we cannot give,
+    We dare to take.
+                     They have no souls, say you?
+    Nor after death exist?
+                           That nothing’s lost,
+    Philosophy maintains as axiom truth.
+    An object disappears, but somewhere lives
+    In other form. The water-pool to mist
+    Is changed, the powder into flame and smoke.
+    My pointer dies, his body, decomposed,
+    The air, the soil, and vegetation feeds;
+    Yet still exists, although disintegrate.
+    For there was something, while the pointer lived,
+    That was not body, but that governed it,
+    A spirit, essence, call it what you will,
+    A something seen but through phenomena,
+    And by them proved most clearly to exist.
+    A something, not the feet that made them run,
+    A something, not the eyes, but knew they saw,
+    A something, without which the eyes could see
+    As much as glasses can without the eye,
+    The something, “Carlo” named, that knew the name.
+    The pointer dies, and we dissect the flesh.
+    All there, none missing, to the tiniest nerve;
+    Yet something’s gone, the more important part,
+    And can you say that it has ceased to be,
+    When th’ flesh, inferior to it, still exists?
+    The spirit, if existent, must be whole,
+    Nor can be parted till material proven.
+    That Carlo lives, seems plain as I shall live;
+    He lived for self, and so did I; we fare
+    Alike in after-life, we differ here
+    In consciousness of immortality.
+    But I digress.
+                   Where is the right and wrong?
+    This is the Gordian knot no sword can cut,
+    All sages of the world, with wisdom-teeth,
+    Have gnawed this file without the least effect.
+    The thousand savants of old Greece and Rome
+    Proclaimed a thousand theories of good,
+    That each, successive, proud devoid of truth.
+    A myriad moderns have advanced their views,
+    Each gained a few disciples, who avowed their truth,
+    And each, by some one else, been proven wrong.
+    A Bentham marches out utility,
+    A moral test from benefit or harm.
+    As if the good depended on effect,
+    And good would not be good, though universe
+    In all its phases found no use! And Price
+    Parades his “reason,” with its simple good;
+    Who’d rather give the question up, than err,
+    And so declares it cannot be defined.
+    Then Wollaston declares that good is truth,
+    Which no one doubts, far as it goes; it goes
+    Toward good, as far as truth, its attribute;
+    Beyond, it cannot reach. And Montesquieu
+    And Clarke, relation’s order preach; a rule
+    That makes the growing grain, or falling shower,
+    A moral agent, capable of good.
+    Then Wolf and Malebranche perfection see,
+    And therefore good, in God; but their sight fails,
+    And God may mirror good, but man’s weak eyes
+    Ne’er see it. Adam Smith, with “sentiment”
+    Proceeds to dress a thought, and call it, good;
+    And makes the abstract of a Universe
+    Arise from puling human sympathy.
+    The largest concourse follow Hutcheson,
+    Although the greater part ne’er heard of him.
+    The world at large believes in moral sense;
+    They call it conscience! Oh the precious word!
+    Though stretched and warped, they almost deify,
+    And term it man’s tribunal in his breast,
+    Where he may judge his actions, right or wrong.
+    What nonsense! Conscience is but consciousness
+    Of soul, and idea of its good. We form
+    This idea from regard of fellow-men,
+    Association, and from thought. We find
+    Sometimes the good of soul conflicts with flesh,
+    And when we know the soul above the flesh,
+    We yield to that the preference. Hence arise
+    The foolish notions of self disregard.
+    The savage does not know he has a soul,
+    And therefore has no conscience. He can steal
+    Without remorse. But when he learns of soul,
+    He finds it has a good, and by this test
+    Tries moral actions, are they good for soul?
+    And this is conscience.
+                            Yet is conscience changed
+    By circumstance. The Hindoo mother tears
+    The helpless infant from her trickling breast,
+    To feed the crocodile, and save her soul;
+    She’s happier in its conscience-murdered wail
+    Than in its gleeful prattle on her knee.
+    And daily we see one commit a deed
+    Without a pang, another dare not do.
+    If conscience may be warped but one degree
+    By plain Sorites, it may be reversed,
+    And only prove an interested thought.
+
+    To abstract good no man has found the key,
+    Though in the various forms of concrete good
+    We see the similars, and from these frame
+    A good that serves the purposes of life.
+    We pass it as we do the concept, “Man,”
+    But never ope to count the attributes.
+    Our purest right is but approximate
+    To this vague abstract idea, how obtained,
+    We know not. Plato says ’tis memory
+    Of previous life. Perhaps! ’Tis very dim
+    In this; and yet it rocks the cradle world
+    As strongly as the baby man can bear
+    And so of truth, or aught abstract, we know
+    Of such existence somewhere, that is all.
+    “But we,” cries one, “do hold some abstract truth,
+    In perfect form. The truth of science’ laws,
+    The truths of numbers, each are perfect truths.”
+    The truths of science are hypotheses,
+    And only true as far as they explain.
+    But perfect truth must save all facts,
+    That ever rose or possibly can rise.
+    “The priest of Nature” thought he held the truth
+    When throughout space he tracked the motes of light,
+    And ground the sunbeams into dazzling dust.
+    Our quivering waves through subtle ether flash,
+    And drown Sir Isaac’s atoms in a flood
+    Of glorious truth; till some new fact shall rise
+    To give our truth the lie, and cause a change
+    Of theory.
+               Our numbers no truth have,
+    Or but a shadow, cast on Earth by truth
+    Existent in some unknown world. We make
+    Our little numbers fit the shadow’s line
+    As best they can, and boast eternal truth!
+    Yet take a simple form of numbers, “two,”
+    We cannot have a perfect thought of this,
+    Because the mind directly asks, two what?
+    ’Tis not enough chameleon to feed
+    On empty air. Two units, we reply
+    Then what is meant by unity? An “One,”--
+    The mind can only cognize o-n-e,
+    Which makes three units and not one.
+                                         The mind
+    Must have a concrete object to adjust
+    The abstract on, before it comprehends.
+    But two concretes are never two, because
+    They never can be proved exactly ’like.
+    To illustrate: suppose two ivory balls,
+    Of finest mold, and equal weight, precise
+    As hair-hung scales, arranged most delicate,
+    Can prove; yet they can not be shown
+    To differ, not the trillionth of a grain;
+    Or if they could, they may in density
+    Be unlike; then to equal weight, one must
+    Be larger by the trillionth of an inch.
+    Even if alike in density and weight,
+    No one will dare assert that they possess
+    A perfect similarity in all.
+    The abstract two is twice as much as one,
+    But our two balls unlike, perforce must be
+    Greater or less than two of either one;
+    But two of one, the same can never be
+    On poor, imperfect Earth. Thus all our twos
+    Fall, in some measure, short of concept two.
+    And if we paint the concept to the eye,
+    The figure 2 of finest stereotype,
+    Beneath the microscope imperfect shows.
+    And so our perfect numbers, wisdom’s boast,
+    Are faint, uncertain shadows in the mind,
+    That we can never picture to the eye,
+    Nor truthfully apply to anything.
+    We use a ragged, ill-drawn substitute,
+    That answers all the purposes of life.
+    The truths of mathematics, so sublime,
+    Are never true to us, concretely known;
+    And in the abstract so concealed are they,
+    No man can swear he has their perfect form.
+    We can’t conceive a line without some breadth--
+    The perfect line possesses length alone;
+    Earth never saw a pure right-angle drawn,
+    Pythag’ras cannot prove his theorem,
+    The finest quadrant is but nearest truth,
+    The closest measures but approximate,
+    And all from Sanconiathon to Pierce,
+    With grandest soaring into Number’s realms,
+    Have only fluttered feebly o’er the ground,
+    Their heaven-strong wings by feebling matter tied.
+
+    Man is a pris’ner, but the prison walls
+    Are very vast; so vast the universe
+    Lies, like a mote, within their mighty scope.
+    Most are content to grovel on the earth,
+    Some rise a little way, and sink again;
+    And some, on noble wing, soar to the bounds,
+    And eager beat the bars. Beyond these walls
+    The abstract lies, and oft the straggling rays,
+    Through crevices and chinks, stray to our jail;
+    And these we fondly hug as truth.
+                                      Poor man!
+    The glimpses of the great Beyond have roused,
+    For centuries, his curious soul to flight.
+    With eagle eye fixed on the distant goal,
+    He cleaves his way, till dashed against the walls;
+    Some fall with bruiséd wing again to Earth,
+    And some cling bravely there, so eager they
+    To reach the untouched prize, and so intent
+    Their gaze upon its light, they notice not
+    The bounds, till Hamilton, with wary eye,
+    Discovers the Eternal bounding line,
+    And sadly shows its hopeless fixity.
+
+    But man on Earth I love to ridicule,
+    A little clod of sordid selfishness!
+    I’ll take his mental acts of every kind
+    And see how self originates them all;
+    I’ll follow Stewart, since he classifies
+    With shrewd discretion, though his reasoning err,
+    He places first the appetites; and these
+    Perforce are selfish, as our self alone
+    Must feel and suffer with our wants. Our food
+    Tastes good alone to us. The richest feast,
+    In others’ mouths, could never satisfy
+    Our appetite for food; self must be fed.
+    Desires are next; and that of knowledge, first,
+    Is proven selfish, by his quoted line
+    From Cicero--that “knowledge is the food
+    Of mind”--and food is ever sought for self.
+    Desire of social intercourse with men,
+    From thought that it will better self, proceeds.
+    Man’s state is friendly, not a state of war,
+    For instinct teaches him society
+    Will offer many benefits to self;
+    And only when he has a cause to fear
+    That self will suffer, does he learn to war.
+    Desire to gain esteem, is self in search
+    Of approbation; like the appetite,
+    The end pursued affects alone the self.
+    And lastly Stewart boasts posthumous fame,
+    When self, as sacrificed, can seek no good.
+    To prove the motive is a selfish good,
+    I’ll not assert enjoyment after life,
+    But say, the pleasure of the millions’ praise,
+    Anticipated in the present thought,
+    And intense consciousness of heroism,
+    Far more than compensates the pangs of death.
+    A Curtius leaping down the dread abyss,
+    Enjoys his fame enough, before he strikes,
+    To pay for every pain of mangling death.
+    Affections next adorn the moral page.
+    At that of kindred, mothers cry aloud:
+    “For shame! for shame! do you pretend to say
+    I love my child with any thought of self?
+    When I would lay my arm upon the block,
+    And have it severed for his slightest good!”
+    I’ll square your love by Reason’s rigid rule,
+    And test its source. Why do you love him so?
+    For benefit he has conferred, or may?
+    No, as the helpless babe, demanding care,
+    You love him most. Your love is instinct then,
+    And like the cow her calf, you love your child;
+    That you may care for him, before self moves.
+    Then do you love him always just the same,
+    When rude and bad as when obedient?
+    But I’ll dissect your love, and take away
+    Each part affecting self; and see what’s left.
+    He now has grown beyond your instinct love;
+    You love him, first, because he is your son,
+    And you would suffer blame, if you did not;
+    You love him, too, because he does reflect
+    A credit on yourself. You feel assured
+    That others thinking well of him, think well
+    Of you. Because it flatters all your pride
+    To think so fine a life is part of yours;
+    Because his high opinion of your worth
+    Evokes a meet return; because you look
+    Into the future, and see honors bright
+    Awaiting you through him; because you feel
+    The world is praising you for loving him,
+    And would condemn you, did you not. And last,
+    You feel the pleasure deep of self-esteem,
+    Because you fill the public’s and your own
+    Romantic ideas of a mother’s love.
+
+    Let each component part be now destroyed,
+    And see if still you love him. As a man,
+    He plunges into vice of vilest kinds;
+    His bright reflections on yourself are gone,
+    And people think the worse of you, for him;
+    You never smile, but frown, upon him now,
+    But still you love him dearly! To his vice
+    He adds a crime, a foul and blasting crime;
+    Your pride is gone, you feel a bitter shame,
+    A score of opposites to love creep in;
+    A righteous anger at his foolish sins,
+    A just contempt for nature, weak as his;
+    But yet you love him fondly, for the world
+    Is lauding you for “mother’s holy love”;
+    And you delight its clinging strength to show,
+    You gain in public credit by your woes,
+    And get the soothing martyr’s sympathy.
+    But let him still grow worse, and sink so low,
+    That people say you are disgraced through him,
+    Your warmest friends will not acquaintance own,
+    Your love for such an object’s ridiculed,
+    And gains respect from none. Your only chance
+    Is to disown him. How you loud proclaim,
+    “He’s not my child but by the accident
+    Of birth!”
+               Do yet you love him in your heart?
+    This then because you think yourself so good,
+    So heaven-like, for loving him disgraced,
+    You go to see him in the shameful jail;
+    He spits upon, and beats you from his cell,
+    And tells you that he hates your very name.
+    Now all your love is gone, except the glow
+    Of pity for him chained to dungeon floor;
+    But he’s released, and deeper goes in crime;
+    Then, lastly, Pity yields. Your heart is stone!
+
+    But love was only touched in selfish part,
+    Yet should you still deny your love is self’s;
+    Of several children, do you not love most
+    The one whose conduct pleases most yourself?
+    But love, unselfish, never could be moved
+    By anything affecting self alone.
+
+    The throbbing hearts of lovers beat for self,
+    And this I’ll prove, though Pyramus may vow
+    He has no thought but Thisbe.
+                                  Take away
+    Love’s sensual part, which is an appetite,
+    And therefore selfish, by its Nature’s law;
+    And what remains is, first, a slight conceit
+    At our discernment in the choice we’ve made,
+    And then a pride that we have won the prize;
+    A pride, that some one thinks we are the best;
+    A pleasure in her presence, too, we feel,
+    Because in every look she manifests
+    Her preference for us. This is flattering
+    Beyond all else that we have ever known.
+    A friend may raise our self-esteem, indeed,
+    By showing constantly his own esteem,
+    But never can man’s vanity receive
+    A higher tribute than a woman’s love!
+    This tribute, we, of course, reciprocate,
+    And when together, we increase self-love
+    By mutual words expressing our regard.
+    Yet when our love is deepest, if we find
+    Our Self is not so worshipped as we thought,
+    Our love grows cold; and when we are not loved
+    We cease to love. To illustrate permit:
+
+    You’re on the topmost wave of fervid love--
+    A wilder flame than poets ever sung;
+    You’ve passed the timid declaration’s bounds,
+    And revel in a full assured return.
+    There is no need for check upon your heart,
+    It has full leave to pour its gushing tide
+    Of feeling forth, and meet responsive floods.
+    You meet her in the parlor’s solitude,
+    No meddling eye to watch the sacred scene.
+    The purple curtains hang their corded folds
+    Before the tell-tale windows; closed the door,
+    And sealed with softest list. The rich divan
+    Is drawn before the ruddy grate that glows
+    With red between the bars, and blue above.
+    You sit beside The Angel of your dreams,
+    And gaze in adoration. What a form!
+    Revealed in faultless symmetry by robes
+    Of rare, exquisite elegance, and taste,
+    That fit the tap’ring waist and arching neck.
+    And how superbly flow the torrents of her hair!
+    Which she has shaken loose, because “it’s you”;
+    Her great brown eyes that gaze so dreamily
+    Upon the flowers of the vellum-screen
+    That wards the fire from her tinted cheek!
+    One hollow foot, in dainty, bronze bootee,
+    Tapping the tufted lion on the rug;
+    A snowy hand with blazing solitaire--
+    The pledge of your betrothal--nestling soft
+    Within your own.
+                     And thus you sit, and breathe
+    With tones so soft, because the ear’s so near,
+    The mutual confidence of little cares;
+    And how you longed for months to tell your love,
+    But feared a cold rebuke; and how you dared
+    To hope through all the gloom; and how you grieved
+    At every favor shown to other men;
+    How now the clouds have flown away,
+    And all is brightness, joy, and tender love.
+    Then drawing nearer, round the slender waist
+    You pass an arm; and nestling cheek to cheek,
+    Palm throbbing palm, you hush all useless words,
+    And thought meets thought, in silent love.
+    And now and then, you leave the cheek, to kiss
+    The coral lips; yet not with transient touch,
+    But with a fervid, lingering pressure there,
+    As if you longed to force the lips apart,
+    And drink the soul; while both her melting orbs
+    Are drooped beneath your burning inch-near eyes.
+    The parting hour must come. The good-night said,
+    You rise to leave; and turning, at the door,
+    You see her head drooped on the sofa’s arm,
+    You fancy she is sighing that you’re gone;
+    And stealing back on tiptoe, gently raise
+    The beauteous face, and take it ’twixt your palms;
+    And gazing on the features radiant,
+    Distorted queerly by your pressing hands,
+    You feel that life, the parting cannot bear,
+    That you must stay forever there, or die!
+    Another effort, one more nectar sip,
+    You rush from out the room, and slam the door,
+    Just on the steps, you meet your rival’s face.
+    He has an easy confidence, and walks
+    Into the house, as if it were his own.
+    Poor fellow! how you really pity him!
+    You can afford to be magnanimous,
+    And deprecate his certain, cruel fate.
+    You murmur: “Well, he brings it on himself,”
+    And turn to go. The window’s near the ground,
+    And slightly raised. Although you know it’s mean,
+    You cannot now resist, but creep up near,
+    And with a finger part the curtain’s fringe.
+    You see your darling run across the room
+    With both extended hands, and hear her say:
+    “Oh Fred! I am so very glad you’ve come,
+    I feared that stupid thing would never leave,
+    I had to let him take my hand awhile,
+    And mumble over it, to get him off.”
+
+    You grasp the iron railing for support,
+    And, faint and dizzy with the agony
+    Of love’s departure, cling till all has fled;
+    Then stagger home without a trace of love.
+    Yet only Self is touched; her beauty’s there,
+    Her sparkling wit, and her intelligence,
+    Her manner even, towards you, has not changed,
+    And, were you with her, she would be the same.
+    Love’s every motive disappeared with Self,
+    No pride of conquest, no romance of thought;
+    You meet no sympathy, but ridicule!
+
+    A mother’s love may last through injury,
+    Because it reaps the self’s reward of praise
+    For constancy, through wrong. The lover’s flame.
+    Unless supplied with fuel-self, dies out,
+    For, burning, ’twould deserve supreme contempt.
+
+    The less affairs of life are traced to Self.
+    The code of Etiquette, that Chesterfield
+    Defines “Benevolence in little things,”
+    Is but a scheme to give Self consciousness
+    Of excellence in breeding, and to keep
+    “Our Circle” sep’rate by its shibboleth.
+    The stately bow, the graceful sip of wine,
+    The useless little finger’s dainty crook
+    In lifting up the fragile Sevres cup,
+    The holding of the hat in morning calls,
+    The touch of it when passing through the streets,
+    The drawing of a glove, the use of cane--
+    Our every act is coupled with the thought
+    How well Self does all this.
+
+                                 Our very words
+    Are used to gratify the self. Men talk
+    By preference, for they judge their words
+    Will gain them more applause than listening.
+    But if attention yields more fruit to Self,
+    How patiently they hear the longest tale,
+    And laugh in glee at its insipid close!
+    If with superiors, we attend, because
+    Attention pleases more with them than words;
+    But if inferiors, we must talk the most,
+    Since their attention flatters us so much.
+    The cause of converse, Self, is oftenest food.
+    How few the talks that are not spiced with “I,”
+    What “I” can do, or did or will!
+
+                                     Sometimes,
+    The Self is held, on purpose, up for jest;
+    As when men tell a joke upon themselves.
+    But here the shame of conduct or mishap
+    Is more than balanced by the hearty laugh,
+    Which gives its pleasant witness to our wit.
+    We never tell what will present ourselves
+    In such an aspect laughter cannot heal;
+    Although it compliments our telling powers.
+
+    Attentions to the fair, but seek for Self
+    Their smiles of favor. Little deeds of love
+    To those around us, look for their reward.
+    The youth polite, who gives his chair to Age,
+    “Without a thought of Self,” is yet provoked,
+    If Age do not evince, by nod or smile,
+    His obligation to that unthought Self.
+
+    The very qualities we call innate,
+    Arise and rule through Self. Our reverence,
+    Or tendency to worship, is to gain
+    A good. Religion grows this tendency
+    Into the various Churches, all whose ends
+    Are to secure eternal good for Self.
+    And those who preach that man does sacrifice
+    Himself for fellow-men, I ask, why none
+    Will give his soul for others’? Many give
+    The paltry life on Earth for others’ good;
+    The very stones would cry “O! fool!” to him
+    Who’d yield his soul; for that is highest Self,
+    And nothing e’er can compensate its loss.
+
+    In all these things, Self stands behind the scenes,
+    And men see not the force that moves them on.
+    But in the boudoir, ’tis enthroned supreme,
+    And does not care to hide the cloven foot.
+    In every home, the marble and the log,
+    In mammoth trunks, and chests of simple pine,
+    In rosewood cases, and the pasteboard box,
+    Are crammed the slaves of Self, to poor and rich,
+    The clothes that, fine or common, feed its pride.
+    The velvets, satins, silken _robes de flamme_,
+    The worsted, calico, and homespun stripe;
+    The Guipure, Valenciennes, and Appliqué,
+    The gimp, galloon, and shallow bias frill;
+    The Talmas, Arabs, basques and paletots,
+    The coarse plaid shawl, the hood, and woollen scarf;
+    The chignons, chatelaines, and plaited braids,
+    The beaded net, and tight-screwed knot of hair;
+    The dazzling jewels, ranged in season sets,
+    The pinchbeck, gilt, and waxen trinketry;
+    The tinted boots, half-way the silken hose,
+    The shoes that tie o’er cotton blue-and-white;
+    The corset laced to hasten ready Death,
+    The leather belt, that cuts the broad, thick waist;
+    The bosom heaving only waves of wire,
+    The bosom, cotton stuffed, beyond all shape;
+    The belladonna sparkling in the eye,
+    The finger tip, and water without soap;
+    The rouge and carmine for the city cheeks,
+    The berries’ ruddy juice for rural ones;
+    The pearly powder, with its poisoned dust,
+    The cup of flour to ghastlify the face;--
+    All these, and thousand fixtures none can count,
+    Man’s vanity, and woman’s love of show,
+    Appropriate for Self.
+                          And such is Man!
+    The puzzle of the Universe! Within,
+    A giant to himself; without, a babe.
+    A giant that we cannot but despise,
+    A babe we must admire for his power.
+    His mind, Promethean spark divine, can pierce
+    The shadowy Past, and gaze in rapturous awe
+    Upon the birth of worlds, that from the Mind
+    Eternal spring to blazing entities,
+    And whirl their radiant orbs through cooling space;
+    Or place the earth beneath its curious ken,
+    And with an “Open Sesame!” descend
+    Into its rocky chambers, there unfold
+    The stone archives, and read their graven truths--
+    Earth’s history written by itself therein--
+    How age by age, a globe of liquid fire,
+    It dimmer grew, and dark and stiff,
+    And drying, took a rough, uneven face;
+    Above the wave, the mountain’s smoking top
+    Appeared, beneath it gaped the valley’s gorge;
+    But smoking still, it stood a gloomy globe,
+    Naked and without life. And how the trees
+    And herbs their robes of foliage brought; their form
+    And life adapted to their heated bed.
+    And how a stream of animation poured
+    Upon its face, when ready to sustain;
+    Great beasts who trod the cindered soil unscathed,
+    And tramped the fervid plains with unscorched soles.
+    Great fish whose hardened fins hot waters churned
+    That steamed at every stroke. How periods passed
+    And fields and forests teemed with gentler life,
+    The waters wound in rivers to the sea,
+    Then spread their vap’ry wings and fled to land.
+    The oceans tossed in bondage patiently;
+    Volcanic mountains closed their festering mouths,
+    And Earth made ready for her master, Man.
+
+    It traces Man, expelled from Paradise,
+    Along the winding track of centuries.
+    It marks his slow development, from two,
+    To families, and tribes, and nations vast.
+    It gazes on the wondrous scenes of war,
+    And peace, and battle plain, and civic game;
+    And lives through each, with all of real life,
+    Except the body’s presence there. It turns
+    From man to beasts and birds, and careless strokes
+    The lion’s mane, the humbird’s scarlet throat.
+    It tracks the mammoth to his jungle home,
+    Or creeps within the infusoria’s cell.
+    It measures Earth from pole to pole, or weighs
+    The bit of brass, that lights the battery spark.
+    Is Earth too small, it plumes its flight through space;
+    From world to world, as bird from twig to twig,
+    It flies, and furls its wing upon their discs,
+    To tell their weight, and giant size, or breathe
+    Their very air to find its gaseous parts.
+    Now bathing in pale Saturn’s misty rings,
+    Or chasing all the moons of Jupiter
+    Behind his darkened cone. The glorious sun,
+    With dazzling vapor robe, and seas of fire,
+    Whose cyclones dart the forkèd flames far out,
+    To lap so hungrily amid the stars,
+    Is but its playhouse, where it rides the storms,
+    That sweep vast trenches through the surging fire,
+    In which the little Earth could roll unseen;
+    Or bolder still, beyond our system’s bounds,
+    It soars amid the wilderness of worlds;
+    Finds one condemned to meet a doom of fire,
+    And makes its very flames inscribe their names,
+    In dusky lines, upon the spectroscope.
+    With shuddering thought to see a world consumed,
+    The fate prepared for ours, it lingers there
+    Until the lurid conflagration dies.
+    And then seeks Earth, and leaves the laggard,
+    Light,
+    To plod its journey vast.
+                              The smallest mote
+    Of dust that settles on an insect’s wing,
+    It can dissect to atoms ultimate.
+    With these, too small for sight, may Fancy deal,
+    And revel in her Lilliputian realm.
+    These atoms forming all, by Boscovitch
+    Are proved, in everything, to be alike;
+    And ultimate, since indivisible.
+    Each in its place maintained by innate force
+    And relatively far from each, as Earth
+    From Sun.
+              Suppose, then, each to be a world,
+    Peopled with busy life, a human flood,
+    As earnest in their little plans as we,
+    As grand in their opinion of themselves!
+    Oh! what a depth of contrast for the mind!
+    The finest grain of sand, upon the beach,
+    Has in its form a million perfect worlds!
+    Or take the other scale, suppose the Earth,
+    Our great and glorious Earth, to only form
+    The millionth atom of some grain of sand,
+    That shines unnoticed on an ocean’s shore,
+    Whose waves wash o’er our whirling stars and sun
+    Too insignificant to feel their surge.
+    Another step on either side, and mind,
+    In flesh, shrinks from the giant grasp.
+    Yet noble are its pinions, strong their flight;
+    Thrice, only, do they droop their baffled strength,
+    Before the Future, Infinite, Abstract!
+    The first is locked, the second out of reach,
+    The third a maze that none can penetrate.
+    The first, alone to inspiration opes;
+    The second dashed to Earth her boldest wing,
+    Spinoza’s, who essayed the idea God,
+    And grappling bravely with the grand concept,
+    So far above the utmost strength of Man,
+    Placed God’s existence in extent and thought;
+    And filled all space with God. The Universe,
+    A bud or bloom of the Eternal Mind,
+    That opens like a flower into this form,
+    And may retract Creation in Itself!
+    Alas! that effort so sublime should end
+    In mystery and doubt.
+                          A Universe,
+    How vast so ever, has its bounds somewhere,
+    But Space possesses none, and God in Space,
+    Would be so far beyond Creation’s speck,
+    He scarce would know it did exist. That part
+    Of Mind, expressed in matter, would be lost
+    Amid the Infinite domains of thought.
+
+    Yet Man in flesh, the casket of the mind,
+    Whose wondrous power I’ve told, is ever chained,
+    A grovelling worm, to Earth, and never leaves
+    The sod where he must lie. No time is his
+    But present; not a mem’ry of the past.
+    His very food, while in his mouth, alone,
+    Tastes good. He stands a dummy in the world,
+    That only acts when acted on. How great
+    The mystery of union ’tween the two!
+    A feather touches not the body, but the mind
+    Perceives it; yet the mind may live through scenes
+    The body never knew, nor can. Yet not
+    With vivid life--the sense is lacking there.
+    The memory of a banquet may be plain,
+    So that the daintest dish could be described,
+    As well as if the eye and tongue were there;
+    The eye and tongue, alone the present know,
+    And find no good in anything that’s past.
+    All thought is folly, every path is dark;
+    Truth gleaming fairly in the distant haze,
+    On near approach becomes the blackest lie.
+    Man and his soul may go, nor will I fret
+    To learn their mystic bonds. A worm I am,
+    And worm I must remain, till Death shall burst
+    The chrysalis, and free the web-wound wings.
+    Yet, oh! ’twere grand to spurn the clogging Earth
+    And cleave the air towards yonder looming cloud;
+    To stand upon its red-bound crest and dare
+    The storm-king’s wildest wrath.
+
+                                    My thoughts
+    Grew dull, my eyelids slowly closed, the scene
+    Became confused and melted into sleep.
+    And far up in the blue, as yet untouched
+    By clouds, I saw a white descending speck.
+    Methought ’twas but a feather from the breast
+    Of some migrating swan, that Earthward fell,
+    And watched to see it caught upon the wind,
+    And sail a tiny kite to fairy land.
+    But circling down, the speck became a dove,
+    A heron, then a swan, and larger still,
+    Till I could mark a pair of great white wings,
+    Between which hung its wondrous form. Still down
+    It swept, till scarce above the trees it stood,
+    Resting on quivering wings, as if it sought
+    A place to ’light. I saw then what it was,
+    A steed of matchless beauty, agile grace,
+    Combined with muscled strength; but ere I drew
+    The first long breath, that follows such surprise
+    It gently downward swooped, and at my feet,
+    With dainty hoof, the turf impatient pawed.
+    Enrapt, I gazed upon its beauteous form,
+    Its sculptured head, and countenance benign,
+    The soft sad eyes, the arrow-pointed ears,
+    The scarlet nostrils opening like two flowers,
+    The sinewed neck, curved like a swimming swan’s,
+    The splendid mane, a cataract of milk,
+    That poured its foaming torrents half to Earth,
+    The tap’ring limbs, tipped with pink-hued hoofs,
+    That touched our soil with a proud disdain;
+    The dazzling satin coat, and netting veins,
+    And last the glorious wings, whose feathers lapped
+    Like scales of creamy gold. What seemed a cloth
+    Of woven snow, with richest silver fringe,
+    Draped with its gorgeous folds the shining flanks.
+
+    It was perfection’s type, the absolute,
+    Not one defect; the tiniest hair was smooth,
+    The smallest feather’s edge unfrayed. The eyes
+    Without the slightest bloodshot fleck, or mote.
+    No fault the microscope could have revealed,
+    Though magnifying many million times.
+    So great my wonder, that I could not move,
+    But lay entranced, while he stood waiting there;
+    Till wearied with my long delay, he raised
+    His wings half-way, and eager trembled them,
+    As bluebirds do when near their mate; a neigh
+    Of trumpet tone aroused me. Then I sprang
+    Upon his back, and wildly shouted “On!”
+    A spring with gathered feet, a clash of wings,
+    That made me cling in terror, and we swept
+    From Earth into the air. Woods, plains, and streams
+    Flashed by beneath, as, up and on, we charged
+    Straight to the frowning cloud.
+                                    My very brain
+    Reeled with our lightning speed, and dizzy height,
+    And oh! how silent was the air. No sound,
+    Except the steady beat of fanning wings,
+    That hurled us on a rod at every stroke.
+    The bellowing winds were loosed and fiercely met
+    Our flight. They tossed the broad white mane across
+    My shrinking shoulders, like a scarf of silk;
+    They blew the strong-quilled feathers all awry,
+    And like a banner beat the silvered cloth;
+    But swerving not to right or left, we pressed
+    Straight onward to the goal.
+                                 At last I reined
+    My steed upon the shaggy ridge of clouds,
+    And caracoled along the beetling cliffs,
+    Up to the very summit. Then I paused.
+    Behind me lay the world with all its hum
+    Of life, the distant city’s veil of smoke,
+    The village gleaming white amid the trees;
+    The very orchard I had left, now seemed
+    A downy nest of green, and far away
+    I caught the shimmer of the sea, where sails,
+    With glidings, glittered like the snowy gulls.
+    Behind all was serene, before me seethed
+    The caldron of the tempest’s wrath.
+                                        Thick clouds,
+    Thrice tenfold blacker than the black outside
+    We see, deep in the crackling fire-crypts writhed,
+    And boiling rose and fell. A deafening blast
+    Roaring its thunder voice above the scene,
+    As if the fiends of Hell concocted there
+    The scalding beverage of the damned.
+                                         My horse
+    Had snuffed the fumes, and rearing on the brink,
+    That fearful brink, an instant pawed the air,
+    And then sprang off. A suffocating plunge,
+    Through heat and blinding smoke, while to his neck
+    Convulsively I clung! Down through the cloud,
+    Until I gasped for breath, and felt my brain
+    Was bursting with the fervid weight.
+                                         He stopped
+    Before a large pavilion, round whose walls,
+    As faithful guard, a whirlwind fierce revolved,
+    And at whose folded door, with dazzling blade,
+    The lightning stood a sentinel. My steed
+    Was passport, and I passed within, but stopped
+    Upon the threshold, dumb with awe. The walls
+    Seemed blazing mirrors, whose bright polished sides
+    “Threw back in flaming lineaments” the form
+    Of every object there,--a trembling wretch,
+    With pallid countenance, shown ghastly red,
+    Upon a horse of War’s own direful hue,
+    I saw reflected there. The floor seemed made
+    Of tesselated froth, whose bubbles burst,
+    With constant hissing, into rainbow sparks;
+    While like the sulph’rous canopy, that drapes,
+    At evening’s close, a gory battle-field,
+    The roof of crimson vapor drooped and rose,
+    With every breath and every slightest sound.
+    And in the center of the glowing room,
+    Upon a sapphire throne an Angel sat,
+    Upon whose brow Rebuke and Wisdom met.
+    He gazed upon me with such pitying look,
+    And yet withal so stern, that all my pride
+    Was gone, and humble as a conquered child,
+    I ran with trembling haste and near the throne
+    Kneeled down.
+                  “Vain man,” he said, “and hast thou dared
+    To doubt the providence of God; Behold!”
+    And, lo! one side of the pavilion rose,
+    And out before me lay Immensity.
+    The frothy floor, now crumbling from the edge,
+    Dissolved away close to my very feet,
+    The walls contracted their three sides in one,
+    And I, beside a throne I dared not grasp,
+    Stood on a narrow ledge of fragile foam,
+    That clicked its thousand little globes of air,
+    With every motion of my feet.
+                                  Far down
+    Below, the black abyss of chaos yawned,
+    So vast, I gasped while gazing, and so deep,
+    The Sun’s swift arrowy rays flash down for years,
+    And scarcely reach the dark confines, or fade
+    Amid the impenetrable gloom. Methought
+    ’Twas Hell’s wide jaws, that opened underneath
+    The Universe, to catch as crumbs the worlds
+    Condemned, and shaken from their orbit’s track.
+    And long I looked into the vast black throat,
+    To trace the murky glow of hidden fire,
+    Or catch the distant roar. But all was still;
+    No murmur broke the silence of its gloom,
+    No faintest glimmer told of lurking light,
+    No smoky volumes curdled in its depths;
+    As dark as Egypt’s plague, serenely calm,
+    Defying light, the empty hall of Space,
+    Where twinkled not a star nor blazed a sun.--
+    A grand eternal night!
+                           I shuddering turned,
+    With freezing blood to think of falling there,
+    And stretched a palsied hand to touch the throne.
+    The Angel’s eye was sterner, as he waved
+    Towards my steed, who seemed of marble carved.
+    The wings unfolded, and he leaped in air,
+    Beating from off the ledge the flakes of foam
+    That sank, with airy spirals, out of sight.
+    With slanting flight across the gulf he sheared;
+    The moveless wings were not extended straight,
+    But stood, at graceful angle, o’er his back,
+    As, swifter than a swooping kite, he flashed
+    Adown the gloom. His flowing mane broad borne
+    Out level, like another wing; his feet
+    With slow ellipses moving alternate,
+    As if he trod an unseen path. ’Twas grand
+    To see his graceful form, more snowy white
+    Against the black relief, sublimely float
+    Across the dark profound, and down its depths,
+    Pass from my view. As when an Eagle soars
+    Beyond our vision in the azure sky,
+    We wonder what he sees, or whither flies,
+    So I stood wondering if he would return,
+    And what his destination down th’ abyss.
+
+    Above, around, all was infinitude
+    Of light and harmony. The worlds moved on,
+    In mazy multitude, without a jar,
+    Star circling planet, planet sun, and suns
+    In systems, farther yet and farther still,
+    Till multiplying millions mingled formed
+    A sheet of milky hue. And far beyond
+    The last pale star, appeared a dazzling spot,
+    That flamed with brightness so ineffable
+    The eye shrank ’neath its gleam. And from its light,
+    Athwart the endless realms of space, there streamed
+    A radiance that illumed the Universe,
+    And down across the chasm of Chaos flung
+    A wavering band of purple and of gold.
+    And in that distant spot my ’wildered eyes
+    Traced out the figure of a Great White Throne,
+    Round which, in grand and solemn majesty,
+    Slow swept Creation’s boundless macrocosm.--
+    I felt too insignificant to pray,
+    But mutely waited for the Angel’s words.
+    He spoke not, but the curtains closer drew,
+    And left a narrow opening in front.
+    Then with a speed the lightning ne’er attained,
+    Our cloud pavilion swiftly whirled through space.
+    A seed that would have slain me with its haste,
+    Had not the Angel been so near.
+                                    As on the cars,
+    We dash through towns, and mark the hurrying lights,
+    Or shudder at an engine rattling by;
+    So through our door, I marked the countless worlds,
+    In clustering systems, chained by gravity,
+    Flash by an endless course. A second’s time
+    Sufficed to pass our little group of stars,
+    That waltz about our Sun, as if it lit
+    The very Universe. Then systems came,
+    Round which our system moves, and these
+    Round others, till the series grew so vast
+    I shrank from looking. Great Alcyone,
+    Our telescopic giantess, a babe
+    Amid the monsters of the starry tribe,
+    The last familiar face in Heaven’s throng,
+    Blazed by the door; an instant, out of sight!
+    And after all that we have known or named
+    On Earth were far behind, the millions came
+    In endless multitude; and on we swept,
+    Till worlds became a dull monotony,
+    And all the wonders of the Heavens were shown.
+    A planet wheels its huge proportions past,
+    Its pimpled face with red volcanoes thick,
+    That, with our speed, seem girdling bands of light;
+    A Sun, whose flame would fade our yellow spark,
+    Roars out a moment at our narrow door
+    As through its blaze we fly, then dies away,
+    Casting a weird and momentary gleam
+    Over the Angel’s unrelenting face;
+    A meteor tears its whizzing way along,
+    All showering off the scintillating sparks
+    That mark its trail. Far off, a comet runs
+    Its bended course, the mighty fan-like tail
+    Lit with a myriad globes of dancing fire,
+    That seemed like Argus’ eyes on Juno’s bird.
+    And on we sped, till one last Sun appeared,
+    A monstrous hemisphere of concave shape,
+    And brilliancy intense; it seemed to stand
+    On great Creation’s bounds, a lense of light.
+    Close by its vast red rim we shaved, and passed
+    Beyond, to empty space unoccupied.
+    No world, no sun, no object passed the door;
+    The steady blue, tinged with a brightening gold,
+    Alone was seen. Still on and on we flew,
+    Until a score of ages seemed elapsed,
+    And I had near forgotten Earth and home.
+
+    And yet the air grew brighter, till I feared
+    That we approached a sun, so infinite
+    In light, that I should sink in dazzled death.
+
+    We came to rest, the curtains fell away,
+    And lo! I stood within the light of Heaven.
+    And oh! its glorious light! No angry red,
+    Nor blinding white, nor sickly yellow glare,
+    But one vast golden flood, sublime, serene,
+    No object near, on which it could reflect,
+    It formed the very atmosphere itself,
+    An air in which the soul could bathe and breathe,
+    And ever live without its fleshly food.
+
+    No object near, for on the farthest bounds
+    Of space immense as mortal can conceive,
+    Creation hung, a group of clustering motes,
+    Where only suns were seen as tiny specks,
+    And Earth and smaller stars were out of sight.
+    No object near, for farther than the motes,
+    The walls of Heaven, in glorious grandeur loomed,
+    Yet near as flesh and blood could bear.
+                                            How grand!
+    From infinite to infinite extent
+    The glittering battlements were spread, the height
+    Above conception, built of purest gold,
+    Yet gold transparent, for I could discern
+    Though indistinctly, domes and spires beyond,
+    And all the wondrous workmanship divine,
+    That blazed with jewels, flashing varied hues
+    In perfect union; and bright happy fields,
+    That bloomed with flowers immortal, in whose midst
+    The crystal river ran. And through the scenes
+    Thronged million forms, that each sought happiness,
+    From million varied, purified desires.
+    Each face serenely bright as Evening’s star,
+    And some I thought I knew, were dear to me;
+    But as I gazed, they ever disappeared.
+
+    Along the walls, twelve gates of pearl were seen,
+    So great their breadth, and high their jewelled arch,
+    That Earth could almost trundle in untouched,
+    And in each arch was fixed a giant bell
+    Of silver, with a golden tongue that hung,
+    A pendant sun. So wide the silver lips,
+    That Chimularee plucked up by the roots,
+    And as a clapper swung within its circ,
+    Would tinkle, like a pebble, noiselessly
+    Against the rigid side. And as the saved
+    Were brought in teeming host, by Angel bands,
+    Before the gates, the bells began their swing;
+    And to and fro the ponderous tongue was hurled,
+    Till through the portals marched the shouting throng,
+    And then it fell against the bounding side.
+    And loud and long their booming thunder
+    Rends the golden air asunder,
+    While the ransomed, passing under,
+      Fall in praise beneath the bells,
+      Whose mighty throbbing welcome tells;
+    And the Angels hush their harps in wonder--
+      Bells of Heaven, glory booming bells!
+
+    Gentler now, the silver’s shiver
+    Purls the rippling waves that quiver
+    Through the ether’s tide forever,
+      Mellow as they left the bells,
+      Whose softening vibrate welcome tells;
+    And the quavers play adown the river--
+      Bells of Heaven, softly sobbing bells!
+
+    Then the dreamy cadence dying,
+    Sings as soft as zephyrs sighing;
+    Faintest echoes cease replying
+      To the murmur of the bells,
+      Whose stilling tremor welcome tells,
+    Faintly as the snow-flakes falling, lying--
+      Bells of Heaven, dreamy murmuring bells!
+
+    And in and out those Gates of Pearl, there streamed
+    A ceaseless throng of Angels, errand bound.
+    From one came forth a band of choristers,
+    With shining harps, and sweeping out through space,
+    Their long white lines bent gracefully, they sang.
+    Although so far away, that purest air
+    Brought every note exquisite to my ear.
+    ’Twas richly worth life’s toil, to catch one bar
+    Of Heavenly melody. Oh! I would give
+    My pitiful existence, once again
+    To hear the strains that floated to me then,
+    So full, so deep, so ravishingly sweet;
+    Now gentle as a mother’s lullaby,
+    They almost died away, then louder rose,
+    And rolled their volumes through the boundless realms,
+    That trembled with the diapason grand;
+    Until eternal echoes caught the strain,
+    And glory in the highest swelled sublime.
+
+    Entranced, I lay with ’wildered half-closed eyes,
+    Till from another gate, another host
+    Marched forth, the armies of the living God.
+    Beneath their thunder-tread all Heaven shook,
+    And at their head the tall Archangel strode.
+    How grandly terrible his mien! His face
+    Lit with a soul that only kneels to Three;
+    The lofty brows drawn slightly to a frown
+    The eyes that beam with vast intelligence,
+    The depths of distance piercing with their glance;
+    The chiselled lips, compressed with stern resolve,
+    Yet marked with lines and curves of tender love,
+    That ever with a sigh Wrath’s vial broke
+    Upon the doomed. His splendid form so tall,
+    That as he paused a moment in the gate
+    His dazzling crest just grazed the silver bell.
+    He wore no arms nor armor, save a sword
+    Without a sheath, that blazed as broad and bright
+    As sunset bars that shear the zenith’s blue--
+    A sword, that falling flatly on the host
+    Of Xerxes, would have crushed them as we crush
+    A swarm of ants. An edge-stroke on the Earth
+    Would gash the rocky shell to caverned fire.
+    Unfolding wings would shake a continent,
+    He floated down the depths. Behind him came
+    A million foll’wers, counterparts in all,
+    Save presence of command.
+                              I wondered not
+    That one should breathe upon the Syrian might,
+    And still the sleeping hearts, four thousand score.
+
+    And from Creation’s little corner came
+    The Guardian Angels, bearing in their arms
+    Their charges during life. As laden bees,
+    They flew to Heaven’s hive; and some passed by
+    So closely I their burdens could discern;
+    And though they came from far-off, unseen Earth,
+    The stiffened forms were borne all tenderly.
+    Some bore the dimpled babe, with soft-closed eyes,
+    As if upon its mother’s breast; its hands,
+    Unhardened yet by toil of life, its face
+    Unfurrowed yet by care’s sharp plough; and some
+    The age-bent form, with ghostly silvered hair,
+    And features gaunt in death, that would have seemed
+    A hideous sight, in any light but Heaven’s;
+    Some bore the rich, who made of Mammon friends,
+    Who wore the purple with a stainless soul;
+    Some bore the poor, who mastered poverty,
+    And broke the ashen crust beneath God’s smile;
+    Their work-worn hands now folded peacefully,
+    And passing towards the harp, the weary feet,
+    So often blistered in life’s bitter dust,
+    To tread with kings the golden streets of Heaven;
+    And some the maiden form bore lovingly,
+    So fair, they seemed twin sisters.
+                                       And I saw,
+    That, passing through the amber air, they caught
+    Its glowing dust upon them, and were changed,
+    The livid to the radiant. Then as they
+    Approached the City, all the walls were thronged,
+    And all the harps were throbbing to be swept.
+    And mid the throng there moved a dazzling Form,
+    The jewels of whose crown were shaped like thorns.
+    He stood to welcome, and the gates unclosed,
+    And passing through them, all the death sealed eyes
+    Were opened, and they lived!
+                                 And then I knew
+    What happiness could mean. To leave the Earth,
+    With all its torturing pains and ills of flesh;
+    The lingering, long disease, the wasted frame,
+    And, e’en in health, the constant dread of death,
+    That like the sword of Damocles impends,
+    And none may tell its fall.
+                                And worse than flesh,
+    The tortures of the mind in fetters bound;
+    Its chafings at its puling impotence,
+    Its longing after things beyond its reach,
+    Its craving after knowledge never given,
+    Its constant discontent with present time,
+    Its looking towards a future, that but breaks
+    To light alone in distance, never near;
+    Its maddening retrospect o’er wasted life,
+    And loss of golden opportunities;
+    Its consciousness of merit none admit,
+    Its sense of gross injustice from the world;
+    The forced reflections on the sway of self,
+    And consequent contempt for all mankind,
+    Or shameful servitude to their regard;
+    The poisoned thorns, that skirt the “Narrow Way”;
+    The sneering laugh, the tongue of calumny,
+    The envious spites and hates ’tween man and man,
+    The doubts that swarm with thought about our soul,
+    That whispers all our labor here is vain,
+    That death is but extinction, Heaven a myth!
+
+    To leave all these, and find a perfect life,
+    To know that Heaven is sure eternally,
+    That sickness ne’er again will waste our frame,
+    That death shall never come again. The mind
+    In perfect peace and happiness; the hidden
+    Spread out before its ken; a sweet content
+    Pervading every thought, because “just now”
+    Yields happiness as great as future years;
+    Because Life’s highest end is now attained.
+    The consciousness of merit, with reward
+    Surpassing far all we deserved. A Home
+    Of perfect peace, no envious spite or hate
+    Within its sacred walls, but all pure love
+    Towards our fellows, gratitude to God,
+    A gratitude that all Eternal life
+    Will not suffice to prove. ’Twere joy enough
+    To lie before the Throne, and ever cry
+    Our thanks for mercy so supreme! And oh!
+    The vast tranquillity of those who feel
+    That life on Earth is ended, Heaven gained!
+    The Angel marked my gaze of rapt delight,
+    And said, “Wouldst thou go nearer?” Swift as light
+    We moved towards the City. On the steps,
+    In dreamy ecstasy, I lay, afraid to move,
+    Lest all the panorama should dissolve.
+    I cared not that I was unfit to go,
+    I cared not that I must return to Earth;
+    I felt one moment in the Golden walls
+    Was worth a dungeon’s chains “threescore and ten.”
+    The glory of its music, and its light,
+    Grew too intense, and sense forsook my brain.
+
+    Again my eyes unclosed, and ’mid the stars,
+    Familiar faces of the telescope,
+    We sped, while on the last confines of space,
+    The City lay with golden halo girt.
+    The systems passed, we neared old homelike Earth;
+    And far enough to take a hemisphere
+    At single glance, we paused. The little globe
+    Was puffing on, like Kepler’s idea-beast,
+    With breath like tides, and echo sounds of life;
+    Thus trundling on its journey round the sun
+    While o’er its back swarmed men the parasites.
+    As rustic lad, who visits some great town,
+    Returns ashamed of humble country home,
+    So I now blushed to own the world I’d thought
+    Was once so great.
+                       The Angel pointed down,
+    And said, “Behold the vast domains of Earth!
+    Behold the wondrous works of man, that calls
+    Himself the measure of the Universe!
+    Those gleaming threads are rivers, and the pools
+    His boundless oceans. Those slow-gliding dots
+    The gallant ships, in which he braves the storms
+    The largest white one, see, is laboring now
+    Beneath a cloud, your hand from here might span;
+    What tiny tossings, like a jasmine’s bloom
+    That drifts along the ripples of a brook!
+    Now on the wave, now ’neath it, now ’tis gone;
+    The pool hath gulfed it like a flake of snow.
+    See, there are railroad lines, what works of art!
+    Thou canst not see the blackened threadlike tracks,
+    But thou mayst see the thundering train, that creeps
+    Across the landscape like a score of ants
+    Well laden, tandem, crawl across the floor.
+    ’Twill take a day to reach yon smoky patch
+    Of pebbles! ’Tis a great metropolis!
+    Where Man is proud in power and lasting strength;
+    Where Art hath budded into perfect bloom,
+    Where towering domes defy the touch of Time,
+    And rock-ribbed structures reck not of his scythe
+    On every side, proclaimed Creation’s lord,
+    Poor flattered Man the title proudly takes--
+    One little gap of Earth, and not a spire
+    Would lift its gilded vane; the very dust
+    Would never rise above the chasm’s mouth.
+    And mark yon crowd outside the city’s bounds,
+    They hail Man’s triumph over Nature’s laws;
+    He conquers gravity, and dares to fly!
+    The speck-like globe slow rises in the air,
+    While all the throng below shout, “God-like Man!”
+    How pitiful! The flag-decked car but drags
+    Its way, a finger’s breadth above their heads,
+    And falls, a few leagues off, into the sea;
+    When ships must rescue Man, the king of air!
+    “He soon will touch the stars,” enthusiasts cry;
+    His highest flights ne’er reach the mountain-top,
+    That lifts its mole-hill head above the plain.
+
+    What different views above and underneath!
+    From one, the silken pear cleaves through the cloud,
+    And floats, beyond your vision, in the blue,
+    And franchised Man no longer wears Earth’s chain;
+    The other sees him drifting o’er the ground,
+    Beneath the level of the hills around,
+    The captive still of watchful gravity.
+
+    Upon yon strip of land, two insect swarms
+    Are drawn up, front to front, in serried lines;
+    These are the armies, ’neath whose trampling tread
+    The very Earth doth tremble, now they join
+    In dreadful conflict. From the battling ranks
+    Leap tiny bits of flame, and puffs of smoke,
+    Where thundering cannon belch their carnage forth;
+    The heated missile cleaves its sparkling way,
+    The screaming shell its smoke-traced curve; the sword
+    Gleams redly with the varnish of its blood,
+    The bayonets like ripples on a lake.
+    How palsied every arm, how still each heart!
+    If one discharge of Heaven’s artillery roared
+    Above their heads--not that faint mutter thou
+    Perchance hast heard from some electric cloud,
+    But when a meteor curves immensity,
+    And bursts in glittering fragments that would dash
+    Thy world an atom from their path. But God
+    Hath thrown the blanket of His atmosphere
+    Around the Earth, and shield, it from the jar
+    Of pealing salvos, that reverberate
+    Through Heaven’s illimitable dome.
+                                       Yet thou,
+    The meanest of thy race of worms, hast dared
+    To question God’s designs. Know then that He
+    Ordains that all, His glory shall work out.
+    The coral architect beneath the wave
+    Doth magnify Him, as the burning sun
+    That lights a thousand worlds. His power directs
+    The mechanism of a Universe,
+    Whose vastness thou hast been allowed to see,
+    And yet the mottled sparrow in the hedge
+    Falls not without His notice. Magnitude
+    Is not the seal of power, though man thinks so;
+    The least brown feather of the sparrow’s wing,
+    In adaptation to its end displays
+    God’s wisdom, as the ocean. Harmony
+    Is Heaven’s watchword, key to all designs.
+    A tendency towards perfection’s end
+    Pervades Creation; to this perfect end,
+    The polity Divine is leading Earth.
+    Endowed with reason, Man, perforce, is free;
+    And God, forseeing how he’ll freely act,
+    Adjusts all circumstance accordingly.
+    The order of this sequence, Man doth learn
+    In part; adapts himself to these fixed laws;
+    And thus is formed a general harmony.
+    Although the individual may oppose,
+    His forseen freedom, acting in a net
+    Of circumstance, secures the wished-for end.
+    The bloodiest wars are sources of great good,
+    Invasive floods rouse national energies,
+    Or, mingling, form a greater people still;
+    Hume’s skepticism foils its own design,
+    And rouses lusty champions of the Truth,
+    Who build its walls far stronger than before.
+    Poor sordid Man! like all your gold-slave race,
+    You deem wealth happiness. Hence, all your doubts
+    About God’s providence are based on gold.
+    The wicked have it, and the righteous not.
+    What you assert is oftenest reversed,
+    And in a census of the world, you’d find
+    The good, in every land, the wealthiest.
+    But Earth is not the bar where Man is judged;
+    But only where free-will and circumstance
+    May join in general progress. Gold is good!
+    Then good depends on use of circumstance,
+    And not on moral merit. Well ’tis so!
+    For were the righteous only blessed, all men
+    Would righteousness pursue, from sordid aims,--
+    The most devout, who love their money best;
+    And thus good actions’ essence would be lost,
+    That they be done for good, within itself,
+    And not for benefit to be conferred.
+
+    Then for your doubts about the righteous poor;
+    A certain law is fixed for general good,--
+    Some actions yield a gain and some a loss.
+    A wicked man may use the first, and gain,
+    A righteous man may use the last, and lose;
+    The wicked does not gain by wickedness,
+    But by compliance with this natural law.
+    The righteous, still as righteous, might have gained
+    By different course of conduct, had he known;
+    But his condition now, can but be changed
+    By special miracle; but miracles,
+    In favor of the righteous, would destroy
+    All strife for good as good.
+    Their compensation in another world;
+                                         The poor may find
+    And even here, in consciousness of right,
+    In surety of Heav’n, and peace of mind.
+    And in the case you’ve stated, like all those
+    Who talk as you have done, you overdraw,
+    And color more with Fancy than with Truth.
+    You’ll find no widow, perfect in her trust,
+    As you’ve described, who is so destitute.
+    Go search the lanes and alleys; where you find
+    The greatest squalor, there is greatest crime;
+    For poverty is oftenest but a name
+    For reckless vice, and vile depravity.
+    Your case is but exception to the rule,
+    And not the rule, of Providence. To give
+    The righteous, only, wealth and worldly store
+    Would take away Man’s freedom, and all good.
+
+    But I will answer in your folly’s mode.
+    The justice, then, of Nature’s laws you doubt,
+    Forgetting they are fixed for general good,
+    And not for individual. These laws,
+    In their effects, you praise as very good;
+    Yet, in their causes, call the most unjust.
+    The fertile fields, with grain for man’s support,
+    Are nourished by a miasmatic air,
+    That, sickening but a few, feeds all the world.
+    While, were the air all pure, a few were well,
+    And millions starving. In the tropics, too,
+    The scenes you deprecate, themselves but cause
+    The very beauties you admire. Unjust,
+    You would enjoy effects without a cause.
+    The goods of Nature often take their rise
+    From what to man proves evil. For the goods,
+    He makes his mind to meet the evils; then
+    Can he complain, or think it hard to bear?
+    But Nature’s dealings towards Man are just.
+    He knows that he is free, and Nature not;
+    If he opposes Nature’s laws and falls,
+    Is Nature to be blamed? The widow’s cot
+    Is frail; the laws of general good require
+    A storm; it comes, and shattered falls the cot.
+    Should God have saved it by a miracle,
+    Then all His people could demand the same,
+    And Earth would soon become the bar of God,
+    God may exert a special providence,
+    But Man may not detect it, as the rule
+    Invariable of life, and still be free;
+    For he were thus compelled to seek the good.
+    Then Nature, over Man, holds not a tyranny,
+    But keeps the perfect pandect of her laws,
+    And Man is free to obey them, or oppose.
+
+    Like shallow-thoughted reasoners of Earth,
+    You make assertions without slightest proof,
+    Or faintest shade of truth. Your thesis, this:
+    God marks with disapproval all the good,
+    And blesses all the evil with His smile.
+    Entirely false in every case! The good
+    Are ever happiest, in peace of mind,
+    In ease of conscience, and the hope of Heaven.
+    The wicked may be even rich, but wealth
+    And happiness are far from synonyms.
+    Is happiness the child of circumstance,
+    Or is it not the offspring of the mind?
+    And if the mind be tranquil and serene,
+    Does happiness not follow everywhere?
+    The cause of doubt in you, and many more,
+    Is that the thousands who profess the good,
+    Are ever mourning their unhappy lot,
+    And sighing o’er the gloomy, narrow way;
+    The tribulation of the promise read,
+    Without its good cheer context. These are they
+    Who stamp with misery’s blackest seal, a life
+    Of righteousness. By these you cannot judge,
+    For they are not what they profess, and would
+    Be miserable in Heaven, unless changed.
+    But take the truly good, one who’s content
+    To take whate’er befalls, submissively;
+    Who feels assured that all works for the best;
+    Take him, in all conditions, rich or poor,
+    In sickness or in health, in pain or ease;
+    Compare your happy wicked, with his gold,
+    ’Twill not require a moment to decide
+    Which one is happier!
+                          Again, you ask
+    Why Man was not created happy, and kept so?
+    His very freedom and intelligence
+    Prevents a forcèd happiness. The ends
+    Of all Creation would be marred, and Man
+    Lose personality. A happiness
+    Made universal, asks morality
+    That’s universally compelled; and lost
+    Is all the scheme of virtue and reward.
+    Man, forced to action would degenerate
+    Into a listless, lifeless thing; the world
+    Lose all its fine machinery of thought
+    Combined with action. Beautiful variety
+    Could not exist, dull sameness would be life.
+    But Man is placed, with free intelligence,
+    Amid surroundings from which he may cull
+    A happiness intense, whate’er their nature be.
+    If bright, the consciousness they are deserved;
+    If gloomy, sweet reflections that they drape
+    A future all the brighter for their gloom.
+
+    But Man, within himself, your puzzle proves;
+    And not to you alone, for Angel wings
+    Have hovered o’er your globe, and Angel minds
+    Peered curiously into his soul, to learn
+    Its mysteries, in vain. The Mind Supreme
+    That formed the soul, alone can understand
+    Its wondrous depths. ’Tis not surprising then
+    That Man has tried in vain to know himself.
+    His mind, compared with his body, seems so great,
+    He deems its power unlimited. He finds
+    It weak, before the barriers of thought,
+    That gird it, mountain high, on every side.
+    No path can he pursue that’s infinite.
+    And few exist, that do not thither lead.
+    Hence all the vagaries that have obtained
+    Among your race. The doubt of everything,
+    Is only too far tracing of a thought
+    Into absurdity intense. If you
+    Deem all the world effect upon yourself,
+    A principle of fairness would demand
+    That you accord the right to other men.
+    The question then arises, who is he
+    That really does exist, and all the rest
+    His ideas? Sure your neighbor has the right
+    To claim the honor, just as well as you!
+    Hume’s foolish thought, extended to its length,
+    Will answer not a single end of life,
+    And terminates in nonsense none believe.
+
+    The conflict of the mental powers defeats
+    Your inquiries. You cannot reconcile
+    The unruled circumstance, with Man’s free-will
+    You deem the motive free, and Man its slave;
+    As if the motive, unintelligent,
+    Could have a freedom, or a slavery!
+    You make the motive to exist within the mind,
+    When it, perforce, must be without. You get
+    The unruled motive from the circumstance,
+    When this itself must act upon the mind,
+    And if _free_ motives rise within the mind,
+    They are a _part_, and therefore _mind_ is free.
+    And what you deemed a motive to the mind,
+    Was mental action, and its modes of thought.
+    The motive is confined to circumstance,
+    And mind the circumstance can oft control,
+    And even when it cannot, acts at will.
+
+    The mind may to a kingdom be compared,
+    Where Reason occupies the throne. Beneath
+    Its scepter bow, in perfect vassalage,
+    The faculties, desires, and appetites.
+    These then are acted on by motive powers,
+    And straight report the action to their king,
+    Who does impartially decide for each.
+    The unruled motive is without the mind,
+    And forms no part of it, although the parts,
+    Receiving motive action, so are called.
+    Thus when you hunger, the desire of food,
+    Confined to mind, is not a motive power;
+    But urged by motive bodily demand,
+    It tells the need to Reason, who decides.
+    Thus when you pare your peach, the tempting fruit
+    And fleshly need, move on the appetite,
+    Who begs the Reason for consent to eat;
+    Your friend’s opinion of your self-control,
+    Is motive to Desire of esteem,
+    Who begs the Reason to refuse consent.
+    The Reason, then, like righteous judge, decrees
+    In favor of that one, more strongly shown;
+    And feels a perfect freedom in its choice.
+
+    ’Tis most unfair to wait the action’s end,
+    Then cry, the mind was forced to choose this act;
+    But choice is Reason’s free decree. Sometimes
+    The Reason errs, and evil then ensues;
+    But Reason, now more conscious that ’tis free,
+    Regrets it had not acted otherwise.
+    By knowing what your reason deems the best,
+    You judge how other men will act. You learn,
+    By intercourse, what they permit to change
+    The Reason’s sentence. So, while with a friend,
+    You show your wealth, because you know he’s free,
+    And can, and will, resist impulse to crime.
+    Were he not free, you’d dare not go alone
+    With him, for, any moment, might arise
+    A motive irresistible, and he
+    Would kill and rob, because that motive’s slave.
+    Were he not free, you were no more secure,
+    In pleasant parlance, than on desert isle.
+
+    The laws are made for man, alone, as free.
+    For, otherwise, the motives they present
+    Were blind attempts so coincide with Fate.
+    They would complete the gross absurdity,
+    Of Man collective governing himself,
+    And therefore free, while individuals
+    Are helpless slaves of motives they but aid
+    To furnish.
+                Fate, as held in fullest form,
+    Yourself has proved the theory of fools;
+    For were it true, a blind passivity
+    Were Man’s perfection on the Earth. Compare
+    The two; Free-will as held, whate’er their faith,
+    By every one, in daily practices;
+    A world of harmony, for very wars
+    Yield good; a mechanism complicate,
+    That even Angels, wondering at, admire;
+    A world, whose wondrous progress is maintained
+    By practical belief in liberty.
+    And on the other hand, behold a world
+    Of universal inactivity!
+    Its millions starving for delinquent Fate;--
+    I doubt your faith would last till dinner-time,
+    A morning’s lapse would change a hungry globe
+    To firm belief in free-will work for food.
+
+    With many, God’s foreknowledge binds free-will;
+    He knows the future, how each man will act,
+    And man can never change from what God knows.
+    They reason thus, that prescience is decree,
+    And what God knows will happen, must take place.
+    That God may know the future of _free_-will
+    I prove by this. Suppose two worlds alike,
+    And governed by two Gods. Each one can see,
+    And foresee all transpires in both the worlds,
+    Yet each o’er th’ other’s world exerts no power.
+    A man in one does wrong; the other God
+    May have foreseen the action for an age,
+    Yet had not slightest power to cause or stop.
+    Does his foreknowledge qualify the act?
+    If thus you can suppose, why not believe,
+    When errors flow from opposite belief?
+    God in the future stands, and waits for man,
+    Who works the present, only gift of Time.
+    There is no future save in God’s own mind.
+    Man’s future means continued present time;
+    God’s future is but present time to Him,
+    In which He lives, not will live when it comes.
+    Man’s acts He sees as done, not to be done.
+    And God compels not more than Man does Man,
+    Who sees his fellow’s deeds, not causes them.
+    Man only knows Man’s present acts; but God
+    The future sees, as present to His mind.
+
+    To end with perfect proof, you know you’re free.
+    This all the world attests, and each believes.
+    How subtle soe’er may his reasoning be,
+    He contradicts it throughout all his life;
+    And all his plans, and all the right and wrong
+    Of self and friends he bases on free-will.
+    If disbelief no inconvenience prove,
+    Few men believe what is not understood;
+    And yet the most familiar things of life
+    Are far beyond their comprehensions’ power.
+    Who understands the turning of the food
+    To sinew, muscle, blood, and bone? yet who
+    Will starve because he knows not how ’tis done?
+    Who understands the mystery of birth,
+    And when and where the soul originates?
+    And yet a million mothers bend, to-day,
+    O’er tender babes, and know that they exist;
+    A billion people know they once were born.
+    Who understands the mystery of death,
+    And how the soul is severed from its clay?
+    Yet who has not wept o’er departed ones,
+    Received the dying clasp, the dying look,
+    And known, full well, Death’s bitter, bitter truth?
+    None comprehends the movement of a limb,
+    Yet many boast the powers of their’s might.
+    Then why doubt freedom of the will, when life,
+    In every phase, but proves its certain truth?
+    The edifice of shallow theorists
+    Before the sweeping blade of practice falls.
+
+    Your dive into the heart yields folly’s fruit;
+    The selfish theory, carried to its end,
+    Makes wrong of right, and overturns the world.
+    And strong it is in seeming; for the self,
+    In human conduct, plays important part.
+    But ’tis not action’s only source, nor dims
+    The quality of every action’s worth.
+    ’Tis true that Man exists in self alone,
+    And in himself feels pain or pleasure. True,
+    An instinct teaches to avoid the one,
+    And seek the other; true, that every act,
+    How small soe’er, gives pleasure or gives pain.
+    Yet thousand deeds are done without regard
+    To one or other, or effect on Self.
+    Howe’er an action may affect the Self,
+    If he that acts has not a thought of it,
+    The action is not selfish. You appeal
+    To Man, and so will I appeal to you.
+    You find a helpless brute, with broken limb,
+    Upon the roadside, moaning out its pain.
+    Now, though to aid will surely pleasure give,
+    And to neglect will cause remorseful pain,
+    Is there a single thought of this, when you,
+    With kindest hand, bind up the swollen bruise,
+    And hold the grateful water to its mouth?
+    Is not each thought to ease the sufferer’s pain?
+    Is not the Self first found, when on your way
+    You go, with lighter heart, for kindness done?
+    And while you think with pleasure on the deed,
+    Would you not feel despised in your own eyes,
+    If consciousness revealed ’twas done for Self?
+    But should you say that Self was thus concealed,
+    And still evoked the deed, the argument
+    The same; if Self was out of thought, the deed
+    Had other source.
+                      In all, you thus mistake
+    The deed’s effect, unthought of, for its source.
+    God, in His wisdom, hath affixed to good
+    Performed, a pleasure, and to evil, pain.
+    But selfish actions are not good, you’ve said,
+    And therefore cannot slightest pleasure yield.
+    Here, then, your system contradicts itself;
+    All actions emanate from love of Self,
+    To find the highest pleasure for that Self;
+    And yet the pleasure’s lost by very search;
+    What good soe’er apparently is sought,
+    The consciousness of selfish aims destroys.
+    And here is wisdom manifest. When Self
+    Would seek the good, for pleasure to the Self,
+    The pleasure is not found; but when it seeks
+    The good alone, true pleasure is conferred.
+    I mean the Self of soul, not Self of flesh;
+    For pleasure to the sense, to be attained
+    Is sought; these two are mingled intricate
+    (And hard to separate), in thousand ways.
+    But when Man’s higher Self would seek its good,
+    It must forget the Self. In every case
+    You instanced, Self of soul must be unthought,
+    For pleasure will not come at call of Self.
+    Your gambler none will doubt has selfish ends;
+    Not so the preacher, for his pleasure sought,
+    Would ne’er be found; it must be out of thought.
+    His burning eloquence, his pastoral care,
+    Can not proceed from any love of Self,
+    For Self would suffer, when it knew their source;
+    But as he acts from love of good as good,
+    The Self is happy. When he ascertains
+    That some have died in sin through his neglect,
+    The Self is grieved, not that it was uncared,
+    For care of Self would not allay the pain,
+    But that a duty had not been performed;
+    That good had been neglected, as a good.
+    The gambler’s object may be highest good
+    For Self, according to his estimate;
+    The preacher seeks a good, but not for Self;
+    When Self appears, the good to evil turns.
+    Nor is the mystic selfish in his cave,
+    Save that he buries talents in himself,
+    That might avail for good to other men;
+    But all his mind is bent on pleasing God,
+    His only thought of Self is for its pain;
+    And this he deems acceptable to Heaven.
+    You can not judge by your analysis,
+    But by what passes in the actor’s mind.
+    One surely then could not be selfish termed,
+    Who only lived to mortify the Self,
+    Howe’er mistaken may his conduct be.
+    Nor is the man, who gives his wealth away,
+    If from right principles he gives. ’Tis true,
+    He finds a pleasure in the deed when done,
+    But if to gain that pleasure he has given,
+    It turns to gall and wormwood in his grasp.
+    If two men matches light, and know full well,
+    If one is dropped, a house will be consumed,
+    He is the most guilty that allows its fall.
+    The miser, then, who knows he does a wrong,
+    Is by that knowledge rendered criminal.
+    “The quality of actions must be judged”
+    From their intents, that often differ wide;
+    The man who shoots his friend by accident
+    Has no intent, and therefore does no wrong;
+    But he who murders does a score of wrongs,--
+    A score of basest motives prompt the deed,
+    All centred in the Self. The Christian’s work
+    Must, from its very nature, have no Self,
+    Or it becomes unchristian. Man can judge,
+    Not from effect, but motives ascertained
+    By inference, and experience. The law
+    Is formed hereon, and modified by years.
+    Time teaches men that punishment will stop,
+    And only punishment, the spread of crime.
+    Instinct and Nature’s order teaches you
+    That pain must follow wrong. A man commits
+    A crime; if left unpunished, he repeats;
+    And others, seeing his security,
+    Will do as he has done. So all mankind
+    Would hasten on to lawlessness and ruin.
+    But law, for real wrong inflicts a wrong,
+    Which would be just did it no farther go;
+    But it is proved expedient, inasmuch
+    As it prevents continued crime. Then death
+    By law can not be murder termed, since good
+    In aim and end, without malicious thought.
+    Thus good to many flows from wrong to one
+    (If that may wrong be termed that takes the rights
+    By conduct forfeited), who should receive,
+    Though none reaped benefit. For many’s good,
+    The law is made, yet never does a wrong
+    To individuals, unless deserved.
+
+    Throughout your reas’ning, like all Earthly minds,
+    When dataless, essaying hidden truths,
+    You wander blindly in conjecture’s field,
+    And if you find the truth, it is a chance.
+    You fain would raise a stone of skepticism,
+    By granting souls immortal unto beasts;
+    You prove your pointer must possess a soul,
+    And by your argument, the trees have souls;
+    For when an oak has fallen, every twig
+    May still be there, and something, life, be gone.
+    A chair, a table, anything you see,
+    Possesses something, not of any parts,
+    But that to which the parts are said, belong,
+    Then, one by one, take all the parts away,
+    The something called the table must exist,
+    For ’twas not in a part, nor is removed.
+
+    The mind of beasts exists but through their flesh,
+    And is developed subject to its laws,
+    And flesh is the condition of their life.
+    When flesh dissolves, the mind disintegrates,
+    And ceases to exist. Man feels within,
+    The consciousness of soul, that would survive
+    Though flesh were torn to shreds upon the wheel.
+    The parts of soul that live alone through flesh,
+    Must perish with it in the hour of death.
+
+    But having postulated Self, as source
+    Of human conduct, you compel the acts
+    To fit your theory. You change effect
+    For cause. Where’er a moral pleasure’s found,
+    You judge that for its gain the deed was done;
+    As if the pleasure could be gained by search!
+    That Self does enter largely into inner life
+    Is very plain, for everything affects,
+    In some way, Self; but does the mind regard
+    Effect, or is its object something else?
+    The appetites, affections, and desires,
+    You make of selfish origin, yet know
+    That is not selfish, which alone affects;
+    But acting with a reference to effect.
+    The appetites are instincts; as you breathe,
+    You hunger, thirst, in helplessness. Not Self,
+    But food or drink, the object of your thought.
+    And even while the taste is in your mouth,
+    The mind dwells on the taste, not on the Self.
+    Desires are partly selfish in their mode;
+    Desire of knowledge, seeking honor’s meed,
+    Is selfish; led by curiosity,
+    ’Tis not more selfish than an appetite.
+    Desire of power, esteem, and wide-spread fame,
+    Is selfish, when the thought of their effect
+    On Self shapes out the conduct; when desired
+    For their own sake, unselfish.
+                                   On the list
+    Affections terminate, you falsely rail
+    The mother, and the lover; both sincere,
+    And both without a thought of selfish aim.
+    ’Tis no reproach to say the mother’s love,
+    In fervid instinct, and development,
+    Is like the cow’s, that God in wisdom gives.
+    No love so pure as that which moves the cow
+    To hover round her young, to bear the blows
+    Impatient hunger deals the udder drained,
+    To smooth with loving tongue the tender coat,
+    Or meet the playful forehead with her own;
+    With threatening horn, to guard approach of harm;
+    And watch, with ceaseless care, the charge in sleep.
+    Her careful love continues, till the calf
+    Has grown beyond her need, and ceases then.
+    A mother loves because it is her child:
+    This is the surest reason you could give.
+    Th’ affection is spontaneous in her breast,
+    But fed and strengthened by his life, if good.
+    The opposites to love you named, affect
+    Her love, by not an injury done to Self,
+    But by their evil, which her soul abhors.
+    Her son’s antagonism’s not to her,
+    But to the good she loves. Her heart withdraws
+    Its twining tendrils from unworthiness.
+    As usual, you select supposed effects,
+    And then assume their causes. Could you see
+    The mother’s heart, you’d find the loss of love
+    Caused not by wrong to her, but wrong abstract
+    Developed in the concrete deeds of crime.
+    Her love is governed by a moral sense,
+    Or idea of the good; the people’s thought
+    About herself comes in as after-part.
+    Bad treatment to herself, although it pain,
+    Deals not a fatal blow to love, except
+    As showing lack of principle in him.
+    And so your lover is not hurt in Self,
+    But moral sense. The loved one’s perfidy,
+    And not her ridicule, beheads your love;
+    Her stunning words were playful pleasantry,
+    Did they not show the baseness of the heart.
+    Indeed, to turn your reasoning on yourself,
+    Her manner even towards you has not changed,
+    And were you present, she would still seem yours;
+    Her eaves-dropped words do not affect the Self,
+    Save as they show her falsity of heart.
+    And tossing on your pillow, through the night,
+    The crushing thought of wrecked integrity
+    Gives deeper pain than all her ridicule.
+    And Self, though pained at thought of being duped,
+    Enjoys relief in thought of its escape.
+    To show that Love is built on higher grounds
+    Than paltry good for Self; that it must have,
+    As corner-stone, a percept of the good,
+    Existing in the object loved, suppose
+    You’re on the topmost height of wildest love,
+    Your arm around her, and your lingering kiss
+    Upon her lips; and Self is king of love.
+    She, nestling on your shoulder, finds ’tis wrong,
+    That love, however true, may grow too warm;
+    That every kiss, however pure, abstracts
+    Some little part from maiden modesty,
+    And steals a pebble from her honor’s wall
+    And rising with the firm resolve, says, “Cease,
+    Unwind your arm, restrain your fervid lips;
+    It may be wrong, and right is surely safe!”
+    Now though the Self is bitterly denied,
+    The rapturous clasp and tender kiss forbid,
+    Is not your love increased a thousand-fold?
+    Do not you feel intensely gratified
+    At this assurance of her moral worth?
+    And would you, for the world, breath aught to cause
+    Her pain, or least regret for her resolve?
+    How firm your trust, how sweet your confidence!
+    You know ’twas not capricious prudery,
+    For your caresses had been oft received;
+    Nor was it sly hypocrisy to win
+    Your heart, for that was long since hers. No thought,
+    But spotless purity, inspired the act;
+    And you are happy, though the Self’s denied.
+
+    The little things of life, that men account
+    Without a moral value, may be done
+    With reference to Self; but oftenest,
+    The mind regards the act, not its effect
+    Upon the Self. The code of Etiquette,
+    The small amenities of social life,
+    The converse, and the articles of dress,
+    May all belong to Self; but moral acts,
+    Those known as right or wrong, have higher source
+    Than Self in any mode.
+                           Within Man’s breast
+    There’s something, apprehending good and bad,
+    Called conscience, or the moral sense; it views,
+    Impartially, each act of his, decides
+    Its quality by rule of right and wrong;
+    All trust its judgments most implicitly.--
+    The good is found, yields greatest happiness;
+    Yet seek it for the sake of happiness,
+    And good is evil, with its misery!
+    The good must be pursued, because a good,
+    The evil shunned, because an evil. Thus,
+    The moral sense discerns these qualities
+    In others, and directs our love.
+                                     A blow
+    The deadliest to our love, would be a blow
+    Aimed at the principle of good. A love,
+    Existing through the injuries done to Self,
+    May meet the public’s praise, and feel its own;
+    But love would merit self-contempt, that loved
+    Whate’er opposed the good. The son may treat
+    The mother with unkindness, yet her love
+    Be undiminished; if he lie, or steal,
+    Her love is less; she cannot love his deed,
+    And cannot love the heart from which they flow
+    So with the youth who gives his chair to Age,
+    He does not so resent that Self’s denied
+    Its meed of thanks, as that ingratitude
+    Should thus be manifest, in little things.
+    A comrade, served the same, would anger cause.
+
+    But him who would give up the highest Self,
+    The soul, for others’ good, you deem a fool;
+    And ask why sacrifice ne’er claimed a soul?
+    Because the soul cannot be sacrificed;
+    No harm to that can others benefit.
+    But if it could, how truly grand the man
+    Who’d take eternal woe for fellow-men!
+    But God, who makes the soul the care of life,
+    Makes every soul stand for itself alone,
+    And in His wisdom hath ordained this law:
+    The greater good man gets for his own soul,
+    The greater good on others’ he confers,
+    While evil to himself, an evil gives.
+
+    Then comes the question of this abstract good,
+    That moral sense declares the end of life.
+    What is its nature? whence does it arise?
+    And whence does man derive the half-formed thought?
+    You have compared the systems that define,
+    Each in its way, the hidden theory.
+    None satisfy, though each some element
+    Sets forth in clear distinctness. Take them all,
+    Select the true of each, as Cousin does,
+    And will eclecticism satisfy?
+    And does the soul not cry for something more?
+    For something that it feels ’twill never reach,
+    The good, as known to minds unclogged with flesh?
+    Man takes the dim outlines of abstract thought,
+    And seeking to evolve their perfect form,
+    The very outlines grow more indistinct;
+    As gazing at a star will make it fade.
+    Man’s only forms of good are blent with flesh,
+    And when he seeks to take the flesh away,
+    And leave the abstract, he is thus confused,
+    As if he should withdraw the wick and oil,
+    And seek to find the flame still in the lamp.
+
+    To learn the source of ideas of the Good,
+    Trace Man collective, to his babyhood;
+    For ’mid the prejudice of full-grown thought,
+    The truth would be effectually concealed.
+    Through every people scattered o’er the globe,
+    There does prevail some idea of a God;
+    Though rude and barbarous this idea be,
+    It still, in some form, does exist. The good,
+    With all, bears reference to this thought;
+    And what this Deity approves is good,
+    And what He disapproves is bad. Men learn
+    What He approves, and what He disapproves,
+    By revelation, inference, and instinct.
+    God’s sanction then is origin of Good,
+    Though afterwards men learn the sweet effects,
+    And practise it for its own sake; and call
+    Their little effort, grandest abstract truth.
+    Developing in intellectual strength,
+    They plaster up this good in various forms,
+    Until, refined beyond all subtilty,
+    It seems to them a self-existent good.
+
+    The good is then a certain quality,
+    In actions, or existence, that assures
+    Divine approval. This vast idea, God,
+    Creation sows in every human heart;
+    All Nature’s grand designs demand a God,
+    A God intelligent. The same instinct
+    That tells His being, teaches what He loves;
+    And what He loves with every people’s good.
+    But different nations entertain ideas
+    Diverse in reference to a Deity,
+    And different notions of what pleases Him.
+    One deems the care of God’s child-gift her good;
+    Another tears the heart-strings from her babe,
+    And feeds, for good, the sacred crocodile.
+
+    The good lies in the thought of pleasing God:
+    The consciousness that God is pleased with us,
+    A pleasure yields, and good might there be sought
+    For pleasure’s sake, and prove a selfish aim;
+    But moral selfishness a pain imparts,
+    And good, for pleasure sought, defeats the search.
+
+    The good is sought, because it pleases God,
+    Not with the doer, but with what is done.
+    Good has its origin in th’ idea God,
+    And what He loves; but to continue good
+    It must retain approval in the act,
+    And not transfer it to the agent’s self.
+    The consciousness that God approves a deed,
+    Makes Man approve, and thus his mind is brought
+    In correlation with the Mind Divine.
+    The man who does an alms, if done to gain
+    God’s favor for himself, feels selfish pain;
+    But if because the act, not he, will please,
+    He finds the pleasure. Man, as time rolls on,
+    Finds general laws that please or displease God,
+    And ranging, under these, subordinates
+    Amenable to them and not to God,
+    The moral quality of lesser deeds
+    He reckons by these laws, nor does ascend
+    To God, that gives their moral quality.
+    Jouffroy, in Order, placed the Abstract Good,
+    And paused a step below the real truth,
+    The idea God, whence Order emanates.
+
+    Thus Man, progressing, good withdraws from God
+    And seems an independent entity,
+    And man denominates it, Abstract Good.
+    He can attain the Abstract but in part;
+    When mind is freed from flesh, he may attain
+    To its full grandeur. Here, at most, he grasps
+    A faint outline, and fits it on concrete.
+    No concept occupies one act of mind,
+    But opening the lettered label, he
+    May count the attributes, and by an act
+    Complex, of memory and cognition, gain
+    Some idea of his Abstract. Thus of “Man,”
+    One act can only cognize M-A-N,
+    But opening, he finds the attributes,
+    As “mammal,” “biped,” “vertebrate.” This act
+    Is complex, and he cannot unitize,
+    Save by the bundle of a word. You’ve said
+    It answers all the purposes of life,
+    Then why seek more? lest speculation vain
+    Point out dim realms, where Man can never tread,
+    These baffling thoughts are given, as peacocks’ feet,
+    To Man’s fond pride. The simplest avenue
+    Of thought, pursued, will reach absurdity,
+    To comprehension finite.
+                             Even the truth
+    Of numbers you presume to doubt. Two balls,
+    You claim, can ne’er be two unless alike.
+    You mingle quantity and number, foolishly,
+    As if a ball the size of Earth, and one,
+    A tiny mustard-seed, would not be two!
+    You deem all Mathematics wide at fault,
+    Because Man’s powers to illustrate are weak.
+    Earth has oft seen a pure right angle drawn,
+    Because Man’s sight could not detect a flaw;
+    And if to his discernment perfect made,
+    He must admit its perfect form. If life,
+    In every intricate demand, finds truth,
+    Why seek to overturn by sophistry?
+    You see and know Achilles far beyond
+    The tortoise, yet the super-wise must prove
+    That he can never pass the creeping thing,
+    Although his speed a hundred times as swift!
+    When Man commences, he may find a doubt
+    In everything; his life, his neighbor’s life,
+    The outside world, may all be but a myth;
+    Then let him so believe, but let him act
+    Consistently; but does the skeptic so?
+    He crams all Nature in his little mind,
+    Yet how he cringes to her slightest law!
+    He flees the rain, and wards the cold, or fears
+    The lightning’s glittering blow. He doubts his frame
+    Can work by mechanism so absurd,
+    Yet will not for a day refrain from food!
+
+    When Man compares his body and his mind,
+    And tries the power of each, he magnifies
+    The mind to Deity, and yet how small
+    Compared with what it has to learn! The more
+    Man knows, the more he finds he does not know;
+    And as a traveller toiling up the hill,
+    Each upward step reveals a wider view
+    Of fields of thought sublime he dares not hope
+    To ever reach in life; and wearily he sits
+    Him down upon the mountain-side, so far
+    Beneath its untrod top, and recklessly
+    Doubts everything, because beyond his grasp.
+
+    All skeptic reasoning ends, as did your own,
+    No fruit but blind bewilderment of thought!
+    And none but fools will e’er believe sincere
+    The faith that doubts alone by theory,
+    And yet approves by practice. Such is yours;
+    The stern necessities of life demand
+    A practical belief, and such is given;
+    And still, forsooth, because your narrow mind
+    Cannot contain the Truth in perfect form,
+    You dare deny it does exist. But few
+    Of skeptic minds are let to live on Earth,
+    And even these made instruments of good,
+    In calling forth defenders of the Truth,
+    Who add their strength to its Eternal Walls.
+    Then here behold God’s wisdom manifest!
+    Amid the care of countless greater orbs,
+    He watches Earth, and knows its smallest thing.
+    While Man, as individual, is free,
+    Collective Man is being surely led
+    Towards an end, but when it will be reached,
+    God knows alone. Then Man will be removed
+    Into a higher or a lower sphere,
+    As he has worthy proved. With Man ’twill be
+    A great event; his awful Judgment-day!
+    When from those far-off realms, the Son shall come
+    With Angel retinue, and through the worlds,
+    Shall lead their solemn flight, to where we stand;
+    And as the trump shall peal its clarion tones,
+    And beat away Earth’s gauze of atmosphere,
+    The millions living, and the billions dead,
+    Will leave the sod, and “caught up in the air,”
+    Shall stand before the Throne, to hear their doom.
+    Then, faces pale with fear, and trembling limbs,
+    Will be on every side, as on the air
+    They rest, with nothing solid ’neath their feet;
+    And see dismantled Earth burst into flames,
+    And reel along its track, a globe of fire,
+    The volumed smoke, a dusky envelope;
+    Its revolutions wrapping pliant flames,
+    In scarlet girdles, round its bulging waist,
+    And hurling streams of centrifugal sparks,
+    In broad red tangents, from the burning orb.
+    Upon the conflagration Man will gaze,
+    With shuddering horror; ’tis his only home,
+    The scene of all his fame, the source of wealth,
+    For which he toiled so wearily. All gone!
+    He would not touch a mountain of pure gold,
+    For ’twould be useless now! Poor, pauper Man,
+    Without his money, chiefest aim of life,
+    Stands homeless ’mid a Universe, to learn
+    If God will be his Father, or his Foe!
+    And from the blackness underneath, the swarms
+    Of Evil ones are thronged, their hideous forms
+    Half shown in lurid light, as here and there
+    They flit, like sharks, expectant of their prey.
+    Then comes the closing scene. The sentence passed,
+    The righteous breaking forth to joyous praise,
+    Shall thread Creation’s wondrous maze of life,
+    And with their Leader, sweep towards yon Heaven;
+    While down the black abyss, with cries of woe
+    That make the darkness tremble, the condemned
+    Are dragged, into its gloom,--and all is o’er--
+    Earth’s ashes float in scattered clouds through space--
+    To Man the grandest era of all Time,
+    To God, completion of Salvation’s scheme!
+
+    But Man deems Judgment too far off for thought,
+    Nor will prepare for such a distant fate;
+    Yet there is something, far more sure than aught
+    Uncertain life can offer; its decision, too,
+    Is just as final as the Judgment doom;
+    And still ’tis oftenest farthest from the thought.
+    ’Tis Death, the welcome or unwelcome guest
+    Of every man, and yet how few prepare
+    For its approach! They give all else a care;
+    Wealth, honor, fame, get all their time,
+    While certain Death’s forgotten, till disease
+    Gives warning; then with hasty penitence,
+    The knees are worn, the heart’s thick rubbish cleared;
+    But oft too late; the heart will not be cleared,
+    The stubborn knees will not consent to bend,
+    The house is set in order, while the guest,
+    In sable robes, stands at the throbbing door.
+
+    And now to close thy lesson, look through this!
+    He gave to me a strangely fashioned glass,
+    Through which, when I had looked to Earth, I saw
+    A long black wall, that towered immensely high,
+    So none might see beyond. Before its length,
+    Mankind were ranged, all weaving busily;
+    The young and old, the maiden and the man;
+    The infant hands unconscious plied the thread,
+    The aged with a feeble, listless move.
+    They wove the warp of Life, and drew its thread
+    From o’er the wall; none knew how far its end
+    Was off, nor when ’twould reach the busy hand,
+    Nor did they care, in aught by action shown,
+    But bending o’er their work, without a glance
+    Towards the thread, that still so smoothly ran,
+    They threw the shuttle back and forth again,
+    Till suddenly the ravelled end appeared,
+    Fell from the wall, and to the shuttle crept;
+    And then the weaver laid his work aside,
+    With folded hands, was wrapped within his warp,
+    To wait the Master’s sentence on his task.
+    I saw the thread, in passing through their hands,
+    Received the various colors, from their touch,
+    And tinged the different patterns that they wove.
+    And oh! how different in design! Some wove
+    A spotless fabric, whose pure simple plan
+    Was always ready for the ending thread;
+    Come when it would, no part was incomplete;
+    But what was done, could bear th’ Inspector’s eye.
+    And others wove a dark and dingy rag,
+    That bore no pattern, save its filthiness;
+    Fit garment for the fool who weaves for flames!
+    Some wove the great red woof of war,
+    With clashing swords, and crossing bayonets,
+    With ghastly bones, and famished widows’ homes,
+    With all the grim machinery of Death,
+    To gain a paltry crown, or curule chair;
+    Perchance, before the crown or chair is reached,
+    The thread gives out, the work is incomplete,
+    And in the gory cloak his hands have wrought,
+    With all its stains unwashed, the hero sleeps.
+    Some shuttles shape the gilded temple, Fame,
+    And count on thread to weave its topmost dome;
+    But ere the lowest pinnacle is touched,
+    The brittle filament is snapped. Some weave
+    The bema, with its loud applause; and some
+    The gaudy chaplet of the bacchanal,
+    And others sweated bays of honest toil.
+    But all the fabrics bear the yellow stain
+    Of gold, o’er which the sinner and the saint
+    Unseemly strive, and he seems happiest
+    Whose work is yellowest.
+                             Along the wall,
+    “A fountain filled with blood,” plays constantly,
+    Where man may cleanse the fabric as he weaves;
+    Yet few avail themselves; the waters flow,
+    While Man works on, without regard to stains,
+    Till thread worn thin arouses him to fear,
+    Or breaks before the damning dyes are cleansed.
+
+    And down the line I ran my anxious eyes,
+    To find a weaver I might recognize,
+    And saw, at last, a form by mirrors known.
+    Oh! ’twas a shameful texture that I wove,
+    So dark its hue, so little saving white,
+    Such seldom bathing in the fountain stream,
+    I could not look, but bowed my blushing face,
+    And like the publican of old, cried out,
+    “Be merciful to me a sinner!”
+                                  “Rise!”
+    The Angel said, “And worship God alone,
+    Return to Earth, enjoy an humble faith,
+    Whose simple trust shall make thee happier
+    Than all the grandeur of philosophy.
+    Should doubts arise, remember, God’s designs
+    Above a finite comprehension stand,
+    And finite doubts, about the Infinite,
+    Assume absurdity’s intensest form.
+    Man, from the stand-point of the Present, looks,
+    And disappointed, bitterly complains
+    Of what would move his deepest gratitude,
+    Could he the issue of the morrow know.
+    God sees the future, and in kindness deals
+    To every man his complement of good.
+      Remember then the weakness of thy mind,
+    Nor doubt because thou canst not understand.
+      To gather scattered jewels thou must kneel;
+    So on thy knees seek truth, and thou shalt find;
+    The nearer Earth thy face, the nearer Heaven
+    Thy heart. And now farewell!”
+                                  I sprang to clasp
+    His hand in gratitude, but with a wave
+    Of parting benediction, he was gone!
+    Then in an instant, like an aerolite,
+    With naught to bear me up, I fell to Earth,
+    Swifter and swifter, with increasing speed!
+    Now bursting through a sunlit bank of cloud,
+    And clutching, vainly, at the yielding mist,
+    Or through a cradling storm, with thunder charged,
+    Down through the open air, whose parted breath
+    Hissed death into my ears, while all below
+    Seemed rushing up to meet and mangle me.
+    I shrieked aloud, “Oh save me!”--
+                                      And awoke.
+    The day was o’er, and night had drawn her shades;
+    The twinkling eyes of Heaven shone through the leaves,
+    And lit the tiny rain-globes on the grass;
+    The cloud had passed, and on th’ horizon’s verge,
+    A monster firefly, with shimmering flash,
+    It slowly crawled behind the curve of death.
+    And evening’s silence deeper seemed than noon’s,
+    For not a sound disturbed the hush of night,
+    Save katydids, with quavering monotones,
+    Returning contradictions from the trees.
+    All drenched and chilled, with trembling limbs I rose,
+    And homeward bent my steps; and pondering
+    Upon my dream, this moral from it drew:
+    Man cannot judge the Eternal Mind by his,
+    But must accept the mysteries of Life,
+    As purposes Divine, with perfect ends.
+    And in our darkest clouds, God’s Angels stand,
+    To work Man’s present and eternal good.
+
+
+
+
+              THE VILLAGE ON THE TAR
+
+DEDICATED TO PETTIGREW COUNCIL NO 1. F. OF T.
+
+
+    A drunkard in a distant town lay dying on his bed,
+    There was lack of woman’s gentle touch about his fevered head,
+    But a comrade stood beside him, and wiped the foam away,
+    That bubbled through his frothy lips, to hear what he might say.
+    The poor inebriate faltered, as he caught that comrade’s eye,
+    And he said, “’Tis hard, far, far from home ’mid strangers thus to die.
+    Take a message and a token to my friends away so far,
+    For Louisburg’s my native place, the village on the Tar.
+
+    “Tell my brothers and companions, should they ever wish to know
+    The story of the fallen, ah! the fallen one so low,
+    That we drank the whole night deeply, and when at last ’twas o’er,
+    Full many a form lay beastly drunk along the barroom floor.
+    And there were ’mid those wretches some who had long served sin,
+    Their bloated features telling well what faithful slaves they’d been;
+    And some were young and had not on the Hell-path entered far--
+    And one was from the village, the village on the Tar.
+
+    “Tell my mother that her other sons may still some comfort prove,
+    But I, in even childhood, would scorn that mother’s love;
+    And when she called the children to lift up the evening prayer,
+    One form was always missing, there was e’er one vacant chair,
+    For my father was a drunkard, and even as a child
+    He taught my little feet to tread the road to ruin wild;
+    And when he died and left us to dispute about his will,
+    I let them take whate’er they would, but kept my father’s ‘still,’
+    And with sottish love I used it till its venomed ‘worm’ did gnaw
+    My soul, my mind, my very life, in the village on the Taw.[A]
+
+    “Tell my sister oft to weep for me with sad and drooping head,
+    When she sees the wine flow freely, that poison ruby red,
+    And to turn her back upon it, with deep and burning shame,
+    For her brother fell before it and disgraced the fam’ly name.
+    And if a drunkard seeks her love, oh! tell her, for my sake,
+    To shun the loathsome creature, as she would a deadly snake,
+    And have the old ‘still’ torn away, its fragments scattered far,
+    For the honor of the village, the village on the Tar.
+
+    “There’s another, not a sister; in the merry days of old,
+    You’d have known her by the dark blue eye, and hair of wavy gold;
+    Too gentle e’er to chide me, too devoted e’er to hate,
+    She loved me, though oft warned by all to shun the dreaded fate.
+    Tell her the last night of my life--for ere the morning dawn,
+    My body will be tenantless, my clay-chained spirit gone--
+    I dreamed I stood beside her, and in those lovely blue depths saw
+    The merry light that cheered me, in the village on the Taw.[A]
+
+    “I saw the old Tar hurrying on its bubbles to the sea,
+    As men on life’s waves e’er are swept towards eternity;
+    And the rippling waters mingled with the warbling of the birds,
+    Returned soft silvery echoes to my deep impassioned words;
+    And in those listening ears I poured the sweet tho’ time-worn story,
+    While swimming were those love-lit eyes, in all their tear-pearled glory;
+    And her little hand was closely pressed in mine so brown and braw,
+    Ah! I no more shall meet her, in the village on the Taw.”[A]
+
+    He ceased to speak, and through his frame there ran a shiver slight,
+    His blood-shot eyes rolled inward and revealed their ghastly white,
+    His swollen tongue protruded, o’er his face a pallor spread,
+    His comrade touched his pulse--’twas still--and he was with the dead.
+    The moon from her pavilion, in the blue-draped fleecy cloud,
+    Through the window o’er the corpse had thrown her pale but ghostly shroud,
+    The same moon that gazing upon that couch of straw.
+    Was bathing in a silver flood the village on the Taw.[A]
+
+[A] The Indian name of this river was _Taw_.--PUBLISHER.
+
+
+
+
+              REQUIESCAM
+
+
+    Oh! give me a grave in a lone, gloomy dell,
+      By the side of a deep, swift creek,
+    Where the ripples run like a tinkling bell,
+    Through the grassy nooks, where love so well
+      The minnows to play hide and seek!
+
+    Where in summer the thick twining foliage weaves
+      A green, arching roof upon high,
+    And the rain-drops fall from the dripping eaves,
+    Like tears of grief from the weeping leaves
+      On the face upturned to the sky!
+
+    Where the silence frightens the birds away,
+      And all is still, dreary and weird,
+    Except, perchance at the close of day,
+    The bittern’s boom or the crane’s hoarse bray,
+      Floating over the swamp, is heard.
+
+    Where the dusky wolf and the antlered deer
+      Ever shun the dark, haunted ground;
+    Where the crouching panther ventures near,
+    His tawny coat all bristling with fear,
+      At the sight of the low, red mound.
+
+    Where at twilight gray, the lone whippoorwill
+      May perch on the stake at my head,
+    And with its unearthly, tremulous trill
+    The dreary gloom of the whole place fill
+      With a requiem over the dead.
+
+    Where the greater the ruin in earth’s damp mold,
+      The greater the contrast will prove,
+    When the weary wings of my spirit I fold,
+    In heaven, and swell with a bright harp of gold,
+      The grand pealing anthem of love.
+
+    _February 9th, 1867_
+
+
+
+
+              LINES TO AN ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY
+
+            KNOWN TO THE STUDENTS AS “MISS ANNIE”
+
+        WRITTEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1866
+
+
+    At “Elysium” chum and I were sitting,
+    Across our vision memories flitting,
+    Talking, smoking, often spitting
+      On the hearth, not on the floor;
+    When suddenly we heard a spluttering,
+    As of book leaves madly flutt’ring,
+    Some one there seemed slowly mutt’ring,
+      At the bookcase, not the door.
+
+    Wildly springing to my feet
+    (Chum with fright seemed tied t’ his seat),
+    Dreading, fearing I should meet
+      What so like a ghost had spoken--
+    Fellow members, if you’re able
+    To believe what seemed a fable,
+    I saw “Miss Annie” on the table,
+      With rage and anger almost choking.
+
+    Then without a bow or bend,
+    Sitting up upon one end,
+    Without preface thus began--
+      While we both in wonder stared:
+    “O ye worthless lazy scamps!
+    Talk about your midnight lamps,
+    While I’m in the bookcase crampt,
+      To what can such Sophs be compared?
+
+    “Here you’ll sit and smoke and talk,
+    To-morrow morn to black-board walk,
+    Seize your ‘ruler’ and your chalk,
+      Then I hope get badly ‘rushed.’
+    Oh! the present generation,
+    Such neglect to education,
+    Blood and scissors! thunderation!”
+      She was so mad the tears forth gushed.
+
+    Chum and I had heard enough
+    To put us both in quite a huff,
+    So just to stop her noisome stuff
+      I sprang and seized her by the collar.
+    George jumped up and grabbed the poker,
+    Shouted, “Edwin, try to choke her!
+    We’ll stop her mouth, a darned old croaker,
+      Squeeze her tight and make her ‘holloa.’”
+
+    To the fire we held her near,
+    Still she showed no signs of fear.
+    “Shall the red coals be your bier?”
+      She shook her leaves and fluttered, “No.”
+    Now my face with anger flushes,
+    Covered first with scarlet blushes,
+    I cried, “Will you again e’er ‘rush’ us?”
+      Quoth Miss Annie, “Evermore.”
+
+    “Book or fiend,” I cried, up starting,
+    “Be that word our sign of parting.”
+    Then I, in my vengeance darting,
+      Hurled her in the embers red.
+    She slightly quivered, slowly burned;
+    From the sickening sight I turned,
+    Yet from her this lesson learned,
+      Prepare before you go to bed.
+
+
+
+
+              LINES TO COUSINS C. AND E.
+
+       ON THE BIRTH OF THEIR LITTLE DAUGHTER
+
+
+    The marriage over, from the train
+    Of watching seraphs, one long strain
+        Of gratulation broke.
+    And then were still the rustling wings,
+    And fingers hushed the throbbing strings,
+        While thus an angel spoke:
+
+    “Who’ll go to earth to bless this pair
+    With angel child, beneath their care
+        Be trained for bliss or woe?”
+    He ceased, and from the throng sprang three,
+    Faith, Love, and spotless Purity.
+        These knelt, and said “We’ll go.”
+
+    Dear cousins, to you these are sent,
+    Three spirits in one being blent.
+        It is a jewel rare.
+    Oh! keep her pure as when first given,
+    Guide her faith from Earth to Heaven,
+        Guard her love with care.
+
+    _May, 1867._
+
+
+
+
+              THE DEVIL OUTDONE;
+
+                   OR,
+
+         THE GUARD OF THE SULPHUR LAKE
+
+
+To her who sent me the Valentine with the cutting irony, “Don’t I look
+pretty in church?” these lines are respectfully inscribed. Not knowing
+her name, I will call her “Taters,” as she drew her elegant and tasty
+simile from that vegetable.
+
+    The Devil was sitting one morning below,
+    And he seemed much perplexed as to what he must do,
+    For his dark brows would knit, and he’d stamp on the ground,
+    And flap his great wings till floating around
+    Were the ashes and feathers.
+                                 At last with an air
+    Of resolve he threw himself back in his chair,
+    Lit a brimstone cigar, and touched a small bell.
+    An imp appeared, bowed, and on his face fell.
+    “Cloven-foot,” said the D----, “what’s the news from the fire?”
+    “My liege, the great ape has ceased to inspire
+    The victims with terror; they fear him no more,
+    And continually crawl from the flames to the shore.”
+    “Well, Cloven-foot, I had most certainly thought
+    When from Africa’s wilds that baboon you brought,
+    He’d prove such a guard for the great Sulphur Lake
+    The wretches would ne’er cease before him to quake.
+    Now go up to earth, and search till you find
+    Something uglier far, then quick seize and bind
+    And bring it to me; and if it beats the baboon
+    I’ll reward you. Be sure to return just as soon
+    As ’tis possible, and above all things to choose
+    An object whose countenance never will lose
+    Its hideous novelty.” The imp bowed and withdrew,
+    And swiftly to earth on his errand he flew;
+    But in vain did he search where the gorillas roam,
+    Or the jungles of Bengal, the fierce tiger’s home.
+    In vain throughout Europe he searched every place;
+    Nowhere could he find the requisite face.
+    Frustrated and weary, with deep despair frantic,
+    He was skimming the waves of the tossing Atlantic.
+    A few pinion strokes, and he stood on the shore
+    Of the New World, and through it began to explore.
+    But all was in vain, till he chanced to alight
+    In a sweet little village, one smiling morn bright.
+    Disguising himself, he attended the church,
+    Not hoping to find the object of search,
+    But just for the fun.
+                          As he stood with the throng
+    That were watching the College girls marching along,
+    He caught a slight glimpse of Miss “Tater’s” sweet face;
+    He sprang to her side, clasped her in embrace,
+    And as he plunged downward he said to himself,
+    “Here’s one will compete with the African elf.”
+    He soon furled his wing on the Plutonian shore,
+    And to his dark ruler his fair burden bore.
+    As the Valentine sender came into sight
+    The Devil himself started back with affright.
+    “Whew! whew!” whistled he, “she’ll do, I declare!
+    Go bring the baboon, and let them compare.”
+    The imp disappeared, then returned with the ape,
+    A creature most frightful in feature and shape.
+    His head was oblong and perfectly bald,
+    Running back from his eyes--no forehead at all;
+    His eyeballs were white, their sockets deep red;
+    His long, glistening teeth strung with human-flesh shred,
+    The gore of his victims from his fingers’ ends flowed;
+    And round his lank limbs candescent chains glowed,
+    In front of Miss “Taters” this creature was led;
+    He gave a look, yelled, and fainted stone dead.
+    “By my tongs,” quoth the Devil, “she’s rather too hard
+    For the old fellow; she’ll make a capital guard.
+    Take her down to the fire.” The imp led the way
+    And far down they went from the clear light of day,
+    Down, down, till the air was all smoky and red,
+    Till the tumult of hell seemed bursting her head;
+    Down, down, till the piteous wails and the moans
+    Of the tortured but echoed the jeers and the groans
+    Of the fiends. Down, down, till they came to the lake
+    That scorches and scalds, but never will slake
+    The thirst of its victims. Far out on its breast
+    It would heave them anon on the red foaming crest
+    Of a billow, then plunge them far deeper beneath
+    Its boiling bosom, in torture to seethe.
+    Along the hot shore the poor creatures would crawl,
+    To pant and to rest from their terrible thrall.
+    From their bodies all smoking the lava would stream,
+    While the shriveled flesh peeled from each quiv’ring limb,
+    And their heart-piercing shrieks rose higher and higher,
+    As the tongue of each wave licked them back in the fire.
+    But as soon as Miss “Taters” had come where they were
+    Every noise was hushed, not a sound could you hear.
+    ’Twas a wonder indeed, and the wonder increased,
+    When the billows of crimson their torture surge ceased.
+    When the imp had examined more closely, he found
+    The victims had fainted, the fire gone down.
+    He hurried her back to his master and said,
+    “The fires are out, and the wretches are dead.”
+    “What, the fires extinguished! those fires of old!
+    Take her back! I begin e’en myself to feel cold!
+    She’ll ruin us all with her terrible face;
+    She’s rather hard-favored for even this place.”
+
+    _April, 1867._
+
+
+
+
+              THE SUNFLOWER
+
+     LINES SUGGESTED BY OBSERVING GEN. PETTIGREW’S NAME OMITTED IN MRS.
+     DOWNING’S “MEMORIAL FLOWERS” AND IN THE “SOUTHERN BOUQUET”
+
+
+    When poets cull memorial flowers,
+      With which our martyrs’ graves to strew,
+    They choose no one in Nature’s bowers
+            For Pettigrew.
+
+    Yet there is one, and only one,
+      Which truly represents his name;
+    A flower that revels in the sun,
+            And drinks his flame.
+
+    A flower that opens when, all red,
+      The sun hath kissed the eastern skies;
+    But westward turned, it droops its head
+            And proudly dies.
+
+    Thus when the sun of victory sheared
+      Its gory way o’er clouds of war,
+    This flower’s tow’ring crest appeared
+            A beacon star.
+
+    And in its gorgeous, glorious rays,
+      This flower basked, and only bowed
+    When coming conquest’s bloody haze
+            That sun did shroud.
+
+    Crushed flower, with thy broken stem,
+      I’ll keep thee near to typify
+    The fallen form; the hero’s fame
+            Can never die.
+
+    _June 19th, 1867._
+
+
+
+
+              AN ELEGY
+
+WRITTEN ON THE ROTUNDA STEPS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 1868
+
+
+    The bell the knell of evening lecture tolls,
+      The thronging students pour from every door;
+    The tutor gathers up his notes and rolls,
+      And homeward wends his weary way once more.
+
+    The noisy crowd is gone, there is a pause,
+      And hushed is all the busy hum and whirl,
+    Save where from yonder room breaks loud applause
+      That welcomes some professor’s parting “curl.”
+
+    Save that from yonder plain, the lower lawn,
+      Some base-ball novice makes harsh rhyms to _psalm_,
+    Because a veteran, with his hands of horn,
+      Has “pitched” too “hot” a ball for his soft palm.
+
+    Beneath those balconies, along those rows,
+      Where sinks the wall in many a jail-like cell,
+    Each wrapped in silence now and in repose,
+      The minstrels of the “Calathump” do dwell.
+
+    The whispered call of evil-masking night,
+      The signal whistle of the well-known crew,
+    The bumping bang of “blowers” beat with might,
+      Will often rouse the “Nippers of Peru.”
+
+    For them in vain for hours their hearts will burn,
+      While busy housewives tremble at their noise,
+    And frightened children to their fathers turn,
+      Too badly scared to think of play or toys.
+
+    Oft has th’ rotunda echoed to their songs,
+      In dulcet strains that on the still air broke;
+    Oft has the lawn resounded with their gongs,
+      That roared and rattled ’neath their sturdy stroke.
+
+    Let not their victims mock th’ infernal din,
+      Coal-scuttle drums, and clarion paper trump;
+    But let them hear with a sardonic “grin,”
+      The hideous clamor of a “Calathump.”
+
+    The boast of Mozart, or Beethoven’s pride,
+      The sweetest notes Von Weber ever gave,
+    Alike would prove harsh dissonance beside
+      The gushing concord of one college stave.
+
+    To-night upon their pillows will be laid
+      Heads that are pregnant with some secret plan;
+    Hands that a “poker” often may have swayed,
+      Or waked to ecstasy an old tin pan.
+
+    In vain grave study holds before their gaze
+      Her ample page and honor’s glittering roll;
+    The fire of “frolic” in their bosom plays,
+      And warms the devilish current of their soul.
+
+    Full many a mind that might have nations hurled
+      About as toys, has hid its talents rare;
+    And many a voice that might have moved a world,
+      Has cracked in shoutings on the midnight air.
+
+    Some village Hampden here by night may bawl,
+      Some unknown Milton, but by no means mute;
+    Some David that may soothe a savage Saul,
+      As yet entirely guiltless of a lute.
+
+    The applause of gaping urchins to command,
+      The darkies’ laughter at their quaint disguise,
+    A few short words from some one to the band,
+      This is their sole reward, their hard-earned prize.
+
+    But who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
+      Would start to nip with dry and husky throttle?
+    Whene’er they march along the Devil’s way,
+      They take his own peculiar seal, the bottle.
+
+    Amid the madding crowd that gathers thick,
+      A moving pandemonium they stray,
+    And down those much frequented walks of brick
+      They hold the noisy tenor of their way.
+
+
+              THE EPIGRAM
+
+    Here go at last, all yelling to the town,
+      A band of youths to Judson’s too well known;
+    Fair science ever met their darkest frown,
+      And foul intemperance marked them for her own.
+
+    Small is their bounty, but “a drink” they chime,
+      As round the crowded counter many jam;
+    Each gives to Judson (all he has) a dime,
+      Each gets from him (’tis all he wants) a dram.
+
+    _January, 1868._
+
+
+
+
+              FIRE EYES
+
+
+    Hast thou on summer’s eve ere marked
+      The storm on cloud wings soaring high,
+    And spreading far his pinions black,
+      Across the blue good-natured sky?
+    And hast thou seen from ’neath his brow
+      The lightning’s eye gleam fiercely bright,
+    As if to pierce a thousand foes
+      With daggers of his living light?
+    As flash the lightnings in the skies,
+    So gleam, when angry, “Fire Eyes.”
+
+    Hast thou on autumn eve e’er seen
+      The sun just nestling on his pillow,
+    While sapphire clouds were silver-fringed,
+      As seafoam crests the surging billow?
+    And hast thou seen the golden gaze
+      The sun bestows on Nature fair,
+    That dyes the gorgeous landscape o’er
+      And almost melts the amber air?
+    As beams the sun on autumn skies
+    So smile, when pleased, bright “Fire Eyes.”
+
+
+
+
+              MY DARLING’S JESSAMINE
+
+
+    ’Twas only a sprig of white jessamine,
+      That came in a letter she wrote;
+    But I value it more than the costliest vine
+    Whose tendrils o’er marble-carved trellis-work twine:
+      _’Twas worn at my darling one’s throat_.
+
+    A throat that encages the nightingale’s trill,
+      And sweetens each silvery note,
+    And I think as I hear, in a rapturous thrill,
+    Her voice, whose volume can heaven’s dome fill,
+      That the _angels have lent her a throat_.
+
+    More sweet than exotics that Fashion dupes wear
+      As through the gay ballroom they float!
+    In the leaves of my Bible I laid it with care,
+    More _sacredly dear_ than a _buried friend’s hair_
+      Since worn at my darling one’s throat!
+
+    _July, 1870._
+
+
+
+
+              THE PARTING SHIP
+
+
+    In pensive mood I stood upon the quay,
+    Where busy Commerce plied her energy;
+    Where loading vessels hung their sails at rest,
+    And rose and fell, upon the water’s breast.
+    Where busy little tugs with hissing steam
+    Buried their noses in the foaming stream.
+    Near by, a steamer in a paneled wharf
+    Chafed at her chains and panted to be off.
+    A strange, mysterious ship, no pennon bold
+    Her nation or her destination told;
+    No crew was seen, no farewell song was sung,
+    No parting loved ones to each other clung;
+    No wife was weeping on her husband’s neck,
+    No mother blessed her wayward boy on deck.
+    A ceaseless throng pressed through the cabin door,
+    As if they longed to leave their native shore;
+    No backward glance, no tearful farewell view,
+    And no one seemed to think home worth adieu.
+    At last the bell was rung, the plank was drawn,
+    And with a shivering sigh, the ship was gone.
+    Then as I marked her curving track of foam,
+    I wondered in what waters she would roam;
+    I thought of those on board, the reckless air
+    Of their departure, and I breathed a prayer.
+    A red-haired man stood turning up a wheel,
+    That wound a clanking chain upon a reel;
+    I laid a coin upon his brawny hand,
+    And asked him, “Who thus leave their native land?”
+    He leaned upon his wheel and closed one eye,
+    As if the lid were burdened with a sty;
+    Then with a laugh he answered, “By the devil’s spleen and liver,
+    It’s on’y a Fulton ferry-boat a’gwine a’gross East River.”
+
+
+
+
+              TO M----, FROM E----
+
+        WRITTEN ON THE FLY-LEAF OF A BIBLE
+
+
+    One year of sweetest love intense!
+    One year of mutual confidence!
+    One year of gazing into eyes,
+    In which the love-light never dies!
+    One year of clasping hands, that thrill
+    With throbbing love from life’s red rill
+    One year of clouds, whose transient shade
+    The after glory brighter made!
+    One year of doubts, whose fleeting rust
+    Could not corrode our links of trust!
+    One year of prayer, whose pleading tone
+    Has for _each other_ sued the Throne!
+    One year _together_--may it prove
+    Prophetic of our earthly love!
+    One year _each other’s_--may it be
+    A type of our _eternity_!
+
+    _Sunday, May, 1871._
+
+
+
+
+              UNDER THE PINES
+
+“TELL THEM TO BURY ME UNDER THE PINES AT HOME.” FROM “SEA GIFT.”
+
+
+    I would not rest in the moldering tomb
+      Of the grim church-yard, where the ivy twines,
+    But make me a grave in the forest’s gloom,
+    Where the breezes wave, like a soldier’s plume,
+      Each dark-green bough of the dear old pines;
+
+    Where the lights and shadows softly merge,
+      And the sun-flakes sift through the netted vines;
+    Where the sea winds, sad with the sob of the surge,
+    From the harp-leaves sweep a solemn dirge
+      For the dead beneath the sighing pines.
+
+    When the winter’s icy fingers sow
+      The mound with jewels till it shines,
+    And cowled in hoods of glistening snow,
+    Like white-veiled sisters bending low,
+      Bow, sorrowing, the silent pines.
+
+    While others fought for cities proud,
+      For fertile plains and wealth of mines,
+    I breathed the sulph’rous battle cloud,
+    I bared my breast, and took my shroud
+      For the land where wave the grand old pines.
+
+    Though comrades sigh and loved ones weep
+      For the form shot down in the battle lines,
+    In my grave of blood I gladly sleep,
+    If the life I gave will help to keep
+      The Vandal’s foot from the Land of Pines.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The Vandal’s foot hath pressed our sod,
+      His heel hath crushed our sacred shrines;
+    And, bowing ’neath the chastening rod,
+    We lift our hearts and hands to God,
+      And cry: “Oh! save our Land of Pines!”
+
+
+
+
+              THE LAST LOOK
+
+                TO MARY
+
+
+    Do not fasten the lid of the coffin down yet;
+    Let me have a long look at the face of my pet.
+    Please all quit the chamber and pull to the door,
+    And leave me alone with my darling once more.
+
+    Is this little Ethel, so cold, and so still!
+    Beat, beat, breaking heart, ’gainst God’s mystic will,
+    Remember, O Christ, thou didst dread thine own cup,
+    And while I drink mine, let thine arm bear me up.
+
+    But the moments are fleeting: I must stamp on my brain,
+    Each dear little feature, for never again
+    Can I touch her; and only God measures how much
+    Affection a mother conveys by her touch.
+
+    Oh! dear little head, oh! dear little hair,
+    So silken, so golden, so soft, and so fair,
+    Will I never more smooth it? Oh! help me, my God,
+    To bear this worst stroke of the chastening rod.
+
+    Those bright little eyes that used to feign sleep,
+    Or sparkle so merrily, playing at peep,
+    Closed forever! And yet they seemed closed with a sigh,
+    As if for our sake she regretted to die.
+
+    And that dear little _mouth_, once so warm and so soft,
+    Always willing to kiss you, no matter how oft,
+    Cold and rigid, without the least tremor of breath,
+    How could you claim _Ethel_, O pitiless death!
+
+    Her hands! No, ’twill kill me to think how they wove
+    Through my daily existence a tissue of love.
+    Each finger’s a print upon memory’s page,
+    That will brighten, thank God! and not dim with my age.
+
+    Sick or well, they were ready at every request
+    To amuse us: sweet hands! they deserve a sweet rest.
+    Their last little trick was to wipe “Bopeep’s” eye,
+    Their last little gesture, to wave us good-bye.
+
+    Little feet! little feet, how dark the heart’s gloom,
+    Where your patter is hushed in that desolate room!
+    For oh! ’twas a sight sweet beyond all compare,
+    To see little “Frisky” rock back in her chair.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    O Father! have mercy, and grant me thy grace
+    To see, through this frown, the smile on thy face;
+    To feel that this sorrow is sent for the best,
+    And to learn from my darling a lesson of rest.
+
+    _February 16th, 1875._
+
+
+
+
+LINES WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF AN UNKNOWN FRIEND
+
+
+    We’ve never met; I’ve never pressed your hand,
+      Nor caught the light of Friendship in your eyes;
+    Yet bound by grief, between two graves we stand,
+      And mingle tears, and hear each other’s sighs.
+
+    The same dark wings have taken from each hearth
+      The brightest jewel of the circle there,
+    And poor Faith stumbles at the mound of earth,
+      And feebly yields her place to wan Despair.
+
+    The same dear Christ that took our little one,
+      And laid her precious head upon His breast,
+    In tender love called home your darling son
+      To enter early his eternal rest.
+
+    But who could stand beside the open tomb,
+      And hear the clods fall on the coffin lid,
+    And see deep underneath the earthen gloom,
+      The dearest love of life forever hid?
+
+    Could we not hear the grave’s red lips proclaim,
+      “I am the Resurrection and the Life,”
+    And realize that Death in Jesus’ name
+      Is only rest from labor, pain, and strife?
+
+    ’Tis hard to feel assured our sainted dead
+      Are happy _there_, as we could make them here;
+    We love them so we give them up with dread,
+      And lay them in Christ’s arms with doubt and fear.
+
+    Oh! for a faith that sees in all God sends
+      The kindness of a father to his son;
+    That prays, in every trial--if it ends
+      In joy or grief, “Thy will, O Lord, be done.”
+
+    Beneath the same dark shadow let us kneel,
+      And lift our broken hearts in prayer to God
+    That while He chastens, He will help us feel
+      The wisdom of His purpose in the rod.
+
+    We are not strangers now; from heart to heart
+      The electric chords of mutual sorrow thrill.
+    And clasping hands across the miles apart,
+      We stand resolved, to “suffer and be still.”
+
+
+
+
+              OUT IN THE RAIN
+
+
+    The night is dark and cold, a beating rain
+    Falls ceaselessly upon the dripping roof;
+    The dismal wind, with now a fierce, wild shriek,
+    And now a hollow moan, as if in pain,
+    Circles the eaves, and bends the tortured trees that wring
+    Their long, bear hands in the bleak blast.
+                                               Within
+    Our chamber all is bright and warm. The fire
+    Burns with a ruddy blaze. The shaded lamp
+    Softens the pictures on the wall, and glows
+    Upon the flowers in the carpet, till they seem
+    All fresh and fragrant. Stretched upon the rug,
+    His collar gleaming in the fire-light, little Pip
+    Is sleeping on, defiant of the storm without.
+    The very furniture enjoys the warmth,
+    And from its sides reflects the cheerful light.
+    Up in its painted cage, the little bird,
+    His yellow head beneath his soft, warm wing,
+    Is hiding. Oh! my God, out in the storm
+    _Our little yellow head_ is beaten by the rain.
+    So lonely looks that precious little face
+    Up at the cold, dark coffin’s lid above,
+    In the bleak graveyard’s solitude!
+    Oh! Ethel darling, do you feel afraid?
+    Or is Christ with you in your little grave?
+    When last we gazed upon those lovely eyes
+    They looked so tranquil, in their last repose,
+    We knew that Christ’s own tender hand had sealed
+    Their lids with His eternal peace.
+    Oh! darling, are you happy up in heaven?
+    And do the angels part that golden hair
+    As tenderly as we? O Saviour dear,
+    Thou knowest childhood’s tenderness. Amid
+    The care of countless worlds, sometimes descend
+    From thine almighty throne of power, and find
+    That little yellow head, and lay it on thy breast,
+    And smooth her brow with thine own pierced hand;
+    She’ll kiss the wound and try to make it well.
+    And tell her how we love her memory here;
+    And let her sometimes see us, that she may
+    Remember us. O Jesus, we can trust
+    Her to thy care; and when we lay us down
+    To rest, beside that lonely, little grave,
+    Oh! let her meet us with her harp.
+    God help us both to make that meeting sure!
+
+
+
+
+              THE LILY AND THE DEW-DROP
+
+
+    Deep in a cell of darkest green,
+    Rayless and murky with unbroken gloom,
+    With downcast head and shrinking, modest mien,
+    A lily of the valley shed her rare perfume,
+    Breathed softly, as a sea shell’s murmur, from her bloom
+    An odor so exquisite, none can tell,
+    If ’tis an odor or a whispered sigh
+    That like the dying echoes of a bell
+    Falls on the raptured sense so dreamily,
+    The soul swoons in the tearful clasp of memory.
+
+    So when an old man hears a harvest song
+    He used to sing, or smells the new-mown hay,
+    A host of saddened recollections throng
+    The dusty chambers of his heart, and play
+    Upon the cobwebs there a soft Æolian lay.
+
+    (_Unfinished._)
+
+
+
+
+              LINES,
+
+   WRITTEN AFTER HAVING A HEMORRHAGE FROM THE LUNGS
+
+Written a short time before his death and handed to his wife with the
+request, “Do not open this until I am well, or until my death.”
+
+
+    Life bloomed for me as if my path thro’ Eden
+    Led its flowery way. Success had crowned
+    In many ways my efforts. No dark strife
+    With adverse Fate its portent shadows cast
+    Across the calm blue scope of heaven.
+                                          And though
+    Pride often chafed at plain commercial life,
+    It was but transient, for ambitious Hope
+    Kept ever in my view Fame’s gilded dome,
+    Upon whose highest pinnacle I chose my niche,
+    For vain conceit had whispered in my ear
+    That I had Genius to encharm the world,
+    And I looked forward to the loud applause
+    Of nations as a simple thing of time.
+    Of death I thought but as a fright for those
+    Who have no destiny but dying. Mine
+    Would come in age, but as a pallid seal
+    To Honor gained, and Life’s long labors done.
+    Yet I had felt the breath of Asrael’s wing
+    When from my youthful head he took my father’s hand,
+    And from my manhood’s arms my only child,
+    And down the past a little mound of earth,
+    Tombed with the darkest sorrow of our hearts,
+    Still stands, though veiling in the folds of time.
+    Of heaven I thought but as a distant home,
+    A place of sweetest rest that I would gain,
+    When weary of the burden of the world.
+    Thus gay of thought and bright of hope, I moved
+    Amid the flowers of my way.
+                                At once,
+    With scarce a rustle in the rose leaves, came
+    A shadowy form, and standing silently
+    Before my pathway, breathed a whispered sigh,
+    As if it loathed its office to perform;
+    Then laid Consumption’s ghastly banner on my breast,
+    Its pale folds crossed with fatal red.
+                                           The sky
+    Grew dark, the rose leaves withered, as the form
+    Withdrew, still silently; while I, alone
+    Upon the roadside, kneeled to pray for light.
+    The stunned surprise of sudden shattered hopes,
+    The faith of self-appointed destiny,
+    Still turned my eyes toward the Temple Fame.
+    Across its gilded dome a spotless cloud
+    Had drifted, hiding it from view, but lo!
+    The cloud, unfolding snowy depths, disclosed
+    The glories of that “House not made with hands,”
+    And bending from it, so full of tenderness,
+    I could discern the loved ones “gone before.”
+    And over all I recognized the Form
+    Whose brow endured Gabbatha’s shameful crown,
+    Whose woe distilled itself in trickling blood,
+    By Cedron’s murmuring wave.
+                                As tenderly
+    As ever mother touched her babe, He bore
+    Within His arms a little angel form,
+    With golden hair and blue expressive eyes,
+    One dimpled hand lay on His willing cheek,
+    While He bent down to meet the sweet caress,
+    The other, with that well-remembered look
+    She kissed, and threw the kiss to me.
+                                          Then down
+    I bowed my face, and longed to know mine end.
+    ’Twere very sweet to leave all toil and care
+    And join the blessed ones beyond the tide;
+    And still ’twere sweet beyond compare to wait
+    Till eventide with loved ones here, and share
+    Their weal or woe.
+                       Then came a flute-like voice
+    That thrilled the solemn air:
+                                  “Pursue thy way,
+    Yet humbly walk and watch, and if I come
+    At midnight, or at noon, be ready.”
+                                        Thus
+    I wish to live, life’s aims subserved to God;
+    And each continued day and hour regard
+    As special gifts to be improved for Him;
+    To wear the girdle of the world about my loins
+    So loosely that a moment will suffice
+    To break the clasp, and lay it down.
+
+
+                THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Angel in the Cloud, by Edwin W. (Wiley) Fuller
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-<pre>

-

-Project Gutenberg's The Angel in the Cloud, by Edwin W. (Wiley) Fuller

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license

-

-

-Title: The Angel in the Cloud

-

-Author: Edwin W. (Wiley) Fuller

-

-Release Date: July 14, 2018 [EBook #57504]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: UTF-8

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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD ***

-

-

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-Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed

-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was

-produced from images available at The Internet Archive)

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-</pre>

-

-<hr class="full" />

-

-<p class="c">

-<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg">

-<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="345" height="500" alt="[Image

-of the book's cover unavailable.]" /></a>

-</p>

-

-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="smcap">

-<p class="c"><big>CONTENTS</big></p>

-<p class="hang">

-<a href="#PREFACE">Preface</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#A_NOTE">A Note</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#THE_ANGEL_IN_THE_CLOUD">The Angel In The Cloud</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#THE_VILLAGE_ON_THE_TAR">The Village On The Tar</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#REQUIESCAM">Requiescam</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#LINES_TO_AN_ANALYTICAL_GEOMETRY">Lines To An Analytical Geometry</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#LINES_TO_COUSINS_C_AND_E">Lines To Cousins C. And E. On The Birth Of Their Little Daughter</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#THE_DEVIL_OUTDONE">The Devil Outdone; Or, The Guard Of The Sulphur Lake</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#THE_SUNFLOWER">The Sunflower Lines Suggested By Observing Gen. Pettigrew’s Name Omitted In Mrs. Downing’s “Memorial Flowers” And In The “Southern Bouquet”</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#AN_ELEGY">An Elegy Written On The Rotunda Steps, University Of Virginia, 1868</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#FIRE_EYES">Fire Eyes</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#MY_DARLINGS_JESSAMINE">My Darling’s Jessamine</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#THE_PARTING_SHIP">The Parting Ship</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#TO_M_mdash_FROM_Emdashmdash">To M&mdash;&mdash;, From E&mdash;&mdash;</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#UNDER_THE_PINES">Under The Pines</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#THE_LAST_LOOK">The Last Look</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#LINES_WRITTEN_AT_THE_REQUEST_OF_AN_UNKNOWN_FRIEND">Lines Written At The Request Of An Unknown Friend</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#OUT_IN_THE_RAIN">Out In The Rain</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#THE_LILY_AND_THE_DEW-DROP">The Lily And The Dew-drop</a></p><p class="hang">

-<a href="#LINES">Lines, Written After Having A Hemorrhage From The Lungs</a></p><p class="hang">

-</p></div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<table border="0" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" summary=""

-style="border-right:2px solid black;

-border-left:2px solid black;

-border-top:2px solid black;

-border-bottom:2px solid black;">

-

-<tr><td class="brd">O</td><td class="brd"></td><td class="brd">O</td></tr>

-

-<tr class="brd"><td class="brd"></td><td class="brd"><br /><big>THE ANGEL<br />

-IN THE CLOUD</big><br />

-<br /><br /><br />

-BY

-<br /><br />

-EDWIN W. FULLER<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />PRIVATELY PRINTED<br />

-MCMVII<br /><br /></td><td class="brd"></td></tr>

-

-<tr><td class="brd">O</td><td class="brd"></td><td class="brd">O</td></tr>

-</table>

-

-<p class="c">

-<i>Copyright, 1907<br />

-Sumner Fuller Parham</i><br />

-<br /><br /><br /><br />

-TO THE<br />

-<br />

-HALLOWED MEMORY OF MY FATHER,<br />

-<br />

-WHO,<br />

-<br />

-EVEN WHILE I WAS GAZING UPON THE GOLDEN CITY<br />

-<br />

-PASSED WITHIN ITS WALLS,<br />

-<br />

-THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS INSCRIBED,<br />

-<br />

-WITH TEARS.<br />

-</p>

-

-<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">To</span> those who may favor these pages with perusal, I make this earnest

-request: that, if they commence, they will read all. Knowing that the

-best mode of dealing with doubts is to state and refute, successively, I

-regret that the plan of the present work forces a separation of the

-statement and refutation. To read one without the other were to defeat

-the object in view; hence my request.</p>

-

-<p>Many of the subjects of thought are worn smooth with the touch of ages,

-so that hope for originality is as slender as the bridge of Al Sirat;

-but in the bulrush ark of self-confidence, pitched with Faith, I commit

-my first-born to the Nile of public opinion; whether to perish by

-crocodile critics, or bask in the palace of favor, the Future, alone,

-must determine. May Pharaoh’s daughter find it!</p>

-

-<p class="r">

-E. W. F.<br />

-</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Louisburg</span>, Jan. 17th, 1871.</p>

-

-<h2><a name="A_NOTE" id="A_NOTE"></a>A NOTE</h2>

-

-<p><i>First published more than thirty-five years ago, in the lifetime of the

-poet, THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD has long since passed not only out of print

-but out of the memory of most living men. Of the copies of the original

-edition, only few are known to exist. Upon his surviving family is

-imposed the obligation, and to them comes the privilege, of rescuing

-from the realm of forgotten things these evidences of a graceful and

-genuine poetic gift in one whose memory they revere and whose genius

-they are unwilling to have die. It is therefore with the sense of

-performing a grateful duty that they have caused to be printed this new

-edition of Edwin Fuller’s poems, in the hope and belief that others,

-like themselves, will value it both as friends of the gentle poet and as

-disinterested lovers of good literature.</i></p>

-

-<p>August, 1907.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span></p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span>&nbsp; </p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span>&nbsp; </p>

-

-<h2><a name="THE_ANGEL_IN_THE_CLOUD" id="THE_ANGEL_IN_THE_CLOUD"></a>THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD</h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">’<span class="smcap">Twas</span> noon in August, and the sultry heat<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Had driven me from sunny balcony<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Into the shaded hall, where spacious doors<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Stood open wide, and lofty windows held<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their sashes up, to woo the breeze, in vain.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The filmy lace that curtained them was still,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And every silken tassel hung a-plumb.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The maps and unframed pictures o’er the wall<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Gave not a rustle; only now and then<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Was heard the jingling sound of melting ice,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Deep in a massive urn, whose silver sides<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With trickling dewbeads ran. The little birds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Up in their cages, perched with open beaks,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And throbbing throats, upon the swaying rings,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or plashed the tepid water in their cups<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With eager breast. My favorite pointer lay,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With lolling tongue, and rapid panting sides,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beside my chair, upon the matted floor.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All things spoke heat, oppressive heat intense,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Save swallows twittering up the chimney-flue,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose hollow flutterings sounded cool alone.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To find relief I seized my hat and book,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And fled into the park. Along a path<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of smoothest gravel, oval, curving white,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Between two rows of closely shaven hedge,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I passed towards a latticed summer-house;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A fairy bower, built in Eastern style,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With spires, and balls, and fancy trellis-work,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">O’er which was spread the jasmine’s leafy net,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To snare the straying winds. Within I fell<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon a seat of woven cane, and fanned<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">My streaming face in vain. The very winds<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Seemed to have fled, and left alone the heat<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To rise from parchèd lawn and scorching fields,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Like trembling incense to the blazing god.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The leaves upon the wan and yellow trees<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Hung motionless, as if of rigid steel;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And e’en the feath’ry pendula of spray,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With faintest oscillation, dared not wave.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The withered flowers shed a hot perfume,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That sickened with its fragrance; and the bees<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Worked lazily, as if they longed to kick<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The yellow burdens from their patient thighs,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And rest beneath the ivy parasols.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The butterflies refrained from aimless flight,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And poised on blooms with gaudy, gasping wings.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The fountain scarcely raised its languid jet<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">An inch above its tube; the basin deigned<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A feeble ripple for its tinkling fall,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And rolled the little waves with noiseless beat<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Against the marble side. The bright-scaled fish<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All huddled ’neath the jutting ledge’s shade,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where, burnished like their magnet toy types,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They rose and fell as if inanimate;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or, with a restless stroke of tinted fin,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Turned in their places pettishly around;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While, with each move, the tiny whirlpools spun<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Like crystal dimples on the water’s face.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The sculptured lions crouched upon the edge,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With gaping jaws, and stony, fixèd eyes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That ever on the pool glared thirstily.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Deep in the park, beneath the trees, were grouped<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The deer, their noses lowered to the earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To snuff a cooler air; their slender feet<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Impatient stamping at the teasing flies;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While o’er their heads the branching antlers spread,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A mocking skeleton of shade! A fawn,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Proud of his dappled coat, played here and there,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Regardless of repose; the silver bell,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That tinkled from a band of broidered silk,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Proclaiming him a petted favorite.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Save him alone, all things in view sought rest,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And wearied Nature seemed to yield the strife,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And smold’ring wait her speedy sacrifice.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The heat grew hotter as I watched its work,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And with its fervor overcome, I rose,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And through the grounds, towards an orchard bent<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">My faltering steps in full despair of ease.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Down through the lengthened rows of laden trees,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose golden-freighted boughs o’erlapped the way,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I hurried till I reached the last confines.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Here stood a gnarléd veteran, now too old<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To bear much fruit, but weaving with its leaves<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So dense a shade, the smallest fleck of sun<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Could not creep through. Beneath it spread a couch<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of velvet moss, fit for the slumbers of a king.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Here prone I fell, at last amid a scene<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That promised refuge from the glaring heat.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beyond me stretched the orchard’s canopy<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of thick, rank foliage, almost drooping down<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the green plush carpet underneath.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Close at my feet a crystal spring burst forth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And rolled its gurgling waters down the glade<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Now spreading in a rilling silver sheet<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">O’er some broad rock, then gath’ring at its base<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Into a foamy pool that churned the sand,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And mingling sparks of shining isinglass,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It danced away o’er gleamy, pebbly bed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where, midst the grassy nooks and fibrous roots,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The darting minnows played at hide and seek,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Oft fluttering upwards, to the top, to spit<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A tiny bubble out, or slyly snap<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Th’ unwary little insect hov’ring near;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till, by its tributes widened to a brook,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It poured its limpid waters undefiled<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In to the river’s dun and dirty waves,&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A type of childhood’s guileless purity,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That mingling with the sordid world is lost.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Far in the distance, lofty mountains loomed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their blue sides trembling in the sultry haze.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From me to them spread varicultured fields,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That formed a patchwork landscape, which deserved<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The pencil of a Rembrandt and his skill;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The hardy yellow stubble smoothly shaved,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With boldness lying ’neath the scorching sun;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The suffering corn, with tasselled heads all bowed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And twisted arms appealing, raised to Heaven;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The meadows faded by the constant blaze;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The cattle lying in the hedge’s shade;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Across the landscape drawn a glitt’ring band,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where winds the river, like a giant snake,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The ripples flashing like his polished scales.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Above the scene a lonely vulture wheeled,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Turning with every curve from side to side,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if the fierce rays broiled his dusky wings;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And circling onwards, dwindled to a speck,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in the distance vanished out of sight!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Complete repose was stamped on everything,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Save where a tireless ant tugged at a crumb,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To drag it o’er th’ impeding spires of moss;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And one poor robin, with her breast all pale<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And feather-scarce, hopped wearily along<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The streamlet’s edge, with plaintive clock-like chirp,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And searching, found and bore the curling worm,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Up to the yellow-throated brood o’erhead.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Behind the mountains reared the copper clouds<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of summer skies, that whitened as they rose,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till bleached to snow, they drifted dreamily,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Like gleaming icebergs, through the blue sublime.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And as they, one by one, sailed far away,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Methought they were as ships from Earth to Heaven,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thus slowly floating to the Eternal Port.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Thunder’s muttered growl my reverie broke,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And looking toward the West, I saw a storm,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With gloomy wrath, had thrown its dark-blue line<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of breastworks, quiv’ring with each grand discharge<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of its own ordnance, o’er th’ horizon’s verge.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some time it stood to gloat upon its prey,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then, girding up its strength, began its march.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Extending far its black gigantic arms,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It grimly clambered up the tranquil sky;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till, half-way up the arch, its shaggy brows<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Scowled down in rage upon the frightened earth;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While through its wind-cleft portals sped the darts,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That brightly hurtled through the sultry air.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And down the mountain-sides the shadow crept,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A dark veil spreading over field and wood,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thus adding gloom to Nature’s awful hush.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The fleecy racks had fled far to the East,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where sporting safely in the gilding light,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They mocked the angry monster’s cumbrous speed.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Then, while I marked its progress, came a train,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of dark and doubting thoughts into my mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And bitterly thus my reflections ran:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Strange is the Providence that rules the world,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That sets the Medean course of Nature’s laws;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Sometimes adapting law to circumstance,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But oftener making law fulfilled a curse.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yon brewing storm in verdant summer comes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When vegetation spreads its foliage sails,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That, like a full-rigged ship’s, are easier torn;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Why comes it not in winter, when the trees,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With canvas reefed by Autumn’s furling frosts,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Could toss in nude defiance to the blast?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The murd’rous wind precedes the gentle shower<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And ere the suffering grain has quenched its thirst,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It bows the heavy head, alone of worth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And from the ripening stalk wrings out the life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While gayly nod the heads of chaff unharmed.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The rank miasma floats in summer-time,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When man must brave its poisoned breath or starve;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It hovers sickliest over richest fields<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While over sterile lands the air is pure;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The tallest oak is by the lightning riven,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The hateful bramble on the ground is spared;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The crop man needs demands his constant work,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The weeds alone spring forth without the plow;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The sweetest flowers wear the sharpest thorns,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The deadliest reptiles lurk in fairest paths!<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Wherever Nature shows her brightest smile,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">’Tis but a mask to hide her darkest frown.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The tropics seem an Eden of luscious fruits<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And flowers, and groves of loveliest birds, and lakes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That mirror their gay plumage flitting o’er;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where man may live in luxury of thought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Without the crime of schemes, or curse of toil&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The tropics seem a Hell, when all with life<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are stifled with the foul sirocco’s breath;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When from the green-robed mountain’s volcan top,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A fire-fountain spouts its blazing jet<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Far up against the starry dome of Heaven;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Returning in its vast umbrella shape,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Leaps in red cataracts adown the slope,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Shaves clean the mountain of its emerald hair,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And leaves it bald with ashes on its head.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Below, the valley is a crimson sea,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose glowing billows break to white-hot foam;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And as they surge amid the towering trees,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They, tottering, bow forever to the waves;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The leaves and branches, crackling into flame,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Leave only clotted cinders floating there;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The darting birds, their gaudy plumage singed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Fall fluttering in, with little puffs of smoke.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The fleeing beasts are lapped in, bellowing,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And charred to coal, drift idly with the tide.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The red flood, breaking through the vale, rolls on<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its devious way towards the sea; the glare<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Illuminating far its winding track,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if a devil flew with flaming torch,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or when an earthquake gapes its black-lined jaws,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And, growling, gulps a city’s busy throng<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Into its greedy bowels. Or the sea bursts forth<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its bands of rock, and laughing at “Thus far!”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Rolls wildly over peopled towns, and homes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In fancied safety; playing fearful pranks,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">O’er which to chuckle in its briny bed;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Jeering the stones because they cannot swim,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And crushing like a shell all work of wood;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Docking the laden ships upon the hills,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And tossing lighter craft about like weeds;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till, wearied with the spoiling, sinks to rest.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Thus Nature to herself is but half kind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But over man holds fullest tyranny;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And man, a creature who cannot prevent<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His own existence! Why not happy made?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For surely ’twere as easy to create<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man in a state of happiness and good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And keep him there, as to create at all.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If misery’s not deserved before his birth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then misery must from purest malice flow;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet malice none assign to Providence.<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">But some may say: Were man thus happy made,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He would not be a person, but a thing,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And lose the very seed of happiness,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The consciousness of merit. Grant ’tis true!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then why does merit rarely meet reward?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And why does there appear a tendency,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Throughout the polity divine, to mark<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With disapproval all the good in man,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And bless the evil? Through the entire world<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is felt this conflict: some strange power within<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Exciting us to good, while all events<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Proclaim its folly. Throughout Nature’s laws,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Through man in every station, up to God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">This fatal contradiction glares. The storm,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With ruthless breath, annihilates the cot<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That, frail and humble, shields the widow’s head;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And while she reads within the use-worn Book<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That none who trusts shall e’er be desolate,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The falling timbers crush the promise out,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And she is dead beneath her ruined home!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The prostrate cottage passed, the very wind<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Now howls a rough but fawning lullaby<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Around the marble walls, and lofty dome,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That shelter pride and heartless arrogance.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">And when the Boaz Winter throws his skirt<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of purest white across the lap of Earth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And decks her bare arborial hair with gems,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose feeblest flash would pale the Koh-i-noor,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The rich, alone, find beauty in the scene,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And, clad in thankless comfort, brave the cold.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The gliding steels flash through the feathery drifts,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The jingling bells proclaiming happiness;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet ’neath the furry robe the oath is heard,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And boisterous laughter at the ribald jest.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The coldest hearts beat ’neath the warmest clothes;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And often all the blessings wealth can give,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are heaped on one, whose daily life reviles<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The very name of Him who doth bestow.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While in a freezing garret, o’er the coals<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That, bluely flickering with the feeble flame,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Seem cold themselves, a trusting Christian bends;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her faith all mocked by cruel circumstance.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The cold, bare walls, the chilling air-swept floor;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some broken stools, a mattress stuffed with straw,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upholstering the apartment. Through the sash,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The wind, with jaggèd lips of broken glass,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Shrieks in its freezing spite. A cold-blued babe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With face too thin to hold a dimple’s print,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With famished gums tugs at the arid breast,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thrusting its bare, splotched arms, in eagerness,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From out the poor white blanket’s ravelled edge.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beside the mother sits a little boy,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With one red frost-cracked hand spread out, in vain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To warm above the faintly-burning coals;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The other pressing hardly ’gainst his teeth<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A stale and tasteless loaf of smallest size,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Which lifting often to the mother’s view,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He offers part; she only shakes her head,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And sadly smiles upon the gaunt young face.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet in her basket, on a pile of work,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">An open Bible lies with outstretched leaves,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose verses speak in keenest irony:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Do good,” and “verily thou shalt be fed.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And so through all the world, the righteous poor,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The wicked rich. Deceit, and fraud, and craft<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Reap large rewards, while pure integrity<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Must gnaw the bone of faith with here and there<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A speck of flesh called consciousness of right,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To reach the marrow in another world.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But man within himself’s the greatest paradox;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“A little animal,” as Voltaire says,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And yet a greater wonder than the sun,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or spangled firmament. That little one<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Can weigh and measure all the wheeling worlds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But finds within his “five feet” home, a Sphinx<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose riddle he can never solve.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">“Thyself,”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The oracles of old bade men to know,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if to mock their very impotence;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And man, to know himself, for centuries<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Has toiled and studied deep, in vain.&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Not man in flesh, for blest Hippocrates<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Bright trimmed his lamp, and passed it down the line,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And each disciple adding of his oil,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It blazes now above the ghastly corpse,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till every fibre, every thread-like vein,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is known familiar as a city’s streets;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The little muscle twitching back the lip,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Rejoicing in a name that spans the page.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But man in mind, that is not seen nor felt,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But only knows he is, through consciousness.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He sees an outside world, with all its throng<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of busy people who care not for him,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And only few that know he does exist;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And yet he feels the independent world<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is but effect produced upon himself,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Universe is packed within his mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His mind within its little house of clay.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">What is that mind? Has it a formal shape?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And has it substance, color, weight, or force?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">What are the chains that bind it to the flesh?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That never break except in death, though oft<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The faculties are sent far out through space?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where is it placed, in head, or hands, or feet?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And can it have existence without place?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And if a place, it must extension have,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And if extended, it is matter proven.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Poor man! he has but mind to view mind with,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And might as well attempt to see the eye<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Without a mirror! True, faint consciousness<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Holds up a little glass, wherein he sees<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A few vague facts that cannot satisfy.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For these, and their attendant laws, have fought<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The mental champions of the world till now<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That each may deck them in his livery,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And claim them as his own discovery.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Hedged in, man does not know that he is paled,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And struggles fiercely ’gainst the boundaries,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And strives to get a glimpse of those far realms<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of thought sublime, where his short wings would sink<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With helpless fluttering, through the vast profound.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the coals of curiosity,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A writhing worm, he’s laid; and twists and turns,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To find, in vain, the healing salve of Truth.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But grant that mind exists in fullest play:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How does it work and what its modes of thought?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Here consciousness may act, and hold to view<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A dim outline of powers, contraposed.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In such a conflict, every one may seize<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The doctrine suits him best. Hence different creeds&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Desire battling reason, reason will,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And will the weathercock of motive’s wind;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Motive the cringing slave of circumstance.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And here Charybdis rises; no control<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Has man o’er circumstance, but circumstance<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Begets the motive governing the will;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then how can man be free? Yet some may say,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man can obey the motive, or can not.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He can, but only when a stronger rules.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That we without a motive never act,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I do declare, though in the face of Reid.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That that is strongest which impels, a child<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Might know, although Jouffroy exclaims,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“You’re reasoning in a circle.” Let us place<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">An iron fragment ’twixt two magnet-bars,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">What one attracts is thereby stronger proved.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or it may be the really weaker one,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But yet, because of nearness to the steel,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Possess a relatively greater force.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And so of motives, howe’er trivial they,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The one that moves is strongest to the mind.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To illustrate: Suppose I pare a peach;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A friend near by me banteringly asserts<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That I can not refrain from eating it.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Two motives now arise&mdash;the appetite,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And the desire to prove my self-control.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I hesitate awhile, then laughing say,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“I would not give the peach to prove you wrong.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But as my teeth press on it, pride springs up,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And bids me show that I am not the slave<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of appetite, and far away I hurl<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The tinted, fragrant sphere.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Was not each thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Spontaneous? Could I control their rise?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How perfectly absurd to talk of choice<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Between two motives offered to the mind!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if the motive was a horse we’d choose<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To pull our minds about. There is no choice<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Until the motive makes it; then we choose,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Not ’tween the motives, but the acts.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">If, then,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The spring of action is the motive’s power,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The motive being far beyond our sway,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where is our freedom? But a fabled myth!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And man but differs from a star in this,&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The laws of stars are fixed and definite,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And every movement there can be foretold;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of man, no deed can be foreseen till done.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">At most we can but form a general guess<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How he will act, at such a time and place.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Even if we knew the motives that would rise,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We could not prophesy unless we knew<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our subject’s frame of mind; for differently,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">On different minds, same motives often act.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Hence, we can tell the conduct of a friend<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">More surely than a stranger’s, since we know,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By long acquaintance, how his motives work.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But should new motives rise, we cannot tell<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Until experience gives us data new.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thus we will ride beside a friend alone,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And show to him our money without fear,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because we know the motives&mdash;love for us,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Honor, and horror of disgraceful crime&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are stronger with him than cupidity.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But with a stranger we would feel unsafe;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nor would we trust our friend, were we alone<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon an island, wrecked, and without food,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And saw his eye with hunger glare, and heard<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The famished motive whispering to him, “Kill!”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If he were free, would we feel slightest fear?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For all his soul would shudder from the deed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And never motive could impel such crime.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Upon this principal all law is made;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For were man free he could not be controlled,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And all compliance would be his caprice.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But since he is the tyrant-motive’s slave,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The law to govern motive only seeks<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And builds its sanction on the base of pain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As motive strongest in the human heart.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It only falls below perfection’s height,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because there are exceptions to the rule;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When hate and passion, lust and greed of gold,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Prove stronger than the fear of distant pain.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And could the law know fully every heart,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And vary sanction, there would be no crime.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But law itself, and the obeying world,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are proofs against the grosser form of Fate:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That all is preordained, nor can be changed.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All human life is vacillating life;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We make our plans each day, then alter them.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We form resolves one hour that break the next,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And no one dares assert that he will act,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the morrow, in a certain way;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But cries, it all depends on circumstance.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And this is strange, that while we cannot change<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our lives one tittle by our own free will,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We help, each day, to change our neighbor’s course;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And he assists the motives changing ours.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For all relations to our fellow-men,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are powers that form our lives, in spite of us.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But we may change our motives, often do,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By changing place, or circumstance of life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By hearing, reading, or reflective thought;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet are these very things from motives done,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And motives mocking all our vain commands.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One motive made the object of an act,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Another rises subject of the act;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And to the final motive we can never reach.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The world’s a self-adjusting, vast machine,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose human comparts cannot guide themselves;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And each is but a puppet to the whole,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet adds its mite towards its government;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Here, in this motive circle, lies all Fate.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our fellow-men with motives furnish us,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While we contribute to their motive fund.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The real power, hidden deep within,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Escapes the eye of careless consciousness;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who proudly tells us we are action’s cause.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon this error men, mistaken, raise<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The edifice of law in all its forms;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That yet performs its varied functions well,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because it offers motives that restrain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till stronger overcome, and crime ensues.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The motive gibbet lifts its warning arms;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The pillory gapes its scolloped lips for necks;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The lash grows stiff with blood and shreds of flesh;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The treadmill yields beneath the wearied feet;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And Sabbath after Sabbath preachers tell<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of judgment, and of awful Hell, and Heaven;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All these, to stronger make, than lust of sin.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And yet, to lead my reasoning to its end,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I find a chaos of absurdity.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If I am by an unruled motive driven,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Why act at all? Why passive not recline<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the lap of destiny, and wait her arms?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Why struggle to acquire means of life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When Fate must fill our mouths or let us die?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Why go not naked forth into the world,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And trust to Fate for clothes? Why spring aside<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From falling weight, or flee a burning house,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or fight with instinct strength the clasp of waves?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because we cannot help it; every act<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Behind it has a motive, whose command<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We, willing or unwilling, must obey.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Law governs motives, motives create law;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Between the reflex action man is placed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The helpless shuttlecock of unjust Fate!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Now passive driven to commit a crime,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then by the driver laid upon the rack;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A Zeno’s slave, compelled by Fate to steal,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And then compelled by Fate to bear the lash!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">What gross injustice is the rule of life!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A sentient being made without a will,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And placed a cat’s-paw in the hands of Fate,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who rakes the moral embers for a sin,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That, found, must burn the helpless one alone.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All right and wrong, and whate’er makes man man,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are gone, and language is half obsolete;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No need of words to tell of moral worth<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Existing not, nor e’en conceivable;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No words of blame or commendation, given<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">According to the intention of a deed;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No words of cheer or comfort, to incite,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For man must act without our useless tongues;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No words of prayer, if Fate supplies our wants;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No words of prayer, if Fate locks up her store;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No words of love, for fondest love were loathed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If fanned by Fate to flame. No words of hate,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For all forgive a wrong when helpless done;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The buds that bloom upon the desert heart<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Lose all their sweetness when they’re forced to grow;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All pleasure’s marred because it is not earned,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And pain more painful since ’tis undeserved.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Man falling from his high estate, becomes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A brute with keener sensibilities;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Endowed with mind, upon whose plastic face<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Fate writes its batch of lies; poor man believes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And prates of moral agency, and cants<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of good <i>he</i> does, and evil that <i>he</i> shuns.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With blind content, he rests in false belief,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And happy thus escapes the mental rack&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The consciousness of what he really is.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">And yet why false belief? The world believes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And acting, moves in general harmony;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Could harmony from such an error flow?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would all believe, would not some one<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Have doubted by his works as well as faith?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The veriest skeptic walks the earth to-day,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if he held the seal of freest will,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And shapes its course, and judges all mankind<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By freedom’s rule.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Then may not that be true<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Which most believe, and those who doubt profess<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In every act; as that which few believe<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And to which none conform?<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Two paths I see,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One marked Free-Will, the other Fate. The first,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Extending far as human thought can reach,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Through lovely meads with sweetest flowers, and fruits<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of actions clearly shown as right and wrong,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because of choice ’twixt the two; of laws<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With sanction suiting agents who are free;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of courts acquitting the insane of crime,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of crime made crime, alone, when done as crime,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of judgment passed by public sentiment<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">On action in the ratio of liberty.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Delightful view; but seek an entrance there&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The towering bars of unruled motive stand<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Before the path, and none can overleap.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The field of Fate lies open; nothing bars<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our progress there. A thousand different ways<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The path diverges. Every by-path leads<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To some foul pit or bottomless abyss.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Along each side are strewed the whitening bones<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of venturous pilgrims, lost amid its snares,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some broken on the rocks of gross decree,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who hold an unchanged destiny from birth;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who will not take a medicine if sick,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who cant of “To be, will be,” and the time<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Unalterably set to each man’s life.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some stranded on the finer form of Fate,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who say it works by means. Hence they believe<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In using all preventives to disease,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In going boating in a rubber belt,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In placing Franklin rods upon a house,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In preaching, and in praying men repent.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">These, when one dies, cry out, “It was his time.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or if he should recover, “It was not.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their fate is always ex post facto fate,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And knowing not the future, they abide<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The issue of events, and then confirm<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their dogged dogmas.<br /></span>

-<span class="i10">Still another class,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Though fewer far in numbers, perish here.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">These are the sophists; men who deeply dive<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beneath the surface of effect, and trace<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our actions to their source. They find that man,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Made in the glorious image of his God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is not an independent cause, but works<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From motive causes out of his control.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They find that every mental act must flow<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From outside source, then fearlessly ascend<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The chain of being to a height divine,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And dare to fetter the Eternal mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And throw their bonds around Omnipotence.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As well a spider in an eagle’s nest<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Might, from his hidden web among the twigs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Attempt to throw his little gluey thread<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Around the mottled wing, whose muscled strength<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beats hurried vacuums in the ocean’s spray,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or circling upward, parts the thunder-cloud,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And bursts above; and shaking off the mists,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With rigid feathers bright as burnished steel,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Floats proudly through the tranquil air.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Which realm<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Shall now be mine, Free-Will or Fate? The one<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Stands open wide, but all in ruin ends;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The other, fair if once within the pale;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But how to scale the barriers none can tell.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Bah! all is doubt. I’ll leave the mystic paths<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where, on each side, are ranged the phantom shapes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of disputants, alive and dead, who fight,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With foolish zeal, o’er myths intangible;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When each one cries “Eureka!” for his creed.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That scarcely lives a day, then yields its place.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A Roman ’gainst a Roman, Greek to Greek,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A zealous Omar with an Ali paired;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A saintly Pharisee in hot dispute<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With Sadducees. Along th’ illustrious rows<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of lesser lights, who advocate the creeds<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of their respective masters, we descend<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To later days and see Titanic minds<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Exert their giant strength to reach the truth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And, baffled, fall. Locke, ever elsewhere clear,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Here mystified Spinoza’s dizzy wing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">O’erweighted by his strange “imperium;”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Hobbes, with his new intrinsic liberty;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And Belsham’s quaint reduction too absurd;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Sufficient reason,” reared in Leibnitz’s strength;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Reid, Collins, Edwards, Tappan, Priestley, Clarke,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All push each other from the door of Truth.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">None ever have, nor ever will, on earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Reach truth of theory concerning Fate.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It stands as whole from every touch of man<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As ocean’s broad blue scroll, whose rubber waves<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Erase the furrows of the plowing keels.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Then, careless whether man be king or slave,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I’ll take his actions, whether free or not,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And trace them to their sources. Deep the dive,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But, throwing off the buoys of Charity<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And Faith, and all the prejudice of life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I grasp the lead of Doubt, and downward sink<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Into the cesspool of the human heart,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To find the fount, that to the surface casts<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A thousand bubbles of such varied hues:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The pale white bubble of hypocrisy,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The murky bubble of revenge and hate,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The frail gilt bubble of ambition’s hope,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The rainbow bubble of sweet love in youth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The dull slime bubble of a sensual lust,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The crystal bubble of true charity!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Instead of analyzing every fact<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of moral nature, searching for its source,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I’ll name a source most probable, and try<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The facts upon it; if they fit, confirm,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If not, reject. With Hobbes and Paley then<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I join; and here avow that all mankind<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Have but one source of action&mdash;Love of self&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet not self-love as understands the world,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For that’s a name for error shown by few;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But natural instinct that impels all men<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To give self pleasure, and to save it pain;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For pain and pleasure are Life’s only modes&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No neutral state&mdash;we suffer, or enjoy;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And every action’s linked with one of these.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We cannot act without a consciousness,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A consciousness of pleasure or of pain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The very automatic workings of our frames<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are pleasures, unmarked from their constancy;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But if impeded, they produce a pain.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">This instinct, teaching us to pleasure seek,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And pain avoid, none ever disobey;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For be their conduct what it may, a crime<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or virtue, greed or pure benevolence,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To find the greatest pleasure is their aim.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nay, start not, critic, but attend the proofs.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A man exists within himself alone,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Himself, or he would lose identity.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To him the world exists but by effects<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon himself. His actions toward it then<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Bear reference to himself. He cannot act<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Without affecting self. His nature’s law<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Demands that self be dealt with pleasantly.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">There is no pain or pleasure in the world,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But as he feels th’ reality in self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or fancies it by signs in other men.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">This fancied pain is never <i>real</i> pain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But yields a <i>real</i> reflex. Others’ pain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is never pain to us, unless we know<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It does exist. Within a hundred yards<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A neighbor dies, in agony intense,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And yet we feel no slightest trace of pain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Unless informed thereof. ’Tis only when we know,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And therefore are affected, that we feel.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The modes of pain and pleasure are then two,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A real and a fancied one. The first acute,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In ratio of our sensibilities;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The last in ratio of our image-power.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">These gifts in different men unequal are,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And hence life’s varied phases. One may deem<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A real pain far greater than a pain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In fancy formed, from others’ sufferings;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He eats alone, and drives the starving off.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Another’s fancy paints more vividly,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And he endures keen hunger to supply<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The poor with food. And so of pleasure too,&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And this moves all to shun the greatest pain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And find the greatest pleasure.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Different minds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And each at different times of life, possess<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A different standard of this highest good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The swaddled infant wails for its own food,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because its highest pleasure is alone in sense;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The child will from its playmate hide a cake<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Until it learns that praise for sharing it<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Gives greater pleasure than the sweetened taste;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One boy at school proves insubordinate,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His schoolmates’ praise he deems his highest good;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Another studies well, because he values more<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A parent’s smile. The murderer with his knife,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The maiden praying in her purity,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The miser dying over hoards of gold,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The widow casting thither her two mites,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A white-veil bending o’er the dying couch,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A stained beauty floating through the waltz,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The preacher’s zeal, the gambler’s eager zest;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All have one motive, greatest good to self!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The tender stop their ears, and cry aloud:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“What! do you dare assert the gambler seeks<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With hellish zeal the faintest shade of good?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That he is holy as the Man of God?”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By no means, yet he seeks his good the same.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Not good as you’ve been taught to apprehend,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But good, the greatest to his frame of mind.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Do not exclaim that good is always good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And never differs from itself. Anon<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We’ll speak of abstract truths, if such there be<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That good and pleasure are synonymous<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">At times of action, is most surely plain;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For pleasure’s but the consciousness of good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or satisfaction of our tendencies.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If all the gambler’s soul is bent on gain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then at the moment gain is greatest good;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But should you reason with him, and explain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Another life, and make it really seem<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To him the best, he straight would change his course.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“But,” cries my friend, “the preacher, if he’s true,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Must labor, not for self, but others’ good;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in proportion as the self’s forgot,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And others cared for, does his conduct rise.”<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But he can not, if conscious, forget self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For everything he does is felt within;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But deeds for others’ good a pleasure give;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If done in pain to self, the pleasure’s more.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To gain the pleasure, self is put to pain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Just as a vesication brings relief.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If he refused to undergo the pain<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Remorse would double it.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Among his flock<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some one is sick; to visit him is right,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And done, affords a pleasure. Sweeter far<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That pleasure, if he walks through snow and ice,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">At duty’s call!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i10">Sublime self-sacrifice,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of which men prate, is nothing more nor less<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Than base self-worship. Little pain endured<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">T’ avoid a great; a smaller pleasure lost<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To gain a larger!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i10">All the preacher’s words,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That burn or die upon the stolid ear,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are spoken from this motive, good to self.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You stare; but it is true. Why does he preach?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To save men’s souls?&mdash;Why does he try to save?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because he loves his fellow-men? Not so.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His love for them but to the pleasure adds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Which duty done confers; but all his work<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Must be with reference to himself alone,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Though cunning self the real motive hides,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And leaves his broad philanthropy and love<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To claim the merit. Let a score of men,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The blackest sinners, die. He knows it not,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And feels no pang; but if he is informed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He suffers reflex pain. And if his charge,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Remorseful tortures for unfaithfulness.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And only is the state of souls to him<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of interest, as they are known. When known,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It is a source of pleasure or of pain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Which all his labor is to gain or shun.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“This difference then,” says one, “between men’s lives;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some live for present, some for future good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The sensual care for self on earth alone,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The mystic cares for self beyond the grave.”<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Both love a present self, in present time.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They differ in their notions of its good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The stern ascetic, with his shirt of hair,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His bleeding penitential knees, his fasts<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To almost death, his soul-exhausting prayers,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is seeking, cries the world, good after death.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And yet his course of life is that alone<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Which could yield pleasure in his state of mind.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He suffers, it is true, but hope of Heaven<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thus rendered sure, as much a present good<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is, as the food that feasts the epicure.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The contemplation of his future home,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Which he is thus securing, is a balm<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That heals his stripes, and sweetens all their pain.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The penance blows upon his blood-wealed breast<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are bliss compared to lashes of remorse.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So for the greater good, the hope of Heaven,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He undergoes “the trivial pain of flesh.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The epicure cares not a fig for Heaven,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But finds his greatest good in pleasing sense.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And so the man who gives his wealth away<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is just as selfish as the money-slave<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who grinds out life amid his dusty bags.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They both seek happiness with equal zest:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The one finds pleasure in the many thanks<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of those receiving, or the public’s praise,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or if concealed, in consciousness of right;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The other in the consciousness of wealth.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">If all men act from motives just the same,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where is the right and wrong? In the effect?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The quality of actions must be judged<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From their intent, and not their consequence.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If two men matches light for their cigars,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And from one careless dropped, a house is burned,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is he that dropped it guiltier of crime<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Than he whose match went out? Most surely no!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then is the miser blameless, though he turn<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The helpless orphan freezing from his door;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And Dives should not be commended more,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Though all his goods to feed the poor he gives.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">How then shall we determine quality<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of actions, when their sources are the same,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And their effects possess no quality?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Two dead men lie in blood beside the way,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The one shot by a friend, an accident;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The other murdered for his gold. ’Tis plain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No wrong lies in th’ effects, for both are ’like;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And of the agents, he of accident<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Had no intent, and therefore did no wrong.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The other killed to satisfy the self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A motive founding all the Christian work,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And right if that is right. The wrong<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then lies between the motive and effect,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And must exist in the effecting means.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet how within the means is wrong proved wrong?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Jouffroy would say, because a disregard<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of others’ rights; for here he places good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When classifying Nature’s moral facts.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He makes the child first serve flesh self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then moral self, and last to others’ good<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Ascend, and general order. What a myth!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if man thought of others, save effect<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From them upon himself. But order gives<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A greater good to self; therefore he joins<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His strength to others, creates laws that bind<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Himself and them, and produce harmony.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He thus surrenders minor good of self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To gain a greater. This is all the need<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He has of order, though Jouffroy asserts<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That order universal is the Good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet still he says that private good of each<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is but a fragment of the absolute,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And that regard for every being’s rights<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is binding as the universal law!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Regard for others’ rights indeed, when men<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Unharmed agree to hang a man for crime!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Not for the crime&mdash;that’s past; but to prevent<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A second crime, which crime alone exists<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In apprehensive fancy. Thus for wrong<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That’s but forethought, they do a real wrong.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To save their rights from harm they fear may come.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They strip a fellow-man of actual right,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And highest, right of life; then dare to call<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their action pure, divinely just, and good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And all the farce of empty names.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">They make<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of gross injustice individual,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A flimsy justice, for mankind at large,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And cry, Let it be done, though Heaven fall!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if a whole could differ from its parts,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or right be made from wrong. Yet some may say<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That one is sacrificed for many’s good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or hung that many may avoid his fate;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And that his crime deserved what he received.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But law must value every man alike,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And cannot save one man, or thousand men,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From future evil, only possible,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By greatest evil to another man,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In its own view of justice. Nor can crime<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Meet punishment, at mortal hands, by right,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For murder’s murder, done by one or twelve,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And legal murder’s done in colder blood,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose stains are chalked by vain authority.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Authority! the child of numbers and self-love!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Regard for rights of things, indeed, when beasts<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And birds must yield their right of life that man<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">May please his right of taste. When, during Lent,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The holy-days of fasting and of prayer,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The scaly victims crowd the Bishop’s board,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their flesh unfleshed by Conscience’ pliant rule,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our palates must be for a moment pleased,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Though costing something agonies of death;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And worse than robbers, what we cannot give,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We dare to take.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">They have no souls, say you?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nor after death exist?<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">That nothing’s lost,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Philosophy maintains as axiom truth.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">An object disappears, but somewhere lives<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In other form. The water-pool to mist<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is changed, the powder into flame and smoke.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">My pointer dies, his body, decomposed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The air, the soil, and vegetation feeds;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet still exists, although disintegrate.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For there was something, while the pointer lived,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That was not body, but that governed it,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A spirit, essence, call it what you will,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A something seen but through phenomena,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And by them proved most clearly to exist.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A something, not the feet that made them run,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A something, not the eyes, but knew they saw,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A something, without which the eyes could see<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As much as glasses can without the eye,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The something, “Carlo” named, that knew the name.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The pointer dies, and we dissect the flesh.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All there, none missing, to the tiniest nerve;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet something’s gone, the more important part,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And can you say that it has ceased to be,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When th’ flesh, inferior to it, still exists?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The spirit, if existent, must be whole,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nor can be parted till material proven.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That Carlo lives, seems plain as I shall live;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He lived for self, and so did I; we fare<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Alike in after-life, we differ here<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In consciousness of immortality.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But I digress.<br /></span>

-<span class="i15">Where is the right and wrong?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">This is the Gordian knot no sword can cut,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All sages of the world, with wisdom-teeth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Have gnawed this file without the least effect.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The thousand savants of old Greece and Rome<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Proclaimed a thousand theories of good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That each, successive, proud devoid of truth.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A myriad moderns have advanced their views,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Each gained a few disciples, who avowed their truth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And each, by some one else, been proven wrong.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A Bentham marches out utility,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A moral test from benefit or harm.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if the good depended on effect,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And good would not be good, though universe<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In all its phases found no use! And Price<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Parades his “reason,” with its simple good;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who’d rather give the question up, than err,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And so declares it cannot be defined.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then Wollaston declares that good is truth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Which no one doubts, far as it goes; it goes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Toward good, as far as truth, its attribute;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beyond, it cannot reach. And Montesquieu<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And Clarke, relation’s order preach; a rule<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That makes the growing grain, or falling shower,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A moral agent, capable of good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then Wolf and Malebranche perfection see,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And therefore good, in God; but their sight fails,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And God may mirror good, but man’s weak eyes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Ne’er see it. Adam Smith, with “sentiment”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Proceeds to dress a thought, and call it, good;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And makes the abstract of a Universe<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Arise from puling human sympathy.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The largest concourse follow Hutcheson,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Although the greater part ne’er heard of him.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The world at large believes in moral sense;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They call it conscience! Oh the precious word!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Though stretched and warped, they almost deify,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And term it man’s tribunal in his breast,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where he may judge his actions, right or wrong.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">What nonsense! Conscience is but consciousness<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of soul, and idea of its good. We form<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">This idea from regard of fellow-men,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Association, and from thought. We find<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Sometimes the good of soul conflicts with flesh,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And when we know the soul above the flesh,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We yield to that the preference. Hence arise<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The foolish notions of self disregard.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The savage does not know he has a soul,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And therefore has no conscience. He can steal<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Without remorse. But when he learns of soul,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He finds it has a good, and by this test<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Tries moral actions, are they good for soul?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And this is conscience.<br /></span>

-<span class="i10">Yet is conscience changed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By circumstance. The Hindoo mother tears<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The helpless infant from her trickling breast,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To feed the crocodile, and save her soul;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">She’s happier in its conscience-murdered wail<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Than in its gleeful prattle on her knee.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And daily we see one commit a deed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Without a pang, another dare not do.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If conscience may be warped but one degree<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By plain Sorites, it may be reversed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And only prove an interested thought.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">To abstract good no man has found the key,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Though in the various forms of concrete good<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We see the similars, and from these frame<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A good that serves the purposes of life.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We pass it as we do the concept, “Man,”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But never ope to count the attributes.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our purest right is but approximate<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To this vague abstract idea, how obtained,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We know not. Plato says ’tis memory<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of previous life. Perhaps! ’Tis very dim<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In this; and yet it rocks the cradle world<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As strongly as the baby man can bear<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And so of truth, or aught abstract, we know<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of such existence somewhere, that is all.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“But we,” cries one, “do hold some abstract truth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In perfect form. The truth of science’ laws,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The truths of numbers, each are perfect truths.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The truths of science are hypotheses,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And only true as far as they explain.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But perfect truth must save all facts,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That ever rose or possibly can rise.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“The priest of Nature” thought he held the truth<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When throughout space he tracked the motes of light,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And ground the sunbeams into dazzling dust.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our quivering waves through subtle ether flash,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And drown Sir Isaac’s atoms in a flood<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of glorious truth; till some new fact shall rise<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To give our truth the lie, and cause a change<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of theory.<br /></span>

-<span class="i6">Our numbers no truth have,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or but a shadow, cast on Earth by truth<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Existent in some unknown world. We make<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our little numbers fit the shadow’s line<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As best they can, and boast eternal truth!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet take a simple form of numbers, “two,”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We cannot have a perfect thought of this,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because the mind directly asks, two what?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">’Tis not enough chameleon to feed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">On empty air. Two units, we reply<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then what is meant by unity? An “One,”&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The mind can only cognize o-n-e,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Which makes three units and not one.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">The mind<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Must have a concrete object to adjust<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The abstract on, before it comprehends.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But two concretes are never two, because<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They never can be proved exactly ’like.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To illustrate: suppose two ivory balls,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of finest mold, and equal weight, precise<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As hair-hung scales, arranged most delicate,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Can prove; yet they can not be shown<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To differ, not the trillionth of a grain;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or if they could, they may in density<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Be unlike; then to equal weight, one must<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Be larger by the trillionth of an inch.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Even if alike in density and weight,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No one will dare assert that they possess<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A perfect similarity in all.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The abstract two is twice as much as one,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But our two balls unlike, perforce must be<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Greater or less than two of either one;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But two of one, the same can never be<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">On poor, imperfect Earth. Thus all our twos<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Fall, in some measure, short of concept two.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And if we paint the concept to the eye,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The figure 2 of finest stereotype,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beneath the microscope imperfect shows.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And so our perfect numbers, wisdom’s boast,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are faint, uncertain shadows in the mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That we can never picture to the eye,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nor truthfully apply to anything.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We use a ragged, ill-drawn substitute,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That answers all the purposes of life.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The truths of mathematics, so sublime,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are never true to us, concretely known;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in the abstract so concealed are they,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No man can swear he has their perfect form.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We can’t conceive a line without some breadth&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The perfect line possesses length alone;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Earth never saw a pure right-angle drawn,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Pythag’ras cannot prove his theorem,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The finest quadrant is but nearest truth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The closest measures but approximate,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And all from Sanconiathon to Pierce,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With grandest soaring into Number’s realms,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Have only fluttered feebly o’er the ground,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their heaven-strong wings by feebling matter tied.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Man is a pris’ner, but the prison walls<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are very vast; so vast the universe<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Lies, like a mote, within their mighty scope.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Most are content to grovel on the earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some rise a little way, and sink again;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And some, on noble wing, soar to the bounds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And eager beat the bars. Beyond these walls<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The abstract lies, and oft the straggling rays,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Through crevices and chinks, stray to our jail;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And these we fondly hug as truth.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Poor man!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The glimpses of the great Beyond have roused,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For centuries, his curious soul to flight.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With eagle eye fixed on the distant goal,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He cleaves his way, till dashed against the walls;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some fall with bruiséd wing again to Earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And some cling bravely there, so eager they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To reach the untouched prize, and so intent<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their gaze upon its light, they notice not<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The bounds, till Hamilton, with wary eye,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Discovers the Eternal bounding line,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And sadly shows its hopeless fixity.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But man on Earth I love to ridicule,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A little clod of sordid selfishness!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I’ll take his mental acts of every kind<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And see how self originates them all;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I’ll follow Stewart, since he classifies<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With shrewd discretion, though his reasoning err,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He places first the appetites; and these<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Perforce are selfish, as our self alone<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Must feel and suffer with our wants. Our food<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Tastes good alone to us. The richest feast,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In others’ mouths, could never satisfy<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our appetite for food; self must be fed.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Desires are next; and that of knowledge, first,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is proven selfish, by his quoted line<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From Cicero&mdash;that “knowledge is the food<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of mind”&mdash;and food is ever sought for self.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Desire of social intercourse with men,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From thought that it will better self, proceeds.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man’s state is friendly, not a state of war,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For instinct teaches him society<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Will offer many benefits to self;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And only when he has a cause to fear<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That self will suffer, does he learn to war.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Desire to gain esteem, is self in search<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of approbation; like the appetite,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The end pursued affects alone the self.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And lastly Stewart boasts posthumous fame,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When self, as sacrificed, can seek no good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To prove the motive is a selfish good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I’ll not assert enjoyment after life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But say, the pleasure of the millions’ praise,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Anticipated in the present thought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And intense consciousness of heroism,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Far more than compensates the pangs of death.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A Curtius leaping down the dread abyss,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Enjoys his fame enough, before he strikes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To pay for every pain of mangling death.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Affections next adorn the moral page.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">At that of kindred, mothers cry aloud:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“For shame! for shame! do you pretend to say<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I love my child with any thought of self?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When I would lay my arm upon the block,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And have it severed for his slightest good!”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I’ll square your love by Reason’s rigid rule,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And test its source. Why do you love him so?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For benefit he has conferred, or may?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No, as the helpless babe, demanding care,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You love him most. Your love is instinct then,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And like the cow her calf, you love your child;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That you may care for him, before self moves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then do you love him always just the same,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When rude and bad as when obedient?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But I’ll dissect your love, and take away<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Each part affecting self; and see what’s left.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He now has grown beyond your instinct love;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You love him, first, because he is your son,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And you would suffer blame, if you did not;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You love him, too, because he does reflect<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A credit on yourself. You feel assured<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That others thinking well of him, think well<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of you. Because it flatters all your pride<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To think so fine a life is part of yours;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because his high opinion of your worth<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Evokes a meet return; because you look<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Into the future, and see honors bright<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Awaiting you through him; because you feel<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The world is praising you for loving him,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And would condemn you, did you not. And last,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You feel the pleasure deep of self-esteem,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because you fill the public’s and your own<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Romantic ideas of a mother’s love.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Let each component part be now destroyed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And see if still you love him. As a man,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He plunges into vice of vilest kinds;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His bright reflections on yourself are gone,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And people think the worse of you, for him;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You never smile, but frown, upon him now,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But still you love him dearly! To his vice<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He adds a crime, a foul and blasting crime;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Your pride is gone, you feel a bitter shame,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A score of opposites to love creep in;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A righteous anger at his foolish sins,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A just contempt for nature, weak as his;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But yet you love him fondly, for the world<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is lauding you for “mother’s holy love”;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And you delight its clinging strength to show,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You gain in public credit by your woes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And get the soothing martyr’s sympathy.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But let him still grow worse, and sink so low,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That people say you are disgraced through him,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Your warmest friends will not acquaintance own,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Your love for such an object’s ridiculed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And gains respect from none. Your only chance<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is to disown him. How you loud proclaim,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“He’s not my child but by the accident<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of birth!”<br /></span>

-<span class="i8">Do yet you love him in your heart?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">This then because you think yourself so good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So heaven-like, for loving him disgraced,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You go to see him in the shameful jail;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He spits upon, and beats you from his cell,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And tells you that he hates your very name.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Now all your love is gone, except the glow<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of pity for him chained to dungeon floor;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But he’s released, and deeper goes in crime;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then, lastly, Pity yields. Your heart is stone!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But love was only touched in selfish part,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet should you still deny your love is self’s;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of several children, do you not love most<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The one whose conduct pleases most yourself?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But love, unselfish, never could be moved<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By anything affecting self alone.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The throbbing hearts of lovers beat for self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And this I’ll prove, though Pyramus may vow<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He has no thought but Thisbe.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Take away<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Love’s sensual part, which is an appetite,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And therefore selfish, by its Nature’s law;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And what remains is, first, a slight conceit<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">At our discernment in the choice we’ve made,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And then a pride that we have won the prize;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A pride, that some one thinks we are the best;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A pleasure in her presence, too, we feel,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because in every look she manifests<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her preference for us. This is flattering<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beyond all else that we have ever known.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A friend may raise our self-esteem, indeed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By showing constantly his own esteem,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But never can man’s vanity receive<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A higher tribute than a woman’s love!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">This tribute, we, of course, reciprocate,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And when together, we increase self-love<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By mutual words expressing our regard.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet when our love is deepest, if we find<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our Self is not so worshipped as we thought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our love grows cold; and when we are not loved<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We cease to love. To illustrate permit:<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">You’re on the topmost wave of fervid love&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A wilder flame than poets ever sung;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You’ve passed the timid declaration’s bounds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And revel in a full assured return.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">There is no need for check upon your heart,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It has full leave to pour its gushing tide<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of feeling forth, and meet responsive floods.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You meet her in the parlor’s solitude,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No meddling eye to watch the sacred scene.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The purple curtains hang their corded folds<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Before the tell-tale windows; closed the door,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And sealed with softest list. The rich divan<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is drawn before the ruddy grate that glows<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With red between the bars, and blue above.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You sit beside The Angel of your dreams,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And gaze in adoration. What a form!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Revealed in faultless symmetry by robes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of rare, exquisite elegance, and taste,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That fit the tap’ring waist and arching neck.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And how superbly flow the torrents of her hair!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Which she has shaken loose, because “it’s you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span>”;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her great brown eyes that gaze so dreamily<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the flowers of the vellum-screen<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That wards the fire from her tinted cheek!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One hollow foot, in dainty, bronze bootee,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Tapping the tufted lion on the rug;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A snowy hand with blazing solitaire&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The pledge of your betrothal&mdash;nestling soft<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Within your own.<br /></span>

-<span class="i10">And thus you sit, and breathe<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With tones so soft, because the ear’s so near,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The mutual confidence of little cares;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And how you longed for months to tell your love,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But feared a cold rebuke; and how you dared<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To hope through all the gloom; and how you grieved<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">At every favor shown to other men;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How now the clouds have flown away,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And all is brightness, joy, and tender love.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then drawing nearer, round the slender waist<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You pass an arm; and nestling cheek to cheek,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Palm throbbing palm, you hush all useless words,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And thought meets thought, in silent love.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And now and then, you leave the cheek, to kiss<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The coral lips; yet not with transient touch,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But with a fervid, lingering pressure there,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if you longed to force the lips apart,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And drink the soul; while both her melting orbs<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are drooped beneath your burning inch-near eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The parting hour must come. The good-night said,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You rise to leave; and turning, at the door,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You see her head drooped on the sofa’s arm,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You fancy she is sighing that you’re gone;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And stealing back on tiptoe, gently raise<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The beauteous face, and take it ’twixt your palms;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And gazing on the features radiant,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Distorted queerly by your pressing hands,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You feel that life, the parting cannot bear,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That you must stay forever there, or die!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Another effort, one more nectar sip,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You rush from out the room, and slam the door,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Just on the steps, you meet your rival’s face.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He has an easy confidence, and walks<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Into the house, as if it were his own.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Poor fellow! how you really pity him!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You can afford to be magnanimous,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And deprecate his certain, cruel fate.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You murmur: “Well, he brings it on himself,”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And turn to go. The window’s near the ground,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And slightly raised. Although you know it’s mean,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You cannot now resist, but creep up near,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And with a finger part the curtain’s fringe.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You see your darling run across the room<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With both extended hands, and hear her say:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Oh Fred! I am so very glad you’ve come,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I feared that stupid thing would never leave,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I had to let him take my hand awhile,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And mumble over it, to get him off.”<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">You grasp the iron railing for support,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And, faint and dizzy with the agony<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of love’s departure, cling till all has fled;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then stagger home without a trace of love.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet only Self is touched; her beauty’s there,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her sparkling wit, and her intelligence,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her manner even, towards you, has not changed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And, were you with her, she would be the same.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Love’s every motive disappeared with Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No pride of conquest, no romance of thought;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You meet no sympathy, but ridicule!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">A mother’s love may last through injury,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because it reaps the self’s reward of praise<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For constancy, through wrong. The lover’s flame.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Unless supplied with fuel-self, dies out,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For, burning, ’twould deserve supreme contempt.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The less affairs of life are traced to Self.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The code of Etiquette, that Chesterfield<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Defines “Benevolence in little things,”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is but a scheme to give Self consciousness<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of excellence in breeding, and to keep<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Our Circle” sep’rate by its shibboleth.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The stately bow, the graceful sip of wine,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The useless little finger’s dainty crook<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In lifting up the fragile Sevres cup,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The holding of the hat in morning calls,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The touch of it when passing through the streets,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The drawing of a glove, the use of cane&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our every act is coupled with the thought<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How well Self does all this.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i12">Our very words<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are used to gratify the self. Men talk<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By preference, for they judge their words<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Will gain them more applause than listening.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But if attention yields more fruit to Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How patiently they hear the longest tale,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And laugh in glee at its insipid close!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If with superiors, we attend, because<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Attention pleases more with them than words;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But if inferiors, we must talk the most,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Since their attention flatters us so much.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The cause of converse, Self, is oftenest food.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How few the talks that are not spiced with “I,”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">What “I” can do, or did or will!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i12">Sometimes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Self is held, on purpose, up for jest;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As when men tell a joke upon themselves.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But here the shame of conduct or mishap<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is more than balanced by the hearty laugh,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Which gives its pleasant witness to our wit.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We never tell what will present ourselves<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In such an aspect laughter cannot heal;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Although it compliments our telling powers.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Attentions to the fair, but seek for Self<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their smiles of favor. Little deeds of love<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To those around us, look for their reward.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The youth polite, who gives his chair to Age,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Without a thought of Self,” is yet provoked,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If Age do not evince, by nod or smile,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His obligation to that unthought Self.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The very qualities we call innate,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Arise and rule through Self. Our reverence,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or tendency to worship, is to gain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A good. Religion grows this tendency<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Into the various Churches, all whose ends<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are to secure eternal good for Self.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And those who preach that man does sacrifice<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Himself for fellow-men, I ask, why none<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Will give his soul for others’? Many give<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The paltry life on Earth for others’ good;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The very stones would cry “O! fool!” to him<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who’d yield his soul; for that is highest Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And nothing e’er can compensate its loss.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">In all these things, Self stands behind the scenes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And men see not the force that moves them on.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But in the boudoir, ’tis enthroned supreme,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And does not care to hide the cloven foot.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In every home, the marble and the log,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In mammoth trunks, and chests of simple pine,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In rosewood cases, and the pasteboard box,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are crammed the slaves of Self, to poor and rich,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The clothes that, fine or common, feed its pride.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The velvets, satins, silken <i>robes de flamme</i>,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The worsted, calico, and homespun stripe;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Guipure, Valenciennes, and Appliqué,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The gimp, galloon, and shallow bias frill;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Talmas, Arabs, basques and paletots,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The coarse plaid shawl, the hood, and woollen scarf;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The chignons, chatelaines, and plaited braids,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The beaded net, and tight-screwed knot of hair;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The dazzling jewels, ranged in season sets,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The pinchbeck, gilt, and waxen trinketry;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The tinted boots, half-way the silken hose,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The shoes that tie o’er cotton blue-and-white;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The corset laced to hasten ready Death,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The leather belt, that cuts the broad, thick waist;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The bosom heaving only waves of wire,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The bosom, cotton stuffed, beyond all shape;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The belladonna sparkling in the eye,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The finger tip, and water without soap;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The rouge and carmine for the city cheeks,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The berries’ ruddy juice for rural ones;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The pearly powder, with its poisoned dust,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The cup of flour to ghastlify the face;&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All these, and thousand fixtures none can count,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man’s vanity, and woman’s love of show,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Appropriate for Self.<br /></span>

-<span class="i10">And such is Man!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The puzzle of the Universe! Within,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A giant to himself; without, a babe.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A giant that we cannot but despise,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A babe we must admire for his power.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His mind, Promethean spark divine, can pierce<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The shadowy Past, and gaze in rapturous awe<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the birth of worlds, that from the Mind<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Eternal spring to blazing entities,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And whirl their radiant orbs through cooling space;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or place the earth beneath its curious ken,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And with an “Open Sesame!” descend<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Into its rocky chambers, there unfold<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The stone archives, and read their graven truths&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Earth’s history written by itself therein&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How age by age, a globe of liquid fire,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It dimmer grew, and dark and stiff,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And drying, took a rough, uneven face;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Above the wave, the mountain’s smoking top<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Appeared, beneath it gaped the valley’s gorge;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But smoking still, it stood a gloomy globe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Naked and without life. And how the trees<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And herbs their robes of foliage brought; their form<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And life adapted to their heated bed.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And how a stream of animation poured<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon its face, when ready to sustain;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Great beasts who trod the cindered soil unscathed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And tramped the fervid plains with unscorched soles.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Great fish whose hardened fins hot waters churned<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That steamed at every stroke. How periods passed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And fields and forests teemed with gentler life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The waters wound in rivers to the sea,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then spread their vap’ry wings and fled to land.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The oceans tossed in bondage patiently;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Volcanic mountains closed their festering mouths,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And Earth made ready for her master, Man.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">It traces Man, expelled from Paradise,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Along the winding track of centuries.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It marks his slow development, from two,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To families, and tribes, and nations vast.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It gazes on the wondrous scenes of war,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And peace, and battle plain, and civic game;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And lives through each, with all of real life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Except the body’s presence there. It turns<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From man to beasts and birds, and careless strokes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The lion’s mane, the humbird’s scarlet throat.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It tracks the mammoth to his jungle home,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or creeps within the infusoria’s cell.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It measures Earth from pole to pole, or weighs<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The bit of brass, that lights the battery spark.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is Earth too small, it plumes its flight through space;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From world to world, as bird from twig to twig,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It flies, and furls its wing upon their discs,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To tell their weight, and giant size, or breathe<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their very air to find its gaseous parts.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Now bathing in pale Saturn’s misty rings,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or chasing all the moons of Jupiter<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Behind his darkened cone. The glorious sun,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With dazzling vapor robe, and seas of fire,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose cyclones dart the forkèd flames far out,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To lap so hungrily amid the stars,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is but its playhouse, where it rides the storms,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That sweep vast trenches through the surging fire,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In which the little Earth could roll unseen;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or bolder still, beyond our system’s bounds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It soars amid the wilderness of worlds;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Finds one condemned to meet a doom of fire,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And makes its very flames inscribe their names,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In dusky lines, upon the spectroscope.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With shuddering thought to see a world consumed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The fate prepared for ours, it lingers there<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Until the lurid conflagration dies.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And then seeks Earth, and leaves the laggard,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Light,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To plod its journey vast.<br /></span>

-<span class="i10">The smallest mote<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of dust that settles on an insect’s wing,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It can dissect to atoms ultimate.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With these, too small for sight, may Fancy deal,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And revel in her Lilliputian realm.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">These atoms forming all, by Boscovitch<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are proved, in everything, to be alike;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And ultimate, since indivisible.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Each in its place maintained by innate force<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And relatively far from each, as Earth<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From Sun.<br /></span>

-<span class="i8">Suppose, then, each to be a world,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Peopled with busy life, a human flood,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As earnest in their little plans as we,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As grand in their opinion of themselves!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Oh! what a depth of contrast for the mind!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The finest grain of sand, upon the beach,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Has in its form a million perfect worlds!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or take the other scale, suppose the Earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our great and glorious Earth, to only form<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The millionth atom of some grain of sand,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That shines unnoticed on an ocean’s shore,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose waves wash o’er our whirling stars and sun<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Too insignificant to feel their surge.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Another step on either side, and mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In flesh, shrinks from the giant grasp.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet noble are its pinions, strong their flight;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thrice, only, do they droop their baffled strength,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Before the Future, Infinite, Abstract!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The first is locked, the second out of reach,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The third a maze that none can penetrate.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The first, alone to inspiration opes;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The second dashed to Earth her boldest wing,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Spinoza’s, who essayed the idea God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And grappling bravely with the grand concept,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So far above the utmost strength of Man,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Placed God’s existence in extent and thought;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And filled all space with God. The Universe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A bud or bloom of the Eternal Mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That opens like a flower into this form,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And may retract Creation in Itself!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Alas! that effort so sublime should end<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In mystery and doubt.<br /></span>

-<span class="i10">A Universe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How vast so ever, has its bounds somewhere,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But Space possesses none, and God in Space,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would be so far beyond Creation’s speck,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He scarce would know it did exist. That part<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of Mind, expressed in matter, would be lost<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Amid the Infinite domains of thought.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Yet Man in flesh, the casket of the mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose wondrous power I’ve told, is ever chained,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A grovelling worm, to Earth, and never leaves<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The sod where he must lie. No time is his<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But present; not a mem’ry of the past.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His very food, while in his mouth, alone,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Tastes good. He stands a dummy in the world,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That only acts when acted on. How great<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The mystery of union ’tween the two!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A feather touches not the body, but the mind<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Perceives it; yet the mind may live through scenes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The body never knew, nor can. Yet not<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With vivid life&mdash;the sense is lacking there.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The memory of a banquet may be plain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So that the daintest dish could be described,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As well as if the eye and tongue were there;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The eye and tongue, alone the present know,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And find no good in anything that’s past.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All thought is folly, every path is dark;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Truth gleaming fairly in the distant haze,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">On near approach becomes the blackest lie.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man and his soul may go, nor will I fret<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To learn their mystic bonds. A worm I am,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And worm I must remain, till Death shall burst<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The chrysalis, and free the web-wound wings.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet, oh! ’twere grand to spurn the clogging Earth<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And cleave the air towards yonder looming cloud;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To stand upon its red-bound crest and dare<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The storm-king’s wildest wrath.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i12">My thoughts<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Grew dull, my eyelids slowly closed, the scene<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Became confused and melted into sleep.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And far up in the blue, as yet untouched<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By clouds, I saw a white descending speck.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Methought ’twas but a feather from the breast<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of some migrating swan, that Earthward fell,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And watched to see it caught upon the wind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And sail a tiny kite to fairy land.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But circling down, the speck became a dove,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A heron, then a swan, and larger still,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till I could mark a pair of great white wings,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Between which hung its wondrous form. Still down<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It swept, till scarce above the trees it stood,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Resting on quivering wings, as if it sought<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A place to ’light. I saw then what it was,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A steed of matchless beauty, agile grace,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Combined with muscled strength; but ere I drew<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The first long breath, that follows such surprise<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It gently downward swooped, and at my feet,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With dainty hoof, the turf impatient pawed.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Enrapt, I gazed upon its beauteous form,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its sculptured head, and countenance benign,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The soft sad eyes, the arrow-pointed ears,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The scarlet nostrils opening like two flowers,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The sinewed neck, curved like a swimming swan’s,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The splendid mane, a cataract of milk,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That poured its foaming torrents half to Earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The tap’ring limbs, tipped with pink-hued hoofs,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That touched our soil with a proud disdain;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The dazzling satin coat, and netting veins,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And last the glorious wings, whose feathers lapped<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Like scales of creamy gold. What seemed a cloth<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of woven snow, with richest silver fringe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Draped with its gorgeous folds the shining flanks.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">It was perfection’s type, the absolute,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Not one defect; the tiniest hair was smooth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The smallest feather’s edge unfrayed. The eyes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Without the slightest bloodshot fleck, or mote.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No fault the microscope could have revealed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Though magnifying many million times.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So great my wonder, that I could not move,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But lay entranced, while he stood waiting there;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till wearied with my long delay, he raised<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His wings half-way, and eager trembled them,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As bluebirds do when near their mate; a neigh<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of trumpet tone aroused me. Then I sprang<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon his back, and wildly shouted “On!”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A spring with gathered feet, a clash of wings,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That made me cling in terror, and we swept<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From Earth into the air. Woods, plains, and streams<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Flashed by beneath, as, up and on, we charged<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Straight to the frowning cloud.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">My very brain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Reeled with our lightning speed, and dizzy height,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And oh! how silent was the air. No sound,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Except the steady beat of fanning wings,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That hurled us on a rod at every stroke.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The bellowing winds were loosed and fiercely met<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our flight. They tossed the broad white mane across<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">My shrinking shoulders, like a scarf of silk;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They blew the strong-quilled feathers all awry,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And like a banner beat the silvered cloth;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But swerving not to right or left, we pressed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Straight onward to the goal.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">At last I reined<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">My steed upon the shaggy ridge of clouds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And caracoled along the beetling cliffs,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Up to the very summit. Then I paused.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Behind me lay the world with all its hum<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of life, the distant city’s veil of smoke,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The village gleaming white amid the trees;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The very orchard I had left, now seemed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A downy nest of green, and far away<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I caught the shimmer of the sea, where sails,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With glidings, glittered like the snowy gulls.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Behind all was serene, before me seethed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The caldron of the tempest’s wrath.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Thick clouds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thrice tenfold blacker than the black outside<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We see, deep in the crackling fire-crypts writhed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And boiling rose and fell. A deafening blast<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Roaring its thunder voice above the scene,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if the fiends of Hell concocted there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The scalding beverage of the damned.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">My horse<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Had snuffed the fumes, and rearing on the brink,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That fearful brink, an instant pawed the air,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And then sprang off. A suffocating plunge,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Through heat and blinding smoke, while to his neck<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Convulsively I clung! Down through the cloud,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Until I gasped for breath, and felt my brain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Was bursting with the fervid weight.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">He stopped<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Before a large pavilion, round whose walls,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As faithful guard, a whirlwind fierce revolved,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And at whose folded door, with dazzling blade,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The lightning stood a sentinel. My steed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Was passport, and I passed within, but stopped<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the threshold, dumb with awe. The walls<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Seemed blazing mirrors, whose bright polished sides<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Threw back in flaming lineaments” the form<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of every object there,&mdash;a trembling wretch,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With pallid countenance, shown ghastly red,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon a horse of War’s own direful hue,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I saw reflected there. The floor seemed made<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of tesselated froth, whose bubbles burst,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With constant hissing, into rainbow sparks;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While like the sulph’rous canopy, that drapes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">At evening’s close, a gory battle-field,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The roof of crimson vapor drooped and rose,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With every breath and every slightest sound.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in the center of the glowing room,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon a sapphire throne an Angel sat,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon whose brow Rebuke and Wisdom met.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He gazed upon me with such pitying look,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And yet withal so stern, that all my pride<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Was gone, and humble as a conquered child,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I ran with trembling haste and near the throne<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Kneeled down.<br /></span>

-<span class="i6">“Vain man,” he said, “and hast thou dared<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To doubt the providence of God; Behold!”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And, lo! one side of the pavilion rose,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And out before me lay Immensity.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The frothy floor, now crumbling from the edge,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Dissolved away close to my very feet,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The walls contracted their three sides in one,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And I, beside a throne I dared not grasp,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Stood on a narrow ledge of fragile foam,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That clicked its thousand little globes of air,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With every motion of my feet.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Far down<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Below, the black abyss of chaos yawned,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So vast, I gasped while gazing, and so deep,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Sun’s swift arrowy rays flash down for years,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And scarcely reach the dark confines, or fade<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Amid the impenetrable gloom. Methought<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">’Twas Hell’s wide jaws, that opened underneath<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Universe, to catch as crumbs the worlds<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Condemned, and shaken from their orbit’s track.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And long I looked into the vast black throat,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To trace the murky glow of hidden fire,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or catch the distant roar. But all was still;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No murmur broke the silence of its gloom,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No faintest glimmer told of lurking light,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No smoky volumes curdled in its depths;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As dark as Egypt’s plague, serenely calm,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Defying light, the empty hall of Space,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where twinkled not a star nor blazed a sun.&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A grand eternal night!<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">I shuddering turned,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With freezing blood to think of falling there,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And stretched a palsied hand to touch the throne.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Angel’s eye was sterner, as he waved<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Towards my steed, who seemed of marble carved.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The wings unfolded, and he leaped in air,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beating from off the ledge the flakes of foam<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That sank, with airy spirals, out of sight.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With slanting flight across the gulf he sheared;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The moveless wings were not extended straight,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But stood, at graceful angle, o’er his back,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As, swifter than a swooping kite, he flashed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Adown the gloom. His flowing mane broad borne<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Out level, like another wing; his feet<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With slow ellipses moving alternate,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if he trod an unseen path. ’Twas grand<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To see his graceful form, more snowy white<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Against the black relief, sublimely float<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Across the dark profound, and down its depths,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Pass from my view. As when an Eagle soars<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beyond our vision in the azure sky,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We wonder what he sees, or whither flies,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So I stood wondering if he would return,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And what his destination down th’ abyss.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Above, around, all was infinitude<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of light and harmony. The worlds moved on,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In mazy multitude, without a jar,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Star circling planet, planet sun, and suns<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In systems, farther yet and farther still,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till multiplying millions mingled formed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A sheet of milky hue. And far beyond<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The last pale star, appeared a dazzling spot,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That flamed with brightness so ineffable<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The eye shrank ’neath its gleam. And from its light,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Athwart the endless realms of space, there streamed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A radiance that illumed the Universe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And down across the chasm of Chaos flung<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A wavering band of purple and of gold.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in that distant spot my ’wildered eyes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Traced out the figure of a Great White Throne,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Round which, in grand and solemn majesty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Slow swept Creation’s boundless macrocosm.&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I felt too insignificant to pray,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But mutely waited for the Angel’s words.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He spoke not, but the curtains closer drew,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And left a narrow opening in front.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then with a speed the lightning ne’er attained,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our cloud pavilion swiftly whirled through space.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A seed that would have slain me with its haste,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Had not the Angel been so near.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">As on the cars,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We dash through towns, and mark the hurrying lights,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or shudder at an engine rattling by;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So through our door, I marked the countless worlds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In clustering systems, chained by gravity,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Flash by an endless course. A second’s time<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Sufficed to pass our little group of stars,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That waltz about our Sun, as if it lit<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The very Universe. Then systems came,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Round which our system moves, and these<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Round others, till the series grew so vast<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I shrank from looking. Great Alcyone,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our telescopic giantess, a babe<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Amid the monsters of the starry tribe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The last familiar face in Heaven’s throng,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Blazed by the door; an instant, out of sight!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And after all that we have known or named<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">On Earth were far behind, the millions came<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In endless multitude; and on we swept,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till worlds became a dull monotony,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And all the wonders of the Heavens were shown.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A planet wheels its huge proportions past,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its pimpled face with red volcanoes thick,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That, with our speed, seem girdling bands of light;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A Sun, whose flame would fade our yellow spark,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Roars out a moment at our narrow door<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As through its blaze we fly, then dies away,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Casting a weird and momentary gleam<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Over the Angel’s unrelenting face;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A meteor tears its whizzing way along,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All showering off the scintillating sparks<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That mark its trail. Far off, a comet runs<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its bended course, the mighty fan-like tail<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Lit with a myriad globes of dancing fire,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That seemed like Argus’ eyes on Juno’s bird.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And on we sped, till one last Sun appeared,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A monstrous hemisphere of concave shape,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And brilliancy intense; it seemed to stand<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">On great Creation’s bounds, a lense of light.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Close by its vast red rim we shaved, and passed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beyond, to empty space unoccupied.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No world, no sun, no object passed the door;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The steady blue, tinged with a brightening gold,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Alone was seen. Still on and on we flew,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Until a score of ages seemed elapsed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And I had near forgotten Earth and home.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">And yet the air grew brighter, till I feared<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That we approached a sun, so infinite<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In light, that I should sink in dazzled death.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">We came to rest, the curtains fell away,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And lo! I stood within the light of Heaven.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And oh! its glorious light! No angry red,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nor blinding white, nor sickly yellow glare,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But one vast golden flood, sublime, serene,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No object near, on which it could reflect,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It formed the very atmosphere itself,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">An air in which the soul could bathe and breathe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And ever live without its fleshly food.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">No object near, for on the farthest bounds<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of space immense as mortal can conceive,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Creation hung, a group of clustering motes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where only suns were seen as tiny specks,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And Earth and smaller stars were out of sight.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No object near, for farther than the motes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The walls of Heaven, in glorious grandeur loomed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet near as flesh and blood could bear.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">How grand!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From infinite to infinite extent<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The glittering battlements were spread, the height<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Above conception, built of purest gold,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet gold transparent, for I could discern<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Though indistinctly, domes and spires beyond,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And all the wondrous workmanship divine,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That blazed with jewels, flashing varied hues<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In perfect union; and bright happy fields,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That bloomed with flowers immortal, in whose midst<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The crystal river ran. And through the scenes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thronged million forms, that each sought happiness,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From million varied, purified desires.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Each face serenely bright as Evening’s star,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And some I thought I knew, were dear to me;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But as I gazed, they ever disappeared.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Along the walls, twelve gates of pearl were seen,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So great their breadth, and high their jewelled arch,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That Earth could almost trundle in untouched,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in each arch was fixed a giant bell<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of silver, with a golden tongue that hung,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A pendant sun. So wide the silver lips,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That Chimularee plucked up by the roots,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And as a clapper swung within its circ,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would tinkle, like a pebble, noiselessly<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Against the rigid side. And as the saved<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Were brought in teeming host, by Angel bands,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Before the gates, the bells began their swing;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And to and fro the ponderous tongue was hurled,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till through the portals marched the shouting throng,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And then it fell against the bounding side.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And loud and long their booming thunder<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Rends the golden air asunder,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While the ransomed, passing under,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Fall in praise beneath the bells,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Whose mighty throbbing welcome tells;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And the Angels hush their harps in wonder&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Bells of Heaven, glory booming bells!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Gentler now, the silver’s shiver<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Purls the rippling waves that quiver<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Through the ether’s tide forever,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Mellow as they left the bells,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Whose softening vibrate welcome tells;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And the quavers play adown the river&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Bells of Heaven, softly sobbing bells!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Then the dreamy cadence dying,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Sings as soft as zephyrs sighing;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Faintest echoes cease replying<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">To the murmur of the bells,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Whose stilling tremor welcome tells,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Faintly as the snow-flakes falling, lying&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Bells of Heaven, dreamy murmuring bells!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">And in and out those Gates of Pearl, there streamed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A ceaseless throng of Angels, errand bound.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From one came forth a band of choristers,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With shining harps, and sweeping out through space,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their long white lines bent gracefully, they sang.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Although so far away, that purest air<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Brought every note exquisite to my ear.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">’Twas richly worth life’s toil, to catch one bar<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of Heavenly melody. Oh! I would give<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">My pitiful existence, once again<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To hear the strains that floated to me then,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So full, so deep, so ravishingly sweet;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Now gentle as a mother’s lullaby,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They almost died away, then louder rose,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And rolled their volumes through the boundless realms,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That trembled with the diapason grand;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Until eternal echoes caught the strain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And glory in the highest swelled sublime.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Entranced, I lay with ’wildered half-closed eyes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till from another gate, another host<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Marched forth, the armies of the living God.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beneath their thunder-tread all Heaven shook,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And at their head the tall Archangel strode.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How grandly terrible his mien! His face<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Lit with a soul that only kneels to Three;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The lofty brows drawn slightly to a frown<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The eyes that beam with vast intelligence,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The depths of distance piercing with their glance;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The chiselled lips, compressed with stern resolve,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet marked with lines and curves of tender love,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That ever with a sigh Wrath’s vial broke<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the doomed. His splendid form so tall,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That as he paused a moment in the gate<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His dazzling crest just grazed the silver bell.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He wore no arms nor armor, save a sword<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Without a sheath, that blazed as broad and bright<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As sunset bars that shear the zenith’s blue&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A sword, that falling flatly on the host<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of Xerxes, would have crushed them as we crush<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A swarm of ants. An edge-stroke on the Earth<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would gash the rocky shell to caverned fire.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Unfolding wings would shake a continent,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He floated down the depths. Behind him came<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A million foll’wers, counterparts in all,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Save presence of command.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">I wondered not<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That one should breathe upon the Syrian might,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And still the sleeping hearts, four thousand score.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">And from Creation’s little corner came<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Guardian Angels, bearing in their arms<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their charges during life. As laden bees,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They flew to Heaven’s hive; and some passed by<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So closely I their burdens could discern;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And though they came from far-off, unseen Earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The stiffened forms were borne all tenderly.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some bore the dimpled babe, with soft-closed eyes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if upon its mother’s breast; its hands,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Unhardened yet by toil of life, its face<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Unfurrowed yet by care’s sharp plough; and some<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The age-bent form, with ghostly silvered hair,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And features gaunt in death, that would have seemed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A hideous sight, in any light but Heaven’s;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some bore the rich, who made of Mammon friends,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who wore the purple with a stainless soul;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some bore the poor, who mastered poverty,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And broke the ashen crust beneath God’s smile;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their work-worn hands now folded peacefully,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And passing towards the harp, the weary feet,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So often blistered in life’s bitter dust,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To tread with kings the golden streets of Heaven;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And some the maiden form bore lovingly,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So fair, they seemed twin sisters.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">And I saw,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That, passing through the amber air, they caught<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its glowing dust upon them, and were changed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The livid to the radiant. Then as they<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Approached the City, all the walls were thronged,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And all the harps were throbbing to be swept.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And mid the throng there moved a dazzling Form,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The jewels of whose crown were shaped like thorns.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He stood to welcome, and the gates unclosed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And passing through them, all the death sealed eyes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Were opened, and they lived!<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">And then I knew<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">What happiness could mean. To leave the Earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With all its torturing pains and ills of flesh;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The lingering, long disease, the wasted frame,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And, e’en in health, the constant dread of death,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That like the sword of Damocles impends,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And none may tell its fall.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">And worse than flesh,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The tortures of the mind in fetters bound;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its chafings at its puling impotence,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its longing after things beyond its reach,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its craving after knowledge never given,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its constant discontent with present time,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its looking towards a future, that but breaks<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To light alone in distance, never near;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its maddening retrospect o’er wasted life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And loss of golden opportunities;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its consciousness of merit none admit,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its sense of gross injustice from the world;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The forced reflections on the sway of self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And consequent contempt for all mankind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or shameful servitude to their regard;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The poisoned thorns, that skirt the “Narrow Way”;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The sneering laugh, the tongue of calumny,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The envious spites and hates ’tween man and man,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The doubts that swarm with thought about our soul,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That whispers all our labor here is vain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That death is but extinction, Heaven a myth!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">To leave all these, and find a perfect life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To know that Heaven is sure eternally,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That sickness ne’er again will waste our frame,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That death shall never come again. The mind<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In perfect peace and happiness; the hidden<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Spread out before its ken; a sweet content<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Pervading every thought, because “just now”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yields happiness as great as future years;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because Life’s highest end is now attained.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The consciousness of merit, with reward<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Surpassing far all we deserved. A Home<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of perfect peace, no envious spite or hate<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Within its sacred walls, but all pure love<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Towards our fellows, gratitude to God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A gratitude that all Eternal life<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Will not suffice to prove. ’Twere joy enough<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To lie before the Throne, and ever cry<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our thanks for mercy so supreme! And oh!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The vast tranquillity of those who feel<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That life on Earth is ended, Heaven gained!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Angel marked my gaze of rapt delight,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And said, “Wouldst thou go nearer?” Swift as light<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We moved towards the City. On the steps,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In dreamy ecstasy, I lay, afraid to move,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Lest all the panorama should dissolve.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I cared not that I was unfit to go,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I cared not that I must return to Earth;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I felt one moment in the Golden walls<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Was worth a dungeon’s chains “threescore and ten.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The glory of its music, and its light,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Grew too intense, and sense forsook my brain.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Again my eyes unclosed, and ’mid the stars,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Familiar faces of the telescope,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We sped, while on the last confines of space,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The City lay with golden halo girt.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The systems passed, we neared old homelike Earth;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And far enough to take a hemisphere<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">At single glance, we paused. The little globe<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Was puffing on, like Kepler’s idea-beast,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With breath like tides, and echo sounds of life;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thus trundling on its journey round the sun<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While o’er its back swarmed men the parasites.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As rustic lad, who visits some great town,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Returns ashamed of humble country home,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So I now blushed to own the world I’d thought<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Was once so great.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">The Angel pointed down,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And said, “Behold the vast domains of Earth!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Behold the wondrous works of man, that calls<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Himself the measure of the Universe!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Those gleaming threads are rivers, and the pools<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His boundless oceans. Those slow-gliding dots<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The gallant ships, in which he braves the storms<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The largest white one, see, is laboring now<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beneath a cloud, your hand from here might span;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">What tiny tossings, like a jasmine’s bloom<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That drifts along the ripples of a brook!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Now on the wave, now ’neath it, now ’tis gone;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The pool hath gulfed it like a flake of snow.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">See, there are railroad lines, what works of art!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thou canst not see the blackened threadlike tracks,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But thou mayst see the thundering train, that creeps<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Across the landscape like a score of ants<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Well laden, tandem, crawl across the floor.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">’Twill take a day to reach yon smoky patch<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of pebbles! ’Tis a great metropolis!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where Man is proud in power and lasting strength;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where Art hath budded into perfect bloom,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where towering domes defy the touch of Time,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And rock-ribbed structures reck not of his scythe<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">On every side, proclaimed Creation’s lord,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Poor flattered Man the title proudly takes&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One little gap of Earth, and not a spire<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would lift its gilded vane; the very dust<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would never rise above the chasm’s mouth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And mark yon crowd outside the city’s bounds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They hail Man’s triumph over Nature’s laws;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He conquers gravity, and dares to fly!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The speck-like globe slow rises in the air,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While all the throng below shout, “God-like Man!”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How pitiful! The flag-decked car but drags<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its way, a finger’s breadth above their heads,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And falls, a few leagues off, into the sea;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When ships must rescue Man, the king of air!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“He soon will touch the stars,” enthusiasts cry;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His highest flights ne’er reach the mountain-top,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That lifts its mole-hill head above the plain.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">What different views above and underneath!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From one, the silken pear cleaves through the cloud,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And floats, beyond your vision, in the blue,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And franchised Man no longer wears Earth’s chain;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The other sees him drifting o’er the ground,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beneath the level of the hills around,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The captive still of watchful gravity.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Upon yon strip of land, two insect swarms<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are drawn up, front to front, in serried lines;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">These are the armies, ’neath whose trampling tread<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The very Earth doth tremble, now they join<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In dreadful conflict. From the battling ranks<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Leap tiny bits of flame, and puffs of smoke,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where thundering cannon belch their carnage forth;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The heated missile cleaves its sparkling way,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The screaming shell its smoke-traced curve; the sword<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Gleams redly with the varnish of its blood,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The bayonets like ripples on a lake.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How palsied every arm, how still each heart!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If one discharge of Heaven’s artillery roared<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Above their heads&mdash;not that faint mutter thou<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Perchance hast heard from some electric cloud,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But when a meteor curves immensity,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And bursts in glittering fragments that would dash<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thy world an atom from their path. But God<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Hath thrown the blanket of His atmosphere<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Around the Earth, and shield, it from the jar<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of pealing salvos, that reverberate<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Through Heaven’s illimitable dome.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Yet thou,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The meanest of thy race of worms, hast dared<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To question God’s designs. Know then that He<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Ordains that all, His glory shall work out.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The coral architect beneath the wave<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Doth magnify Him, as the burning sun<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That lights a thousand worlds. His power directs<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The mechanism of a Universe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose vastness thou hast been allowed to see,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And yet the mottled sparrow in the hedge<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Falls not without His notice. Magnitude<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is not the seal of power, though man thinks so;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The least brown feather of the sparrow’s wing,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In adaptation to its end displays<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">God’s wisdom, as the ocean. Harmony<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is Heaven’s watchword, key to all designs.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A tendency towards perfection’s end<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Pervades Creation; to this perfect end,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The polity Divine is leading Earth.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Endowed with reason, Man, perforce, is free;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And God, forseeing how he’ll freely act,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Adjusts all circumstance accordingly.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The order of this sequence, Man doth learn<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In part; adapts himself to these fixed laws;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And thus is formed a general harmony.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Although the individual may oppose,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His forseen freedom, acting in a net<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of circumstance, secures the wished-for end.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The bloodiest wars are sources of great good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Invasive floods rouse national energies,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or, mingling, form a greater people still;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Hume’s skepticism foils its own design,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And rouses lusty champions of the Truth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who build its walls far stronger than before.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Poor sordid Man! like all your gold-slave race,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You deem wealth happiness. Hence, all your doubts<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">About God’s providence are based on gold.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The wicked have it, and the righteous not.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">What you assert is oftenest reversed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in a census of the world, you’d find<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The good, in every land, the wealthiest.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But Earth is not the bar where Man is judged;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But only where free-will and circumstance<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">May join in general progress. Gold is good!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then good depends on use of circumstance,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And not on moral merit. Well ’tis so!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For were the righteous only blessed, all men<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would righteousness pursue, from sordid aims,&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The most devout, who love their money best;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And thus good actions’ essence would be lost,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That they be done for good, within itself,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And not for benefit to be conferred.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Then for your doubts about the righteous poor;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A certain law is fixed for general good,&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some actions yield a gain and some a loss.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A wicked man may use the first, and gain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A righteous man may use the last, and lose;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The wicked does not gain by wickedness,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But by compliance with this natural law.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The righteous, still as righteous, might have gained<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By different course of conduct, had he known;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But his condition now, can but be changed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By special miracle; but miracles,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In favor of the righteous, would destroy<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All strife for good as good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their compensation in another world;<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">The poor may find<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And even here, in consciousness of right,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In surety of Heav’n, and peace of mind.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in the case you’ve stated, like all those<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who talk as you have done, you overdraw,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And color more with Fancy than with Truth.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You’ll find no widow, perfect in her trust,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As you’ve described, who is so destitute.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Go search the lanes and alleys; where you find<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The greatest squalor, there is greatest crime;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For poverty is oftenest but a name<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For reckless vice, and vile depravity.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Your case is but exception to the rule,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And not the rule, of Providence. To give<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The righteous, only, wealth and worldly store<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would take away Man’s freedom, and all good.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But I will answer in your folly’s mode.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The justice, then, of Nature’s laws you doubt,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Forgetting they are fixed for general good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And not for individual. These laws,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In their effects, you praise as very good;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet, in their causes, call the most unjust.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The fertile fields, with grain for man’s support,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are nourished by a miasmatic air,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That, sickening but a few, feeds all the world.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While, were the air all pure, a few were well,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And millions starving. In the tropics, too,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The scenes you deprecate, themselves but cause<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The very beauties you admire. Unjust,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You would enjoy effects without a cause.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The goods of Nature often take their rise<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From what to man proves evil. For the goods,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He makes his mind to meet the evils; then<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Can he complain, or think it hard to bear?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But Nature’s dealings towards Man are just.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He knows that he is free, and Nature not;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If he opposes Nature’s laws and falls,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is Nature to be blamed? The widow’s cot<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is frail; the laws of general good require<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A storm; it comes, and shattered falls the cot.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Should God have saved it by a miracle,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then all His people could demand the same,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And Earth would soon become the bar of God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">God may exert a special providence,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But Man may not detect it, as the rule<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Invariable of life, and still be free;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For he were thus compelled to seek the good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then Nature, over Man, holds not a tyranny,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But keeps the perfect pandect of her laws,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And Man is free to obey them, or oppose.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Like shallow-thoughted reasoners of Earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You make assertions without slightest proof,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or faintest shade of truth. Your thesis, this:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">God marks with disapproval all the good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And blesses all the evil with His smile.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Entirely false in every case! The good<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are ever happiest, in peace of mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In ease of conscience, and the hope of Heaven.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The wicked may be even rich, but wealth<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And happiness are far from synonyms.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is happiness the child of circumstance,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or is it not the offspring of the mind?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And if the mind be tranquil and serene,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Does happiness not follow everywhere?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The cause of doubt in you, and many more,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is that the thousands who profess the good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are ever mourning their unhappy lot,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And sighing o’er the gloomy, narrow way;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The tribulation of the promise read,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Without its good cheer context. These are they<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who stamp with misery’s blackest seal, a life<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of righteousness. By these you cannot judge,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For they are not what they profess, and would<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Be miserable in Heaven, unless changed.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But take the truly good, one who’s content<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To take whate’er befalls, submissively;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who feels assured that all works for the best;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Take him, in all conditions, rich or poor,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In sickness or in health, in pain or ease;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Compare your happy wicked, with his gold,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">’Twill not require a moment to decide<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Which one is happier!<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Again, you ask<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Why Man was not created happy, and kept so?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His very freedom and intelligence<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Prevents a forcèd happiness. The ends<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of all Creation would be marred, and Man<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Lose personality. A happiness<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Made universal, asks morality<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That’s universally compelled; and lost<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is all the scheme of virtue and reward.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man, forced to action would degenerate<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Into a listless, lifeless thing; the world<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Lose all its fine machinery of thought<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Combined with action. Beautiful variety<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Could not exist, dull sameness would be life.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But Man is placed, with free intelligence,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Amid surroundings from which he may cull<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A happiness intense, whate’er their nature be.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If bright, the consciousness they are deserved;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If gloomy, sweet reflections that they drape<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A future all the brighter for their gloom.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But Man, within himself, your puzzle proves;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And not to you alone, for Angel wings<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Have hovered o’er your globe, and Angel minds<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Peered curiously into his soul, to learn<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its mysteries, in vain. The Mind Supreme<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That formed the soul, alone can understand<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its wondrous depths. ’Tis not surprising then<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That Man has tried in vain to know himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His mind, compared with his body, seems so great,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He deems its power unlimited. He finds<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It weak, before the barriers of thought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That gird it, mountain high, on every side.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No path can he pursue that’s infinite.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And few exist, that do not thither lead.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Hence all the vagaries that have obtained<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Among your race. The doubt of everything,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is only too far tracing of a thought<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Into absurdity intense. If you<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Deem all the world effect upon yourself,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A principle of fairness would demand<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That you accord the right to other men.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The question then arises, who is he<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That really does exist, and all the rest<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His ideas? Sure your neighbor has the right<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To claim the honor, just as well as you!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Hume’s foolish thought, extended to its length,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Will answer not a single end of life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And terminates in nonsense none believe.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The conflict of the mental powers defeats<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Your inquiries. You cannot reconcile<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The unruled circumstance, with Man’s free-will<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You deem the motive free, and Man its slave;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if the motive, unintelligent,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Could have a freedom, or a slavery!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You make the motive to exist within the mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When it, perforce, must be without. You get<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The unruled motive from the circumstance,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When this itself must act upon the mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And if <i>free</i> motives rise within the mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They are a <i>part</i>, and therefore <i>mind</i> is free.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And what you deemed a motive to the mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Was mental action, and its modes of thought.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The motive is confined to circumstance,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And mind the circumstance can oft control,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And even when it cannot, acts at will.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The mind may to a kingdom be compared,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where Reason occupies the throne. Beneath<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its scepter bow, in perfect vassalage,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The faculties, desires, and appetites.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">These then are acted on by motive powers,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And straight report the action to their king,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who does impartially decide for each.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The unruled motive is without the mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And forms no part of it, although the parts,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Receiving motive action, so are called.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thus when you hunger, the desire of food,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Confined to mind, is not a motive power;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But urged by motive bodily demand,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It tells the need to Reason, who decides.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thus when you pare your peach, the tempting fruit<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And fleshly need, move on the appetite,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who begs the Reason for consent to eat;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Your friend’s opinion of your self-control,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is motive to Desire of esteem,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who begs the Reason to refuse consent.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Reason, then, like righteous judge, decrees<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In favor of that one, more strongly shown;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And feels a perfect freedom in its choice.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">’Tis most unfair to wait the action’s end,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then cry, the mind was forced to choose this act;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But choice is Reason’s free decree. Sometimes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Reason errs, and evil then ensues;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But Reason, now more conscious that ’tis free,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Regrets it had not acted otherwise.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By knowing what your reason deems the best,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You judge how other men will act. You learn,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By intercourse, what they permit to change<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Reason’s sentence. So, while with a friend,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You show your wealth, because you know he’s free,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And can, and will, resist impulse to crime.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Were he not free, you’d dare not go alone<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With him, for, any moment, might arise<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A motive irresistible, and he<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would kill and rob, because that motive’s slave.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Were he not free, you were no more secure,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In pleasant parlance, than on desert isle.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The laws are made for man, alone, as free.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For, otherwise, the motives they present<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Were blind attempts so coincide with Fate.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They would complete the gross absurdity,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of Man collective governing himself,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And therefore free, while individuals<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are helpless slaves of motives they but aid<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To furnish.<br /></span>

-<span class="i8">Fate, as held in fullest form,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yourself has proved the theory of fools;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For were it true, a blind passivity<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Were Man’s perfection on the Earth. Compare<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The two; Free-will as held, whate’er their faith,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By every one, in daily practices;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A world of harmony, for very wars<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yield good; a mechanism complicate,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That even Angels, wondering at, admire;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A world, whose wondrous progress is maintained<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By practical belief in liberty.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And on the other hand, behold a world<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of universal inactivity!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its millions starving for delinquent Fate;&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I doubt your faith would last till dinner-time,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A morning’s lapse would change a hungry globe<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To firm belief in free-will work for food.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">With many, God’s foreknowledge binds free-will;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He knows the future, how each man will act,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And man can never change from what God knows.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They reason thus, that prescience is decree,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And what God knows will happen, must take place.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That God may know the future of <i>free</i>-will<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I prove by this. Suppose two worlds alike,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And governed by two Gods. Each one can see,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And foresee all transpires in both the worlds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet each o’er th’ other’s world exerts no power.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A man in one does wrong; the other God<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">May have foreseen the action for an age,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet had not slightest power to cause or stop.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Does his foreknowledge qualify the act?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If thus you can suppose, why not believe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When errors flow from opposite belief?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">God in the future stands, and waits for man,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who works the present, only gift of Time.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">There is no future save in God’s own mind.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man’s future means continued present time;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">God’s future is but present time to Him,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In which He lives, not will live when it comes.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man’s acts He sees as done, not to be done.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And God compels not more than Man does Man,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who sees his fellow’s deeds, not causes them.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man only knows Man’s present acts; but God<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The future sees, as present to His mind.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">To end with perfect proof, you know you’re free.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">This all the world attests, and each believes.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How subtle soe’er may his reasoning be,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He contradicts it throughout all his life;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And all his plans, and all the right and wrong<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of self and friends he bases on free-will.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If disbelief no inconvenience prove,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Few men believe what is not understood;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And yet the most familiar things of life<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are far beyond their comprehensions’ power.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who understands the turning of the food<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To sinew, muscle, blood, and bone? yet who<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Will starve because he knows not how ’tis done?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who understands the mystery of birth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And when and where the soul originates?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And yet a million mothers bend, to-day,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">O’er tender babes, and know that they exist;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A billion people know they once were born.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who understands the mystery of death,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And how the soul is severed from its clay?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet who has not wept o’er departed ones,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Received the dying clasp, the dying look,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And known, full well, Death’s bitter, bitter truth?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">None comprehends the movement of a limb,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet many boast the powers of their’s might.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then why doubt freedom of the will, when life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In every phase, but proves its certain truth?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The edifice of shallow theorists<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Before the sweeping blade of practice falls.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Your dive into the heart yields folly’s fruit;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The selfish theory, carried to its end,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Makes wrong of right, and overturns the world.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And strong it is in seeming; for the self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In human conduct, plays important part.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But ’tis not action’s only source, nor dims<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The quality of every action’s worth.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">’Tis true that Man exists in self alone,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in himself feels pain or pleasure. True,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">An instinct teaches to avoid the one,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And seek the other; true, that every act,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How small soe’er, gives pleasure or gives pain.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet thousand deeds are done without regard<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To one or other, or effect on Self.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Howe’er an action may affect the Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If he that acts has not a thought of it,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The action is not selfish. You appeal<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To Man, and so will I appeal to you.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You find a helpless brute, with broken limb,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the roadside, moaning out its pain.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Now, though to aid will surely pleasure give,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And to neglect will cause remorseful pain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is there a single thought of this, when you,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With kindest hand, bind up the swollen bruise,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And hold the grateful water to its mouth?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is not each thought to ease the sufferer’s pain?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is not the Self first found, when on your way<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You go, with lighter heart, for kindness done?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And while you think with pleasure on the deed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would you not feel despised in your own eyes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If consciousness revealed ’twas done for Self?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But should you say that Self was thus concealed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And still evoked the deed, the argument<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The same; if Self was out of thought, the deed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Had other source.<br /></span>

-<span class="i8">In all, you thus mistake<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The deed’s effect, unthought of, for its source.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">God, in His wisdom, hath affixed to good<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Performed, a pleasure, and to evil, pain.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But selfish actions are not good, you’ve said,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And therefore cannot slightest pleasure yield.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Here, then, your system contradicts itself;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All actions emanate from love of Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To find the highest pleasure for that Self;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And yet the pleasure’s lost by very search;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">What good soe’er apparently is sought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The consciousness of selfish aims destroys.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And here is wisdom manifest. When Self<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would seek the good, for pleasure to the Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The pleasure is not found; but when it seeks<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The good alone, true pleasure is conferred.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I mean the Self of soul, not Self of flesh;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For pleasure to the sense, to be attained<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is sought; these two are mingled intricate<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">(And hard to separate), in thousand ways.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But when Man’s higher Self would seek its good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It must forget the Self. In every case<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You instanced, Self of soul must be unthought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For pleasure will not come at call of Self.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Your gambler none will doubt has selfish ends;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Not so the preacher, for his pleasure sought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would ne’er be found; it must be out of thought.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His burning eloquence, his pastoral care,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Can not proceed from any love of Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For Self would suffer, when it knew their source;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But as he acts from love of good as good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Self is happy. When he ascertains<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That some have died in sin through his neglect,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Self is grieved, not that it was uncared,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For care of Self would not allay the pain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But that a duty had not been performed;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That good had been neglected, as a good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The gambler’s object may be highest good<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For Self, according to his estimate;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The preacher seeks a good, but not for Self;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When Self appears, the good to evil turns.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nor is the mystic selfish in his cave,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Save that he buries talents in himself,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That might avail for good to other men;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But all his mind is bent on pleasing God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His only thought of Self is for its pain;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And this he deems acceptable to Heaven.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You can not judge by your analysis,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But by what passes in the actor’s mind.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One surely then could not be selfish termed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who only lived to mortify the Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Howe’er mistaken may his conduct be.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nor is the man, who gives his wealth away,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If from right principles he gives. ’Tis true,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He finds a pleasure in the deed when done,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But if to gain that pleasure he has given,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It turns to gall and wormwood in his grasp.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If two men matches light, and know full well,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If one is dropped, a house will be consumed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He is the most guilty that allows its fall.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The miser, then, who knows he does a wrong,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is by that knowledge rendered criminal.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“The quality of actions must be judged”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From their intents, that often differ wide;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The man who shoots his friend by accident<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Has no intent, and therefore does no wrong;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But he who murders does a score of wrongs,&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A score of basest motives prompt the deed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All centred in the Self. The Christian’s work<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Must, from its very nature, have no Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or it becomes unchristian. Man can judge,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Not from effect, but motives ascertained<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By inference, and experience. The law<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is formed hereon, and modified by years.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Time teaches men that punishment will stop,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And only punishment, the spread of crime.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Instinct and Nature’s order teaches you<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That pain must follow wrong. A man commits<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A crime; if left unpunished, he repeats;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And others, seeing his security,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Will do as he has done. So all mankind<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would hasten on to lawlessness and ruin.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But law, for real wrong inflicts a wrong,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Which would be just did it no farther go;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But it is proved expedient, inasmuch<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As it prevents continued crime. Then death<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By law can not be murder termed, since good<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In aim and end, without malicious thought.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thus good to many flows from wrong to one<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">(If that may wrong be termed that takes the rights<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By conduct forfeited), who should receive,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Though none reaped benefit. For many’s good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The law is made, yet never does a wrong<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To individuals, unless deserved.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Throughout your reas’ning, like all Earthly minds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When dataless, essaying hidden truths,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You wander blindly in conjecture’s field,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And if you find the truth, it is a chance.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You fain would raise a stone of skepticism,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By granting souls immortal unto beasts;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You prove your pointer must possess a soul,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And by your argument, the trees have souls;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For when an oak has fallen, every twig<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">May still be there, and something, life, be gone.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A chair, a table, anything you see,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Possesses something, not of any parts,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But that to which the parts are said, belong,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then, one by one, take all the parts away,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The something called the table must exist,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For ’twas not in a part, nor is removed.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The mind of beasts exists but through their flesh,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And is developed subject to its laws,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And flesh is the condition of their life.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When flesh dissolves, the mind disintegrates,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And ceases to exist. Man feels within,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The consciousness of soul, that would survive<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Though flesh were torn to shreds upon the wheel.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The parts of soul that live alone through flesh,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Must perish with it in the hour of death.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But having postulated Self, as source<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of human conduct, you compel the acts<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To fit your theory. You change effect<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For cause. Where’er a moral pleasure’s found,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You judge that for its gain the deed was done;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if the pleasure could be gained by search!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That Self does enter largely into inner life<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is very plain, for everything affects,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In some way, Self; but does the mind regard<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Effect, or is its object something else?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The appetites, affections, and desires,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You make of selfish origin, yet know<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That is not selfish, which alone affects;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But acting with a reference to effect.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The appetites are instincts; as you breathe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You hunger, thirst, in helplessness. Not Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But food or drink, the object of your thought.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And even while the taste is in your mouth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The mind dwells on the taste, not on the Self.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Desires are partly selfish in their mode;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Desire of knowledge, seeking honor’s meed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is selfish; led by curiosity,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">’Tis not more selfish than an appetite.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Desire of power, esteem, and wide-spread fame,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is selfish, when the thought of their effect<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">On Self shapes out the conduct; when desired<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For their own sake, unselfish.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">On the list<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Affections terminate, you falsely rail<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The mother, and the lover; both sincere,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And both without a thought of selfish aim.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">’Tis no reproach to say the mother’s love,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In fervid instinct, and development,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is like the cow’s, that God in wisdom gives.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No love so pure as that which moves the cow<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To hover round her young, to bear the blows<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Impatient hunger deals the udder drained,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To smooth with loving tongue the tender coat,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or meet the playful forehead with her own;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With threatening horn, to guard approach of harm;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And watch, with ceaseless care, the charge in sleep.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her careful love continues, till the calf<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Has grown beyond her need, and ceases then.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A mother loves because it is her child:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">This is the surest reason you could give.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Th’ affection is spontaneous in her breast,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But fed and strengthened by his life, if good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The opposites to love you named, affect<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her love, by not an injury done to Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But by their evil, which her soul abhors.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her son’s antagonism’s not to her,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But to the good she loves. Her heart withdraws<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its twining tendrils from unworthiness.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As usual, you select supposed effects,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And then assume their causes. Could you see<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The mother’s heart, you’d find the loss of love<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Caused not by wrong to her, but wrong abstract<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Developed in the concrete deeds of crime.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her love is governed by a moral sense,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or idea of the good; the people’s thought<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">About herself comes in as after-part.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Bad treatment to herself, although it pain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Deals not a fatal blow to love, except<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As showing lack of principle in him.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And so your lover is not hurt in Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But moral sense. The loved one’s perfidy,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And not her ridicule, beheads your love;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her stunning words were playful pleasantry,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Did they not show the baseness of the heart.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Indeed, to turn your reasoning on yourself,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her manner even towards you has not changed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And were you present, she would still seem yours;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her eaves-dropped words do not affect the Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Save as they show her falsity of heart.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And tossing on your pillow, through the night,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The crushing thought of wrecked integrity<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Gives deeper pain than all her ridicule.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And Self, though pained at thought of being duped,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Enjoys relief in thought of its escape.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To show that Love is built on higher grounds<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Than paltry good for Self; that it must have,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As corner-stone, a percept of the good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Existing in the object loved, suppose<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You’re on the topmost height of wildest love,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Your arm around her, and your lingering kiss<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon her lips; and Self is king of love.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">She, nestling on your shoulder, finds ’tis wrong,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That love, however true, may grow too warm;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That every kiss, however pure, abstracts<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some little part from maiden modesty,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And steals a pebble from her honor’s wall<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And rising with the firm resolve, says, “Cease,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Unwind your arm, restrain your fervid lips;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It may be wrong, and right is surely safe!”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Now though the Self is bitterly denied,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The rapturous clasp and tender kiss forbid,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is not your love increased a thousand-fold?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Do not you feel intensely gratified<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">At this assurance of her moral worth?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And would you, for the world, breath aught to cause<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her pain, or least regret for her resolve?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How firm your trust, how sweet your confidence!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You know ’twas not capricious prudery,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For your caresses had been oft received;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nor was it sly hypocrisy to win<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Your heart, for that was long since hers. No thought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But spotless purity, inspired the act;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And you are happy, though the Self’s denied.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The little things of life, that men account<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Without a moral value, may be done<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With reference to Self; but oftenest,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The mind regards the act, not its effect<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the Self. The code of Etiquette,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The small amenities of social life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The converse, and the articles of dress,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">May all belong to Self; but moral acts,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Those known as right or wrong, have higher source<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Than Self in any mode.<br /></span>

-<span class="i10">Within Man’s breast<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">There’s something, apprehending good and bad,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Called conscience, or the moral sense; it views,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Impartially, each act of his, decides<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its quality by rule of right and wrong;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All trust its judgments most implicitly.&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The good is found, yields greatest happiness;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet seek it for the sake of happiness,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And good is evil, with its misery!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The good must be pursued, because a good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The evil shunned, because an evil. Thus,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The moral sense discerns these qualities<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In others, and directs our love.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">A blow<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The deadliest to our love, would be a blow<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Aimed at the principle of good. A love,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Existing through the injuries done to Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">May meet the public’s praise, and feel its own;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But love would merit self-contempt, that loved<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whate’er opposed the good. The son may treat<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The mother with unkindness, yet her love<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Be undiminished; if he lie, or steal,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her love is less; she cannot love his deed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And cannot love the heart from which they flow<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So with the youth who gives his chair to Age,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He does not so resent that Self’s denied<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its meed of thanks, as that ingratitude<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Should thus be manifest, in little things.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A comrade, served the same, would anger cause.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But him who would give up the highest Self,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The soul, for others’ good, you deem a fool;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And ask why sacrifice ne’er claimed a soul?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because the soul cannot be sacrificed;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No harm to that can others benefit.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But if it could, how truly grand the man<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who’d take eternal woe for fellow-men!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But God, who makes the soul the care of life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Makes every soul stand for itself alone,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in His wisdom hath ordained this law:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The greater good man gets for his own soul,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The greater good on others’ he confers,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While evil to himself, an evil gives.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Then comes the question of this abstract good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That moral sense declares the end of life.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">What is its nature? whence does it arise?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And whence does man derive the half-formed thought?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You have compared the systems that define,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Each in its way, the hidden theory.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">None satisfy, though each some element<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Sets forth in clear distinctness. Take them all,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Select the true of each, as Cousin does,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And will eclecticism satisfy?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And does the soul not cry for something more?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For something that it feels ’twill never reach,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The good, as known to minds unclogged with flesh?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man takes the dim outlines of abstract thought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And seeking to evolve their perfect form,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The very outlines grow more indistinct;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As gazing at a star will make it fade.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man’s only forms of good are blent with flesh,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And when he seeks to take the flesh away,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And leave the abstract, he is thus confused,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if he should withdraw the wick and oil,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And seek to find the flame still in the lamp.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">To learn the source of ideas of the Good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Trace Man collective, to his babyhood;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For ’mid the prejudice of full-grown thought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The truth would be effectually concealed.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Through every people scattered o’er the globe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">There does prevail some idea of a God;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Though rude and barbarous this idea be,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It still, in some form, does exist. The good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With all, bears reference to this thought;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And what this Deity approves is good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And what He disapproves is bad. Men learn<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">What He approves, and what He disapproves,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By revelation, inference, and instinct.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">God’s sanction then is origin of Good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Though afterwards men learn the sweet effects,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And practise it for its own sake; and call<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their little effort, grandest abstract truth.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Developing in intellectual strength,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They plaster up this good in various forms,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Until, refined beyond all subtilty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It seems to them a self-existent good.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The good is then a certain quality,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In actions, or existence, that assures<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Divine approval. This vast idea, God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Creation sows in every human heart;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All Nature’s grand designs demand a God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A God intelligent. The same instinct<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That tells His being, teaches what He loves;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And what He loves with every people’s good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But different nations entertain ideas<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Diverse in reference to a Deity,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And different notions of what pleases Him.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One deems the care of God’s child-gift her good;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Another tears the heart-strings from her babe,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And feeds, for good, the sacred crocodile.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The good lies in the thought of pleasing God:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The consciousness that God is pleased with us,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A pleasure yields, and good might there be sought<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For pleasure’s sake, and prove a selfish aim;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But moral selfishness a pain imparts,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And good, for pleasure sought, defeats the search.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The good is sought, because it pleases God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Not with the doer, but with what is done.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Good has its origin in th’ idea God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And what He loves; but to continue good<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It must retain approval in the act,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And not transfer it to the agent’s self.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The consciousness that God approves a deed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Makes Man approve, and thus his mind is brought<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In correlation with the Mind Divine.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The man who does an alms, if done to gain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">God’s favor for himself, feels selfish pain;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But if because the act, not he, will please,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He finds the pleasure. Man, as time rolls on,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Finds general laws that please or displease God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And ranging, under these, subordinates<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Amenable to them and not to God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The moral quality of lesser deeds<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He reckons by these laws, nor does ascend<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To God, that gives their moral quality.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Jouffroy, in Order, placed the Abstract Good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And paused a step below the real truth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The idea God, whence Order emanates.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Thus Man, progressing, good withdraws from God<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And seems an independent entity,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And man denominates it, Abstract Good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He can attain the Abstract but in part;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When mind is freed from flesh, he may attain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To its full grandeur. Here, at most, he grasps<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A faint outline, and fits it on concrete.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No concept occupies one act of mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But opening the lettered label, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">May count the attributes, and by an act<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Complex, of memory and cognition, gain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some idea of his Abstract. Thus of “Man,”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One act can only cognize M-A-N,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But opening, he finds the attributes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As “mammal,” “biped,” “vertebrate.” This act<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is complex, and he cannot unitize,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Save by the bundle of a word. You’ve said<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It answers all the purposes of life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then why seek more? lest speculation vain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Point out dim realms, where Man can never tread,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">These baffling thoughts are given, as peacocks’ feet,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To Man’s fond pride. The simplest avenue<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of thought, pursued, will reach absurdity,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To comprehension finite.<br /></span>

-<span class="i8">Even the truth<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of numbers you presume to doubt. Two balls,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You claim, can ne’er be two unless alike.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You mingle quantity and number, foolishly,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if a ball the size of Earth, and one,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A tiny mustard-seed, would not be two!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You deem all Mathematics wide at fault,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because Man’s powers to illustrate are weak.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Earth has oft seen a pure right angle drawn,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because Man’s sight could not detect a flaw;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And if to his discernment perfect made,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He must admit its perfect form. If life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In every intricate demand, finds truth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Why seek to overturn by sophistry?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You see and know Achilles far beyond<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The tortoise, yet the super-wise must prove<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That he can never pass the creeping thing,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Although his speed a hundred times as swift!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When Man commences, he may find a doubt<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In everything; his life, his neighbor’s life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The outside world, may all be but a myth;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then let him so believe, but let him act<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Consistently; but does the skeptic so?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He crams all Nature in his little mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet how he cringes to her slightest law!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He flees the rain, and wards the cold, or fears<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The lightning’s glittering blow. He doubts his frame<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Can work by mechanism so absurd,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet will not for a day refrain from food!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">When Man compares his body and his mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And tries the power of each, he magnifies<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The mind to Deity, and yet how small<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Compared with what it has to learn! The more<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man knows, the more he finds he does not know;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And as a traveller toiling up the hill,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Each upward step reveals a wider view<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of fields of thought sublime he dares not hope<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To ever reach in life; and wearily he sits<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Him down upon the mountain-side, so far<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beneath its untrod top, and recklessly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Doubts everything, because beyond his grasp.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">All skeptic reasoning ends, as did your own,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No fruit but blind bewilderment of thought!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And none but fools will e’er believe sincere<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The faith that doubts alone by theory,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And yet approves by practice. Such is yours;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The stern necessities of life demand<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A practical belief, and such is given;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And still, forsooth, because your narrow mind<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Cannot contain the Truth in perfect form,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You dare deny it does exist. But few<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of skeptic minds are let to live on Earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And even these made instruments of good,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In calling forth defenders of the Truth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who add their strength to its Eternal Walls.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then here behold God’s wisdom manifest!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Amid the care of countless greater orbs,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He watches Earth, and knows its smallest thing.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While Man, as individual, is free,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Collective Man is being surely led<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Towards an end, but when it will be reached,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">God knows alone. Then Man will be removed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Into a higher or a lower sphere,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As he has worthy proved. With Man ’twill be<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A great event; his awful Judgment-day!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When from those far-off realms, the Son shall come<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With Angel retinue, and through the worlds,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Shall lead their solemn flight, to where we stand;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And as the trump shall peal its clarion tones,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And beat away Earth’s gauze of atmosphere,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The millions living, and the billions dead,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Will leave the sod, and “caught up in the air,”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Shall stand before the Throne, to hear their doom.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then, faces pale with fear, and trembling limbs,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Will be on every side, as on the air<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They rest, with nothing solid ’neath their feet;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And see dismantled Earth burst into flames,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And reel along its track, a globe of fire,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The volumed smoke, a dusky envelope;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its revolutions wrapping pliant flames,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In scarlet girdles, round its bulging waist,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And hurling streams of centrifugal sparks,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In broad red tangents, from the burning orb.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the conflagration Man will gaze,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With shuddering horror; ’tis his only home,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The scene of all his fame, the source of wealth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For which he toiled so wearily. All gone!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He would not touch a mountain of pure gold,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For ’twould be useless now! Poor, pauper Man,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Without his money, chiefest aim of life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Stands homeless ’mid a Universe, to learn<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If God will be his Father, or his Foe!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And from the blackness underneath, the swarms<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of Evil ones are thronged, their hideous forms<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Half shown in lurid light, as here and there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They flit, like sharks, expectant of their prey.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then comes the closing scene. The sentence passed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The righteous breaking forth to joyous praise,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Shall thread Creation’s wondrous maze of life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And with their Leader, sweep towards yon Heaven;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While down the black abyss, with cries of woe<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That make the darkness tremble, the condemned<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are dragged, into its gloom,&mdash;and all is o’er&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Earth’s ashes float in scattered clouds through space&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To Man the grandest era of all Time,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To God, completion of Salvation’s scheme!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But Man deems Judgment too far off for thought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nor will prepare for such a distant fate;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet there is something, far more sure than aught<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Uncertain life can offer; its decision, too,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is just as final as the Judgment doom;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And still ’tis oftenest farthest from the thought.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">’Tis Death, the welcome or unwelcome guest<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of every man, and yet how few prepare<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For its approach! They give all else a care;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Wealth, honor, fame, get all their time,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While certain Death’s forgotten, till disease<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Gives warning; then with hasty penitence,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The knees are worn, the heart’s thick rubbish cleared;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But oft too late; the heart will not be cleared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">{116}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The stubborn knees will not consent to bend,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The house is set in order, while the guest,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In sable robes, stands at the throbbing door.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">And now to close thy lesson, look through this!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He gave to me a strangely fashioned glass,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Through which, when I had looked to Earth, I saw<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A long black wall, that towered immensely high,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So none might see beyond. Before its length,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Mankind were ranged, all weaving busily;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The young and old, the maiden and the man;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The infant hands unconscious plied the thread,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The aged with a feeble, listless move.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They wove the warp of Life, and drew its thread<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From o’er the wall; none knew how far its end<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Was off, nor when ’twould reach the busy hand,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nor did they care, in aught by action shown,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But bending o’er their work, without a glance<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Towards the thread, that still so smoothly ran,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They threw the shuttle back and forth again,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till suddenly the ravelled end appeared,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Fell from the wall, and to the shuttle crept;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And then the weaver laid his work aside,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With folded hands, was wrapped within his warp,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To wait the Master’s sentence on his task.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I saw the thread, in passing through their hands,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Received the various colors, from their touch,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And tinged the different patterns that they wove.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">{117}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And oh! how different in design! Some wove<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A spotless fabric, whose pure simple plan<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Was always ready for the ending thread;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Come when it would, no part was incomplete;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But what was done, could bear th’ Inspector’s eye.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And others wove a dark and dingy rag,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That bore no pattern, save its filthiness;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Fit garment for the fool who weaves for flames!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some wove the great red woof of war,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With clashing swords, and crossing bayonets,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With ghastly bones, and famished widows’ homes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With all the grim machinery of Death,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To gain a paltry crown, or curule chair;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Perchance, before the crown or chair is reached,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The thread gives out, the work is incomplete,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in the gory cloak his hands have wrought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With all its stains unwashed, the hero sleeps.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some shuttles shape the gilded temple, Fame,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And count on thread to weave its topmost dome;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But ere the lowest pinnacle is touched,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The brittle filament is snapped. Some weave<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The bema, with its loud applause; and some<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The gaudy chaplet of the bacchanal,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And others sweated bays of honest toil.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But all the fabrics bear the yellow stain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of gold, o’er which the sinner and the saint<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Unseemly strive, and he seems happiest<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose work is yellowest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">{118}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i12">Along the wall,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“A fountain filled with blood,” plays constantly,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where man may cleanse the fabric as he weaves;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet few avail themselves; the waters flow,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While Man works on, without regard to stains,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till thread worn thin arouses him to fear,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or breaks before the damning dyes are cleansed.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">And down the line I ran my anxious eyes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To find a weaver I might recognize,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And saw, at last, a form by mirrors known.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Oh! ’twas a shameful texture that I wove,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So dark its hue, so little saving white,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Such seldom bathing in the fountain stream,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I could not look, but bowed my blushing face,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And like the publican of old, cried out,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Be merciful to me a sinner!”<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">“Rise!”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Angel said, “And worship God alone,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Return to Earth, enjoy an humble faith,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose simple trust shall make thee happier<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Than all the grandeur of philosophy.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Should doubts arise, remember, God’s designs<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Above a finite comprehension stand,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And finite doubts, about the Infinite,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Assume absurdity’s intensest form.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man, from the stand-point of the Present, looks,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And disappointed, bitterly complains<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">{119}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of what would move his deepest gratitude,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Could he the issue of the morrow know.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">God sees the future, and in kindness deals<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To every man his complement of good.<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Remember then the weakness of thy mind,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nor doubt because thou canst not understand.<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">To gather scattered jewels thou must kneel;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So on thy knees seek truth, and thou shalt find;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The nearer Earth thy face, the nearer Heaven<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thy heart. And now farewell!”<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">I sprang to clasp<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His hand in gratitude, but with a wave<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of parting benediction, he was gone!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then in an instant, like an aerolite,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With naught to bear me up, I fell to Earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Swifter and swifter, with increasing speed!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Now bursting through a sunlit bank of cloud,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And clutching, vainly, at the yielding mist,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or through a cradling storm, with thunder charged,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Down through the open air, whose parted breath<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Hissed death into my ears, while all below<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Seemed rushing up to meet and mangle me.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I shrieked aloud, “Oh save me!”&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">And awoke.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The day was o’er, and night had drawn her shades;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The twinkling eyes of Heaven shone through the leaves,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And lit the tiny rain-globes on the grass;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">{120}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The cloud had passed, and on th’ horizon’s verge,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A monster firefly, with shimmering flash,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It slowly crawled behind the curve of death.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And evening’s silence deeper seemed than noon’s,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For not a sound disturbed the hush of night,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Save katydids, with quavering monotones,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Returning contradictions from the trees.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All drenched and chilled, with trembling limbs I rose,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And homeward bent my steps; and pondering<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon my dream, this moral from it drew:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Man cannot judge the Eternal Mind by his,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But must accept the mysteries of Life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As purposes Divine, with perfect ends.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in our darkest clouds, God’s Angels stand,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To work Man’s present and eternal good.<br /></span>

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">{121}</a></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<h2><a name="THE_VILLAGE_ON_THE_TAR" id="THE_VILLAGE_ON_THE_TAR"></a>THE VILLAGE ON THE TAR<br /><br />

-<small>DEDICATED TO PETTIGREW COUNCIL NO 1. F. OF T.</small></h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="ig"><span class="letra">A</span> DRUNKARD in a distant town lay dying on his bed,<br /></span>

-<span class="ig">There was lack of woman’s gentle touch about his fevered head,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But a comrade stood beside him, and wiped the foam away,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That bubbled through his frothy lips, to hear what he might say.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The poor inebriate faltered, as he caught that comrade’s eye,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And he said, “<span class="lftspc">’</span>Tis hard, far, far from home ’mid strangers thus to die.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Take a message and a token to my friends away so far,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For Louisburg’s my native place, the village on the Tar.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“Tell my brothers and companions, should they ever wish to know<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The story of the fallen, ah! the fallen one so low,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">{122}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That we drank the whole night deeply, and when at last ’twas o’er,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Full many a form lay beastly drunk along the barroom floor.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And there were ’mid those wretches some who had long served sin,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their bloated features telling well what faithful slaves they’d been;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And some were young and had not on the Hell-path entered far&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And one was from the village, the village on the Tar.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“Tell my mother that her other sons may still some comfort prove,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But I, in even childhood, would scorn that mother’s love;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And when she called the children to lift up the evening prayer,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One form was always missing, there was e’er one vacant chair,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For my father was a drunkard, and even as a child<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He taught my little feet to tread the road to ruin wild;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And when he died and left us to dispute about his will,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I let them take whate’er they would, but kept my father’s ‘still,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">{123}</a></span>’<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And with sottish love I used it till its venomed ‘worm’ did gnaw<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">My soul, my mind, my very life, in the village on the Taw.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“Tell my sister oft to weep for me with sad and drooping head,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When she sees the wine flow freely, that poison ruby red,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And to turn her back upon it, with deep and burning shame,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For her brother fell before it and disgraced the fam’ly name.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And if a drunkard seeks her love, oh! tell her, for my sake,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To shun the loathsome creature, as she would a deadly snake,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And have the old ‘still’ torn away, its fragments scattered far,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For the honor of the village, the village on the Tar.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“There’s another, not a sister; in the merry days of old,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">You’d have known her by the dark blue eye, and hair of wavy gold;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Too gentle e’er to chide me, too devoted e’er to hate,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">She loved me, though oft warned by all to shun the dreaded fate.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">{124}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Tell her the last night of my life&mdash;for ere the morning dawn,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">My body will be tenantless, my clay-chained spirit gone&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I dreamed I stood beside her, and in those lovely blue depths saw<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The merry light that cheered me, in the village on the Taw.<a name="FNanchor_A_2" id="FNanchor_A_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“I saw the old Tar hurrying on its bubbles to the sea,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As men on life’s waves e’er are swept towards eternity;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And the rippling waters mingled with the warbling of the birds,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Returned soft silvery echoes to my deep impassioned words;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And in those listening ears I poured the sweet tho’ time-worn story,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While swimming were those love-lit eyes, in all their tear-pearled glory;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And her little hand was closely pressed in mine so brown and braw,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Ah! I no more shall meet her, in the village on the Taw.”<a name="FNanchor_A_3" id="FNanchor_A_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">He ceased to speak, and through his frame there ran a shiver slight,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His blood-shot eyes rolled inward and revealed their ghastly white,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">{125}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His swollen tongue protruded, o’er his face a pallor spread,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His comrade touched his pulse&mdash;’twas still&mdash;and he was with the dead.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The moon from her pavilion, in the blue-draped fleecy cloud,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Through the window o’er the corpse had thrown her pale but ghostly shroud,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The same moon that gazing upon that couch of straw.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Was bathing in a silver flood the village on the Taw.<a name="FNanchor_A_4" id="FNanchor_A_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a><br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote"><p class="c"><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> The Indian name of this river was <i>Taw</i>.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Publisher.</span></p></div>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="REQUIESCAM" id="REQUIESCAM"></a>REQUIESCAM</h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Oh</span>! give me a grave in a lone, gloomy dell,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">By the side of a deep, swift creek,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where the ripples run like a tinkling bell,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Through the grassy nooks, where love so well<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The minnows to play hide and seek!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Where in summer the thick twining foliage weaves<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">A green, arching roof upon high,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And the rain-drops fall from the dripping eaves,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Like tears of grief from the weeping leaves<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">On the face upturned to the sky!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">{126}</a></span><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Where the silence frightens the birds away,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And all is still, dreary and weird,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Except, perchance at the close of day,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The bittern’s boom or the crane’s hoarse bray,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Floating over the swamp, is heard.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Where the dusky wolf and the antlered deer<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Ever shun the dark, haunted ground;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where the crouching panther ventures near,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His tawny coat all bristling with fear,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">At the sight of the low, red mound.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Where at twilight gray, the lone whippoorwill<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">May perch on the stake at my head,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And with its unearthly, tremulous trill<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The dreary gloom of the whole place fill<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">With a requiem over the dead.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Where the greater the ruin in earth’s damp mold,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The greater the contrast will prove,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When the weary wings of my spirit I fold,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In heaven, and swell with a bright harp of gold,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The grand pealing anthem of love.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><i>February 9th, 1867</i><br /></span>

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">{127}</a></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<h2><a name="LINES_TO_AN_ANALYTICAL_GEOMETRY" id="LINES_TO_AN_ANALYTICAL_GEOMETRY"></a>LINES TO AN ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY<br /><br />

-<small>KNOWN TO THE STUDENTS AS “MISS ANNIE”</small><br /><br />

-<small>WRITTEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1866</small></h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">At</span> “Elysium” chum and I were sitting,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Across our vision memories flitting,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Talking, smoking, often spitting<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">On the hearth, not on the floor;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When suddenly we heard a spluttering,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As of book leaves madly flutt’ring,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some one there seemed slowly mutt’ring,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">At the bookcase, not the door.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Wildly springing to my feet<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">(Chum with fright seemed tied t’ his seat),<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Dreading, fearing I should meet<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">What so like a ghost had spoken&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Fellow members, if you’re able<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To believe what seemed a fable,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I saw “Miss Annie” on the table,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">With rage and anger almost choking.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Then without a bow or bend,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">{128}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Sitting up upon one end,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Without preface thus began&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">While we both in wonder stared:<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“O ye worthless lazy scamps!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Talk about your midnight lamps,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While I’m in the bookcase crampt,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">To what can such Sophs be compared?<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“Here you’ll sit and smoke and talk,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To-morrow morn to black-board walk,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Seize your ‘ruler’ and your chalk,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Then I hope get badly ‘rushed.’<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Oh! the present generation,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Such neglect to education,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Blood and scissors! thunderation!”<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">She was so mad the tears forth gushed.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Chum and I had heard enough<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To put us both in quite a huff,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So just to stop her noisome stuff<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">I sprang and seized her by the collar.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">George jumped up and grabbed the poker,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Shouted, “Edwin, try to choke her!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We’ll stop her mouth, a darned old croaker,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Squeeze her tight and make her ‘holloa.’<span class="lftspc">”</span><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">To the fire we held her near,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Still she showed no signs of fear.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">{129}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Shall the red coals be your bier?”<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">She shook her leaves and fluttered, “No.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Now my face with anger flushes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Covered first with scarlet blushes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I cried, “Will you again e’er ‘rush’ us?”<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Quoth Miss Annie, “Evermore.”<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“Book or fiend,” I cried, up starting,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Be that word our sign of parting.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then I, in my vengeance darting,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Hurled her in the embers red.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">She slightly quivered, slowly burned;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From the sickening sight I turned,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet from her this lesson learned,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Prepare before you go to bed.<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="LINES_TO_COUSINS_C_AND_E" id="LINES_TO_COUSINS_C_AND_E"></a>LINES TO COUSINS C. AND E.<br /><br />

-<small>ON THE BIRTH OF THEIR LITTLE DAUGHTER</small></h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The</span> marriage over, from the train<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of watching seraphs, one long strain<br /></span>

-<span class="i4">Of gratulation broke.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And then were still the rustling wings,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And fingers hushed the throbbing strings,<br /></span>

-<span class="i4">While thus an angel spoke:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">{130}</a></span><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“Who’ll go to earth to bless this pair<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With angel child, beneath their care<br /></span>

-<span class="i4">Be trained for bliss or woe?”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He ceased, and from the throng sprang three,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Faith, Love, and spotless Purity.<br /></span>

-<span class="i4">These knelt, and said “We’ll go.”<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Dear cousins, to you these are sent,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Three spirits in one being blent.<br /></span>

-<span class="i4">It is a jewel rare.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Oh! keep her pure as when first given,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Guide her faith from Earth to Heaven,<br /></span>

-<span class="i4">Guard her love with care.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><i>May, 1867.</i><br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="THE_DEVIL_OUTDONE" id="THE_DEVIL_OUTDONE"></a>THE DEVIL OUTDONE;<br /><br />

-<small>OR,</small><br /><br />

-<small>THE GUARD OF THE SULPHUR LAKE</small></h2>

-

-<p>To her who sent me the Valentine with the cutting irony, “Don’t I look

-pretty in church?” these lines are respectfully inscribed. Not knowing

-her name, I will call her “Taters,” as she drew her elegant and tasty

-simile from that vegetable.</p>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The</span> Devil was sitting one morning below,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">{131}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And he seemed much perplexed as to what he must do,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For his dark brows would knit, and he’d stamp on the ground,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And flap his great wings till floating around<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Were the ashes and feathers.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">At last with an air<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of resolve he threw himself back in his chair,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Lit a brimstone cigar, and touched a small bell.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">An imp appeared, bowed, and on his face fell.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Cloven-foot,” said the D&mdash;&mdash;, “what’s the news from the fire?”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“My liege, the great ape has ceased to inspire<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The victims with terror; they fear him no more,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And continually crawl from the flames to the shore.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Well, Cloven-foot, I had most certainly thought<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When from Africa’s wilds that baboon you brought,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He’d prove such a guard for the great Sulphur Lake<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The wretches would ne’er cease before him to quake.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Now go up to earth, and search till you find<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Something uglier far, then quick seize and bind<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And bring it to me; and if it beats the baboon<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I’ll reward you. Be sure to return just as soon<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As ’tis possible, and above all things to choose<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">{132}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">An object whose countenance never will lose<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its hideous novelty.” The imp bowed and withdrew,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And swiftly to earth on his errand he flew;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But in vain did he search where the gorillas roam,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or the jungles of Bengal, the fierce tiger’s home.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In vain throughout Europe he searched every place;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Nowhere could he find the requisite face.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Frustrated and weary, with deep despair frantic,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He was skimming the waves of the tossing Atlantic.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A few pinion strokes, and he stood on the shore<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of the New World, and through it began to explore.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But all was in vain, till he chanced to alight<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In a sweet little village, one smiling morn bright.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Disguising himself, he attended the church,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Not hoping to find the object of search,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But just for the fun.<br /></span>

-<span class="i10">As he stood with the throng<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That were watching the College girls marching along,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He caught a slight glimpse of Miss “Tater’s” sweet face;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He sprang to her side, clasped her in embrace,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And as he plunged downward he said to himself,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Here’s one will compete with the African elf.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">{133}</a></span>”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He soon furled his wing on the Plutonian shore,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And to his dark ruler his fair burden bore.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As the Valentine sender came into sight<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The Devil himself started back with affright.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“Whew! whew!” whistled he, “she’ll do, I declare!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Go bring the baboon, and let them compare.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The imp disappeared, then returned with the ape,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A creature most frightful in feature and shape.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His head was oblong and perfectly bald,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Running back from his eyes&mdash;no forehead at all;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His eyeballs were white, their sockets deep red;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His long, glistening teeth strung with human-flesh shred,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The gore of his victims from his fingers’ ends flowed;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And round his lank limbs candescent chains glowed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In front of Miss “Taters” this creature was led;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He gave a look, yelled, and fainted stone dead.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“By my tongs,” quoth the Devil, “she’s rather too hard<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For the old fellow; she’ll make a capital guard.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Take her down to the fire.” The imp led the way<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And far down they went from the clear light of day,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Down, down, till the air was all smoky and red,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till the tumult of hell seemed bursting her head;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">{134}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Down, down, till the piteous wails and the moans<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of the tortured but echoed the jeers and the groans<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of the fiends. Down, down, till they came to the lake<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That scorches and scalds, but never will slake<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The thirst of its victims. Far out on its breast<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It would heave them anon on the red foaming crest<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of a billow, then plunge them far deeper beneath<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its boiling bosom, in torture to seethe.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Along the hot shore the poor creatures would crawl,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To pant and to rest from their terrible thrall.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From their bodies all smoking the lava would stream,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While the shriveled flesh peeled from each quiv’ring limb,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And their heart-piercing shrieks rose higher and higher,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As the tongue of each wave licked them back in the fire.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But as soon as Miss “Taters” had come where they were<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Every noise was hushed, not a sound could you hear.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">’Twas a wonder indeed, and the wonder increased,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When the billows of crimson their torture surge ceased.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">{135}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When the imp had examined more closely, he found<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The victims had fainted, the fire gone down.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He hurried her back to his master and said,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“The fires are out, and the wretches are dead.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“What, the fires extinguished! those fires of old!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Take her back! I begin e’en myself to feel cold!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">She’ll ruin us all with her terrible face;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">She’s rather hard-favored for even this place.”<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><i>April, 1867.</i><br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="THE_SUNFLOWER" id="THE_SUNFLOWER"></a>THE SUNFLOWER</h2>

-

-<p class="csml">LINES SUGGESTED BY OBSERVING GEN. PETTIGREW’S NAME OMITTED IN MRS.

-DOWNING’S “MEMORIAL FLOWERS” AND IN THE “SOUTHERN BOUQUET”</p>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">When</span> poets cull memorial flowers,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">With which our martyrs’ graves to strew,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They choose no one in Nature’s bowers<br /></span>

-<span class="i6">For Pettigrew.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Yet there is one, and only one,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Which truly represents his name;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A flower that revels in the sun,<br /></span>

-<span class="i6">And drinks his flame.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">A flower that opens when, all red,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The sun hath kissed the eastern skies;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">{136}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But westward turned, it droops its head<br /></span>

-<span class="i6">And proudly dies.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Thus when the sun of victory sheared<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Its gory way o’er clouds of war,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">This flower’s tow’ring crest appeared<br /></span>

-<span class="i6">A beacon star.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">And in its gorgeous, glorious rays,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">This flower basked, and only bowed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When coming conquest’s bloody haze<br /></span>

-<span class="i6">That sun did shroud.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Crushed flower, with thy broken stem,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">I’ll keep thee near to typify<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The fallen form; the hero’s fame<br /></span>

-<span class="i6">Can never die.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><i>June 19th, 1867.</i><br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="AN_ELEGY" id="AN_ELEGY"></a>AN ELEGY<br /><br />

-<small>WRITTEN ON THE ROTUNDA STEPS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 1868</small></h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The</span> bell the knell of evening lecture tolls,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The thronging students pour from every door;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The tutor gathers up his notes and rolls,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And homeward wends his weary way once more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">{137}</a></span><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The noisy crowd is gone, there is a pause,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And hushed is all the busy hum and whirl,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Save where from yonder room breaks loud applause<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">That welcomes some professor’s parting “curl.”<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Save that from yonder plain, the lower lawn,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Some base-ball novice makes harsh rhyms to <i>psalm</i>,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Because a veteran, with his hands of horn,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Has “pitched” too “hot” a ball for his soft palm.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Beneath those balconies, along those rows,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Where sinks the wall in many a jail-like cell,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Each wrapped in silence now and in repose,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The minstrels of the “Calathump” do dwell.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The whispered call of evil-masking night,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The signal whistle of the well-known crew,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The bumping bang of “blowers” beat with might,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Will often rouse the “Nippers of Peru.”<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">For them in vain for hours their hearts will burn,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">While busy housewives tremble at their noise,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And frightened children to their fathers turn,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Too badly scared to think of play or toys.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Oft has th’ rotunda echoed to their songs,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">In dulcet strains that on the still air broke;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">{138}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Oft has the lawn resounded with their gongs,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">That roared and rattled ’neath their sturdy stroke.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Let not their victims mock th’ infernal din,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Coal-scuttle drums, and clarion paper trump;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But let them hear with a sardonic “grin,”<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The hideous clamor of a “Calathump.”<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The boast of Mozart, or Beethoven’s pride,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The sweetest notes Von Weber ever gave,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Alike would prove harsh dissonance beside<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The gushing concord of one college stave.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">To-night upon their pillows will be laid<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Heads that are pregnant with some secret plan;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Hands that a “poker” often may have swayed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Or waked to ecstasy an old tin pan.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">In vain grave study holds before their gaze<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Her ample page and honor’s glittering roll;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The fire of “frolic” in their bosom plays,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And warms the devilish current of their soul.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Full many a mind that might have nations hurled<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">About as toys, has hid its talents rare;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And many a voice that might have moved a world,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Has cracked in shoutings on the midnight air.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">{139}</a></span><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Some village Hampden here by night may bawl,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Some unknown Milton, but by no means mute;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Some David that may soothe a savage Saul,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">As yet entirely guiltless of a lute.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The applause of gaping urchins to command,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The darkies’ laughter at their quaint disguise,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A few short words from some one to the band,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">This is their sole reward, their hard-earned prize.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Would start to nip with dry and husky throttle?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whene’er they march along the Devil’s way,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">They take his own peculiar seal, the bottle.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Amid the madding crowd that gathers thick,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">A moving pandemonium they stray,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And down those much frequented walks of brick<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">They hold the noisy tenor of their way.<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<h3>THE EPIGRAM</h3>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Here go at last, all yelling to the town,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">A band of youths to Judson’s too well known;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Fair science ever met their darkest frown,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And foul intemperance marked them for her own.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Small is their bounty, but “a drink” they chime,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">As round the crowded counter many jam;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">{140}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Each gives to Judson (all he has) a dime,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Each gets from him (’tis all he wants) a dram.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><i>January, 1868.</i><br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<h2><a name="FIRE_EYES" id="FIRE_EYES"></a>FIRE EYES</h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Hast thou on summer’s eve ere marked<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The storm on cloud wings soaring high,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And spreading far his pinions black,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Across the blue good-natured sky?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And hast thou seen from ’neath his brow<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The lightning’s eye gleam fiercely bright,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if to pierce a thousand foes<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">With daggers of his living light?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As flash the lightnings in the skies,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So gleam, when angry, “Fire Eyes.”<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Hast thou on autumn eve e’er seen<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The sun just nestling on his pillow,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While sapphire clouds were silver-fringed,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">As seafoam crests the surging billow?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And hast thou seen the golden gaze<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The sun bestows on Nature fair,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That dyes the gorgeous landscape o’er<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And almost melts the amber air?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As beams the sun on autumn skies<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So smile, when pleased, bright “Fire Eyes.”<br /></span>

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">{141}</a></span></div></div>

-</div>

-

-<h2><a name="MY_DARLINGS_JESSAMINE" id="MY_DARLINGS_JESSAMINE"></a>MY DARLING’S JESSAMINE</h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">’Twas only a sprig of white jessamine,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">That came in a letter she wrote;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But I value it more than the costliest vine<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose tendrils o’er marble-carved trellis-work twine:<br /></span>

-<span class="i2"><i>’Twas worn at my darling one’s throat</i>.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">A throat that encages the nightingale’s trill,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And sweetens each silvery note,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And I think as I hear, in a rapturous thrill,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her voice, whose volume can heaven’s dome fill,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">That the <i>angels have lent her a throat</i>.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">More sweet than exotics that Fashion dupes wear<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">As through the gay ballroom they float!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In the leaves of my Bible I laid it with care,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">More <i>sacredly dear</i> than a <i>buried friend’s hair</i><br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Since worn at my darling one’s throat!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><i>July, 1870.</i><br /></span>

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">{142}</a></span></div></div>

-</div>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="THE_PARTING_SHIP" id="THE_PARTING_SHIP"></a>THE PARTING SHIP</h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">In</span> pensive mood I stood upon the quay,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where busy Commerce plied her energy;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where loading vessels hung their sails at rest,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And rose and fell, upon the water’s breast.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where busy little tugs with hissing steam<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Buried their noses in the foaming stream.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Near by, a steamer in a paneled wharf<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Chafed at her chains and panted to be off.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A strange, mysterious ship, no pennon bold<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her nation or her destination told;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No crew was seen, no farewell song was sung,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No parting loved ones to each other clung;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No wife was weeping on her husband’s neck,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No mother blessed her wayward boy on deck.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A ceaseless throng pressed through the cabin door,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if they longed to leave their native shore;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">No backward glance, no tearful farewell view,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And no one seemed to think home worth adieu.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">At last the bell was rung, the plank was drawn,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And with a shivering sigh, the ship was gone.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then as I marked her curving track of foam,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I wondered in what waters she would roam;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I thought of those on board, the reckless air<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of their departure, and I breathed a prayer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">{143}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A red-haired man stood turning up a wheel,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That wound a clanking chain upon a reel;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I laid a coin upon his brawny hand,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And asked him, “Who thus leave their native land?”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He leaned upon his wheel and closed one eye,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if the lid were burdened with a sty;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then with a laugh he answered, “By the devil’s spleen and liver,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It’s on’y a Fulton ferry-boat a’gwine a’gross East River.”<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="TO_M_mdash_FROM_Emdashmdash" id="TO_M_mdash_FROM_Emdashmdash"></a>TO M&mdash;&mdash;, FROM E&mdash;&mdash;<br /><br />

-<small>WRITTEN ON THE FLY-LEAF OF A BIBLE</small></h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">One</span> year of sweetest love intense!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One year of mutual confidence!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One year of gazing into eyes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In which the love-light never dies!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One year of clasping hands, that thrill<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With throbbing love from life’s red rill<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One year of clouds, whose transient shade<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The after glory brighter made!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One year of doubts, whose fleeting rust<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Could not corrode our links of trust!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One year of prayer, whose pleading tone<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Has for <i>each other</i> sued the Throne!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One year <i>together</i>&mdash;may it prove<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">{144}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Prophetic of our earthly love!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One year <i>each other’s</i>&mdash;may it be<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A type of our <i>eternity</i>!<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><i>Sunday, May, 1871.</i><br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="UNDER_THE_PINES" id="UNDER_THE_PINES"></a>UNDER THE PINES<br /><br />

-<small>“TELL THEM TO BURY ME UNDER THE PINES AT HOME.” FROM “SEA GIFT.”</small></h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">I <span class="smcap">would</span> not rest in the moldering tomb<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Of the grim church-yard, where the ivy twines,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">But make me a grave in the forest’s gloom,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where the breezes wave, like a soldier’s plume,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Each dark-green bough of the dear old pines;<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Where the lights and shadows softly merge,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And the sun-flakes sift through the netted vines;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where the sea winds, sad with the sob of the surge,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From the harp-leaves sweep a solemn dirge<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">For the dead beneath the sighing pines.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">When the winter’s icy fingers sow<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The mound with jewels till it shines,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And cowled in hoods of glistening snow,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Like white-veiled sisters bending low,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Bow, sorrowing, the silent pines.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">{145}</a></span><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">While others fought for cities proud,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">For fertile plains and wealth of mines,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I breathed the sulph’rous battle cloud,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I bared my breast, and took my shroud<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">For the land where wave the grand old pines.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Though comrades sigh and loved ones weep<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">For the form shot down in the battle lines,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In my grave of blood I gladly sleep,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If the life I gave will help to keep<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The Vandal’s foot from the Land of Pines.<br /></span>

-<span style="margin-left: 6em;">* * * * * * * * * *</span><br />

-<span class="i0">The Vandal’s foot hath pressed our sod,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">His heel hath crushed our sacred shrines;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And, bowing ’neath the chastening rod,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We lift our hearts and hands to God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And cry: “Oh! save our Land of Pines!”<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="THE_LAST_LOOK" id="THE_LAST_LOOK"></a>THE LAST LOOK<br /><br />

-<small>TO MARY</small></h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Do</span> not fasten the lid of the coffin down yet;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Let me have a long look at the face of my pet.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Please all quit the chamber and pull to the door,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And leave me alone with my darling once more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">{146}</a></span><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Is this little Ethel, so cold, and so still!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Beat, beat, breaking heart, ’gainst God’s mystic will,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Remember, O Christ, thou didst dread thine own cup,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And while I drink mine, let thine arm bear me up.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But the moments are fleeting: I must stamp on my brain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Each dear little feature, for never again<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Can I touch her; and only God measures how much<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Affection a mother conveys by her touch.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Oh! dear little head, oh! dear little hair,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So silken, so golden, so soft, and so fair,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Will I never more smooth it? Oh! help me, my God,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To bear this worst stroke of the chastening rod.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Those bright little eyes that used to feign sleep,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or sparkle so merrily, playing at peep,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Closed forever! And yet they seemed closed with a sigh,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if for our sake she regretted to die.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">And that dear little <i>mouth</i>, once so warm and so soft,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Always willing to kiss you, no matter how oft,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Cold and rigid, without the least tremor of breath,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">How could you claim <i>Ethel</i>, O pitiless death!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">{147}</a></span><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Her hands! No, ’twill kill me to think how they wove<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Through my daily existence a tissue of love.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Each finger’s a print upon memory’s page,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That will brighten, thank God! and not dim with my age.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Sick or well, they were ready at every request<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To amuse us: sweet hands! they deserve a sweet rest.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their last little trick was to wipe “Bopeep’s” eye,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their last little gesture, to wave us good-bye.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Little feet! little feet, how dark the heart’s gloom,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Where your patter is hushed in that desolate room!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For oh! ’twas a sight sweet beyond all compare,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To see little “Frisky” rock back in her chair.<br /></span>

-<span style="margin-left: 6em;">* * * * * * * * * *</span><br />

-

-<span class="i0">O Father! have mercy, and grant me thy grace<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To see, through this frown, the smile on thy face;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To feel that this sorrow is sent for the best,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And to learn from my darling a lesson of rest.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><i>February 16th, 1875.</i><br /></span>

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">{148}</a></span></div></div>

-</div>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="LINES_WRITTEN_AT_THE_REQUEST_OF_AN_UNKNOWN_FRIEND" id="LINES_WRITTEN_AT_THE_REQUEST_OF_AN_UNKNOWN_FRIEND"></a>LINES WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF AN UNKNOWN FRIEND</h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">We’ve</span> never met; I’ve never pressed your hand,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Nor caught the light of Friendship in your eyes;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet bound by grief, between two graves we stand,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And mingle tears, and hear each other’s sighs.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The same dark wings have taken from each hearth<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The brightest jewel of the circle there,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And poor Faith stumbles at the mound of earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And feebly yields her place to wan Despair.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">The same dear Christ that took our little one,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And laid her precious head upon His breast,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In tender love called home your darling son<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">To enter early his eternal rest.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">But who could stand beside the open tomb,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And hear the clods fall on the coffin lid,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And see deep underneath the earthen gloom,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The dearest love of life forever hid?<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Could we not hear the grave’s red lips proclaim,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">“I am the Resurrection and the Life,”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And realize that Death in Jesus’ name<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Is only rest from labor, pain, and strife?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">{149}</a></span><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">’Tis hard to feel assured our sainted dead<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Are happy <i>there</i>, as we could make them here;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We love them so we give them up with dread,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And lay them in Christ’s arms with doubt and fear.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Oh! for a faith that sees in all God sends<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The kindness of a father to his son;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That prays, in every trial&mdash;if it ends<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">In joy or grief, “Thy will, O Lord, be done.”<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">Beneath the same dark shadow let us kneel,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">And lift our broken hearts in prayer to God<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That while He chastens, He will help us feel<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The wisdom of His purpose in the rod.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">We are not strangers now; from heart to heart<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The electric chords of mutual sorrow thrill.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And clasping hands across the miles apart,<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">We stand resolved, to “suffer and be still.”<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="OUT_IN_THE_RAIN" id="OUT_IN_THE_RAIN"></a>OUT IN THE RAIN</h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The</span> night is dark and cold, a beating rain<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Falls ceaselessly upon the dripping roof;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The dismal wind, with now a fierce, wild shriek,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And now a hollow moan, as if in pain,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">{150}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Circles the eaves, and bends the tortured trees that wring<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their long, bear hands in the bleak blast.<br /></span>

-<span class="i17">Within<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Our chamber all is bright and warm. The fire<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Burns with a ruddy blaze. The shaded lamp<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Softens the pictures on the wall, and glows<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the flowers in the carpet, till they seem<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">All fresh and fragrant. Stretched upon the rug,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His collar gleaming in the fire-light, little Pip<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is sleeping on, defiant of the storm without.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The very furniture enjoys the warmth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And from its sides reflects the cheerful light.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Up in its painted cage, the little bird,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">His yellow head beneath his soft, warm wing,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Is hiding. Oh! my God, out in the storm<br /></span>

-<span class="i0"><i>Our little yellow head</i> is beaten by the rain.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So lonely looks that precious little face<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Up at the cold, dark coffin’s lid above,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In the bleak graveyard’s solitude!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Oh! Ethel darling, do you feel afraid?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Or is Christ with you in your little grave?<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When last we gazed upon those lovely eyes<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">They looked so tranquil, in their last repose,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">We knew that Christ’s own tender hand had sealed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their lids with His eternal peace.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Oh! darling, are you happy up in heaven?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">{151}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And do the angels part that golden hair<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As tenderly as we? O Saviour dear,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thou knowest childhood’s tenderness. Amid<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The care of countless worlds, sometimes descend<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">From thine almighty throne of power, and find<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That little yellow head, and lay it on thy breast,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And smooth her brow with thine own pierced hand;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">She’ll kiss the wound and try to make it well.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And tell her how we love her memory here;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And let her sometimes see us, that she may<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Remember us. O Jesus, we can trust<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Her to thy care; and when we lay us down<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To rest, beside that lonely, little grave,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Oh! let her meet us with her harp.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">God help us both to make that meeting sure!<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="THE_LILY_AND_THE_DEW-DROP" id="THE_LILY_AND_THE_DEW-DROP"></a>THE LILY AND THE DEW-DROP</h2>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Deep</span> in a cell of darkest green,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Rayless and murky with unbroken gloom,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With downcast head and shrinking, modest mien,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A lily of the valley shed her rare perfume,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Breathed softly, as a sea shell’s murmur, from her bloom<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">{152}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">An odor so exquisite, none can tell,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">If ’tis an odor or a whispered sigh<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That like the dying echoes of a bell<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Falls on the raptured sense so dreamily,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The soul swoons in the tearful clasp of memory.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">So when an old man hears a harvest song<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">He used to sing, or smells the new-mown hay,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A host of saddened recollections throng<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The dusty chambers of his heart, and play<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the cobwebs there a soft Æolian lay.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i8">(<i>Unfinished.</i>)<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h2><a name="LINES" id="LINES"></a>LINES,<br /><br />

-<small>WRITTEN AFTER HAVING A HEMORRHAGE FROM THE LUNGS</small></h2>

-

-<p class="csml">Written a short time before his death and handed to his wife with the

-request, “Do not open this until I am well, or until my death.”</p>

-

-<div class="poetry">

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Life</span> bloomed for me as if my path thro’ Eden<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Led its flowery way. Success had crowned<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">In many ways my efforts. No dark strife<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With adverse Fate its portent shadows cast<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Across the calm blue scope of heaven.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">And though<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">{153}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Pride often chafed at plain commercial life,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It was but transient, for ambitious Hope<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Kept ever in my view Fame’s gilded dome,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon whose highest pinnacle I chose my niche,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">For vain conceit had whispered in my ear<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That I had Genius to encharm the world,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And I looked forward to the loud applause<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of nations as a simple thing of time.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of death I thought but as a fright for those<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Who have no destiny but dying. Mine<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Would come in age, but as a pallid seal<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To Honor gained, and Life’s long labors done.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet I had felt the breath of Asrael’s wing<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When from my youthful head he took my father’s hand,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And from my manhood’s arms my only child,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And down the past a little mound of earth,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Tombed with the darkest sorrow of our hearts,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Still stands, though veiling in the folds of time.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of heaven I thought but as a distant home,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A place of sweetest rest that I would gain,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">When weary of the burden of the world.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Thus gay of thought and bright of hope, I moved<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Amid the flowers of my way.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">At once,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With scarce a rustle in the rose leaves, came<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">A shadowy form, and standing silently<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Before my pathway, breathed a whispered sigh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">{154}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As if it loathed its office to perform;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Then laid Consumption’s ghastly banner on my breast,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Its pale folds crossed with fatal red.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">The sky<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Grew dark, the rose leaves withered, as the form<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Withdrew, still silently; while I, alone<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Upon the roadside, kneeled to pray for light.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The stunned surprise of sudden shattered hopes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The faith of self-appointed destiny,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Still turned my eyes toward the Temple Fame.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Across its gilded dome a spotless cloud<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Had drifted, hiding it from view, but lo!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The cloud, unfolding snowy depths, disclosed<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The glories of that “House not made with hands,”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And bending from it, so full of tenderness,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I could discern the loved ones “gone before.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And over all I recognized the Form<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose brow endured Gabbatha’s shameful crown,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Whose woe distilled itself in trickling blood,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">By Cedron’s murmuring wave.<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">As tenderly<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As ever mother touched her babe, He bore<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Within His arms a little angel form,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">With golden hair and blue expressive eyes,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">One dimpled hand lay on His willing cheek,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">While He bent down to meet the sweet caress,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">The other, with that well-remembered look<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">{155}</a></span><br /></span>

-<span class="i0">She kissed, and threw the kiss to me.<br /></span>

-<span class="i14">Then down<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I bowed my face, and longed to know mine end.<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">’Twere very sweet to leave all toil and care<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And join the blessed ones beyond the tide;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And still ’twere sweet beyond compare to wait<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Till eventide with loved ones here, and share<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Their weal or woe.<br /></span>

-<span class="i8">Then came a flute-like voice<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That thrilled the solemn air:<br /></span>

-<span class="i12">“Pursue thy way,<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Yet humbly walk and watch, and if I come<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">At midnight, or at noon, be ready.”<br /></span>

-<span class="i17">Thus<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">I wish to live, life’s aims subserved to God;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And each continued day and hour regard<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">As special gifts to be improved for Him;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To wear the girdle of the world about my loins<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">So loosely that a moment will suffice<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">To break the clasp, and lay it down.<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="fint">THE END</p>

-

-<hr class="full" />

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-<pre>

-

-

-

-

-

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+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Angel in the Cloud, by Edwin W. (Wiley) Fuller
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: The Angel in the Cloud
+
+Author: Edwin W. (Wiley) Fuller
+
+Release Date: July 14, 2018 [EBook #57504]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="c">
+<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="345" height="500" alt="[Image
+of the book's cover unavailable.]" /></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="smcap">
+<p class="c"><big>CONTENTS</big></p>
+<p class="hang">
+<a href="#PREFACE">Preface</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#A_NOTE">A Note</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#THE_ANGEL_IN_THE_CLOUD">The Angel In The Cloud</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#THE_VILLAGE_ON_THE_TAR">The Village On The Tar</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#REQUIESCAM">Requiescam</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#LINES_TO_AN_ANALYTICAL_GEOMETRY">Lines To An Analytical Geometry</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#LINES_TO_COUSINS_C_AND_E">Lines To Cousins C. And E. On The Birth Of Their Little Daughter</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#THE_DEVIL_OUTDONE">The Devil Outdone; Or, The Guard Of The Sulphur Lake</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#THE_SUNFLOWER">The Sunflower Lines Suggested By Observing Gen. Pettigrew’s Name Omitted In Mrs. Downing’s “Memorial Flowers” And In The “Southern Bouquet”</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#AN_ELEGY">An Elegy Written On The Rotunda Steps, University Of Virginia, 1868</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#FIRE_EYES">Fire Eyes</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#MY_DARLINGS_JESSAMINE">My Darling’s Jessamine</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#THE_PARTING_SHIP">The Parting Ship</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#TO_M_mdash_FROM_Emdashmdash">To M&mdash;&mdash;, From E&mdash;&mdash;</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#UNDER_THE_PINES">Under The Pines</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#THE_LAST_LOOK">The Last Look</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#LINES_WRITTEN_AT_THE_REQUEST_OF_AN_UNKNOWN_FRIEND">Lines Written At The Request Of An Unknown Friend</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#OUT_IN_THE_RAIN">Out In The Rain</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#THE_LILY_AND_THE_DEW-DROP">The Lily And The Dew-drop</a></p><p class="hang">
+<a href="#LINES">Lines, Written After Having A Hemorrhage From The Lungs</a></p><p class="hang">
+</p></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" summary=""
+style="border-right:2px solid black;
+border-left:2px solid black;
+border-top:2px solid black;
+border-bottom:2px solid black;">
+
+<tr><td class="brd">O</td><td class="brd"></td><td class="brd">O</td></tr>
+
+<tr class="brd"><td class="brd"></td><td class="brd"><br /><big>THE ANGEL<br />
+IN THE CLOUD</big><br />
+<br /><br /><br />
+BY
+<br /><br />
+EDWIN W. FULLER<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />PRIVATELY PRINTED<br />
+MCMVII<br /><br /></td><td class="brd"></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="brd">O</td><td class="brd"></td><td class="brd">O</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="c">
+<i>Copyright, 1907<br />
+Sumner Fuller Parham</i><br />
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+TO THE<br />
+<br />
+HALLOWED MEMORY OF MY FATHER,<br />
+<br />
+WHO,<br />
+<br />
+EVEN WHILE I WAS GAZING UPON THE GOLDEN CITY<br />
+<br />
+PASSED WITHIN ITS WALLS,<br />
+<br />
+THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS INSCRIBED,<br />
+<br />
+WITH TEARS.<br />
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">To</span> those who may favor these pages with perusal, I make this earnest
+request: that, if they commence, they will read all. Knowing that the
+best mode of dealing with doubts is to state and refute, successively, I
+regret that the plan of the present work forces a separation of the
+statement and refutation. To read one without the other were to defeat
+the object in view; hence my request.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the subjects of thought are worn smooth with the touch of ages,
+so that hope for originality is as slender as the bridge of Al Sirat;
+but in the bulrush ark of self-confidence, pitched with Faith, I commit
+my first-born to the Nile of public opinion; whether to perish by
+crocodile critics, or bask in the palace of favor, the Future, alone,
+must determine. May Pharaoh’s daughter find it!</p>
+
+<p class="r">
+E. W. F.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Louisburg</span>, Jan. 17th, 1871.</p>
+
+<h2><a name="A_NOTE" id="A_NOTE"></a>A NOTE</h2>
+
+<p><i>First published more than thirty-five years ago, in the lifetime of the
+poet, THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD has long since passed not only out of print
+but out of the memory of most living men. Of the copies of the original
+edition, only few are known to exist. Upon his surviving family is
+imposed the obligation, and to them comes the privilege, of rescuing
+from the realm of forgotten things these evidences of a graceful and
+genuine poetic gift in one whose memory they revere and whose genius
+they are unwilling to have die. It is therefore with the sense of
+performing a grateful duty that they have caused to be printed this new
+edition of Edwin Fuller’s poems, in the hope and belief that others,
+like themselves, will value it both as friends of the gentle poet and as
+disinterested lovers of good literature.</i></p>
+
+<p>August, 1907.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<h2><a name="THE_ANGEL_IN_THE_CLOUD" id="THE_ANGEL_IN_THE_CLOUD"></a>THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD</h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">’<span class="smcap">Twas</span> noon in August, and the sultry heat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had driven me from sunny balcony<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into the shaded hall, where spacious doors<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stood open wide, and lofty windows held<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their sashes up, to woo the breeze, in vain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The filmy lace that curtained them was still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And every silken tassel hung a-plumb.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The maps and unframed pictures o’er the wall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gave not a rustle; only now and then<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was heard the jingling sound of melting ice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deep in a massive urn, whose silver sides<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With trickling dewbeads ran. The little birds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up in their cages, perched with open beaks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And throbbing throats, upon the swaying rings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or plashed the tepid water in their cups<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With eager breast. My favorite pointer lay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With lolling tongue, and rapid panting sides,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beside my chair, upon the matted floor.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All things spoke heat, oppressive heat intense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save swallows twittering up the chimney-flue,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose hollow flutterings sounded cool alone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To find relief I seized my hat and book,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fled into the park. Along a path<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of smoothest gravel, oval, curving white,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Between two rows of closely shaven hedge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I passed towards a latticed summer-house;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fairy bower, built in Eastern style,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With spires, and balls, and fancy trellis-work,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O’er which was spread the jasmine’s leafy net,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To snare the straying winds. Within I fell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon a seat of woven cane, and fanned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My streaming face in vain. The very winds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seemed to have fled, and left alone the heat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To rise from parchèd lawn and scorching fields,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like trembling incense to the blazing god.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The leaves upon the wan and yellow trees<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hung motionless, as if of rigid steel;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And e’en the feath’ry pendula of spray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With faintest oscillation, dared not wave.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The withered flowers shed a hot perfume,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That sickened with its fragrance; and the bees<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Worked lazily, as if they longed to kick<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The yellow burdens from their patient thighs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rest beneath the ivy parasols.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The butterflies refrained from aimless flight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And poised on blooms with gaudy, gasping wings.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fountain scarcely raised its languid jet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An inch above its tube; the basin deigned<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A feeble ripple for its tinkling fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rolled the little waves with noiseless beat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against the marble side. The bright-scaled fish<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All huddled ’neath the jutting ledge’s shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where, burnished like their magnet toy types,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They rose and fell as if inanimate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or, with a restless stroke of tinted fin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turned in their places pettishly around;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While, with each move, the tiny whirlpools spun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like crystal dimples on the water’s face.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sculptured lions crouched upon the edge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With gaping jaws, and stony, fixèd eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ever on the pool glared thirstily.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deep in the park, beneath the trees, were grouped<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The deer, their noses lowered to the earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To snuff a cooler air; their slender feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Impatient stamping at the teasing flies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While o’er their heads the branching antlers spread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A mocking skeleton of shade! A fawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Proud of his dappled coat, played here and there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Regardless of repose; the silver bell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That tinkled from a band of broidered silk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Proclaiming him a petted favorite.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save him alone, all things in view sought rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And wearied Nature seemed to yield the strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And smold’ring wait her speedy sacrifice.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The heat grew hotter as I watched its work,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with its fervor overcome, I rose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And through the grounds, towards an orchard bent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My faltering steps in full despair of ease.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down through the lengthened rows of laden trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose golden-freighted boughs o’erlapped the way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I hurried till I reached the last confines.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here stood a gnarléd veteran, now too old<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To bear much fruit, but weaving with its leaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So dense a shade, the smallest fleck of sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could not creep through. Beneath it spread a couch<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of velvet moss, fit for the slumbers of a king.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here prone I fell, at last amid a scene<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That promised refuge from the glaring heat.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond me stretched the orchard’s canopy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of thick, rank foliage, almost drooping down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the green plush carpet underneath.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Close at my feet a crystal spring burst forth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rolled its gurgling waters down the glade<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now spreading in a rilling silver sheet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O’er some broad rock, then gath’ring at its base<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into a foamy pool that churned the sand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mingling sparks of shining isinglass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It danced away o’er gleamy, pebbly bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where, midst the grassy nooks and fibrous roots,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The darting minnows played at hide and seek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oft fluttering upwards, to the top, to spit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A tiny bubble out, or slyly snap<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Th’ unwary little insect hov’ring near;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till, by its tributes widened to a brook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It poured its limpid waters undefiled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In to the river’s dun and dirty waves,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A type of childhood’s guileless purity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That mingling with the sordid world is lost.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Far in the distance, lofty mountains loomed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their blue sides trembling in the sultry haze.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From me to them spread varicultured fields,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That formed a patchwork landscape, which deserved<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pencil of a Rembrandt and his skill;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hardy yellow stubble smoothly shaved,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With boldness lying ’neath the scorching sun;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The suffering corn, with tasselled heads all bowed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And twisted arms appealing, raised to Heaven;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The meadows faded by the constant blaze;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cattle lying in the hedge’s shade;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across the landscape drawn a glitt’ring band,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where winds the river, like a giant snake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ripples flashing like his polished scales.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Above the scene a lonely vulture wheeled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turning with every curve from side to side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if the fierce rays broiled his dusky wings;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And circling onwards, dwindled to a speck,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in the distance vanished out of sight!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Complete repose was stamped on everything,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save where a tireless ant tugged at a crumb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To drag it o’er th’ impeding spires of moss;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And one poor robin, with her breast all pale<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And feather-scarce, hopped wearily along<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The streamlet’s edge, with plaintive clock-like chirp,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And searching, found and bore the curling worm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up to the yellow-throated brood o’erhead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Behind the mountains reared the copper clouds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of summer skies, that whitened as they rose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till bleached to snow, they drifted dreamily,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like gleaming icebergs, through the blue sublime.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as they, one by one, sailed far away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Methought they were as ships from Earth to Heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus slowly floating to the Eternal Port.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Thunder’s muttered growl my reverie broke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And looking toward the West, I saw a storm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With gloomy wrath, had thrown its dark-blue line<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of breastworks, quiv’ring with each grand discharge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of its own ordnance, o’er th’ horizon’s verge.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some time it stood to gloat upon its prey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, girding up its strength, began its march.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Extending far its black gigantic arms,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It grimly clambered up the tranquil sky;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till, half-way up the arch, its shaggy brows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scowled down in rage upon the frightened earth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While through its wind-cleft portals sped the darts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That brightly hurtled through the sultry air.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And down the mountain-sides the shadow crept,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A dark veil spreading over field and wood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus adding gloom to Nature’s awful hush.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fleecy racks had fled far to the East,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where sporting safely in the gilding light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They mocked the angry monster’s cumbrous speed.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then, while I marked its progress, came a train,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of dark and doubting thoughts into my mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bitterly thus my reflections ran:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strange is the Providence that rules the world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That sets the Medean course of Nature’s laws;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sometimes adapting law to circumstance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But oftener making law fulfilled a curse.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yon brewing storm in verdant summer comes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When vegetation spreads its foliage sails,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, like a full-rigged ship’s, are easier torn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why comes it not in winter, when the trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With canvas reefed by Autumn’s furling frosts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could toss in nude defiance to the blast?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The murd’rous wind precedes the gentle shower<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ere the suffering grain has quenched its thirst,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It bows the heavy head, alone of worth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And from the ripening stalk wrings out the life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While gayly nod the heads of chaff unharmed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rank miasma floats in summer-time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When man must brave its poisoned breath or starve;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It hovers sickliest over richest fields<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While over sterile lands the air is pure;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tallest oak is by the lightning riven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hateful bramble on the ground is spared;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The crop man needs demands his constant work,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The weeds alone spring forth without the plow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sweetest flowers wear the sharpest thorns,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The deadliest reptiles lurk in fairest paths!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wherever Nature shows her brightest smile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Tis but a mask to hide her darkest frown.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tropics seem an Eden of luscious fruits<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And flowers, and groves of loveliest birds, and lakes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That mirror their gay plumage flitting o’er;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where man may live in luxury of thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without the crime of schemes, or curse of toil&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tropics seem a Hell, when all with life<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are stifled with the foul sirocco’s breath;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When from the green-robed mountain’s volcan top,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fire-fountain spouts its blazing jet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Far up against the starry dome of Heaven;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Returning in its vast umbrella shape,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leaps in red cataracts adown the slope,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shaves clean the mountain of its emerald hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And leaves it bald with ashes on its head.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Below, the valley is a crimson sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose glowing billows break to white-hot foam;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as they surge amid the towering trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They, tottering, bow forever to the waves;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The leaves and branches, crackling into flame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leave only clotted cinders floating there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The darting birds, their gaudy plumage singed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fall fluttering in, with little puffs of smoke.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fleeing beasts are lapped in, bellowing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And charred to coal, drift idly with the tide.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The red flood, breaking through the vale, rolls on<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its devious way towards the sea; the glare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Illuminating far its winding track,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if a devil flew with flaming torch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or when an earthquake gapes its black-lined jaws,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, growling, gulps a city’s busy throng<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into its greedy bowels. Or the sea bursts forth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its bands of rock, and laughing at “Thus far!”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rolls wildly over peopled towns, and homes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In fancied safety; playing fearful pranks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O’er which to chuckle in its briny bed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jeering the stones because they cannot swim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And crushing like a shell all work of wood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Docking the laden ships upon the hills,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tossing lighter craft about like weeds;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till, wearied with the spoiling, sinks to rest.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thus Nature to herself is but half kind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But over man holds fullest tyranny;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And man, a creature who cannot prevent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His own existence! Why not happy made?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For surely ’twere as easy to create<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man in a state of happiness and good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And keep him there, as to create at all.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If misery’s not deserved before his birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then misery must from purest malice flow;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet malice none assign to Providence.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But some may say: Were man thus happy made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He would not be a person, but a thing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lose the very seed of happiness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The consciousness of merit. Grant ’tis true!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then why does merit rarely meet reward?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And why does there appear a tendency,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Throughout the polity divine, to mark<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With disapproval all the good in man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bless the evil? Through the entire world<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is felt this conflict: some strange power within<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Exciting us to good, while all events<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Proclaim its folly. Throughout Nature’s laws,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through man in every station, up to God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This fatal contradiction glares. The storm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With ruthless breath, annihilates the cot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, frail and humble, shields the widow’s head;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And while she reads within the use-worn Book<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That none who trusts shall e’er be desolate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The falling timbers crush the promise out,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she is dead beneath her ruined home!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The prostrate cottage passed, the very wind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now howls a rough but fawning lullaby<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Around the marble walls, and lofty dome,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That shelter pride and heartless arrogance.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And when the Boaz Winter throws his skirt<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of purest white across the lap of Earth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And decks her bare arborial hair with gems,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose feeblest flash would pale the Koh-i-noor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rich, alone, find beauty in the scene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, clad in thankless comfort, brave the cold.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gliding steels flash through the feathery drifts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The jingling bells proclaiming happiness;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet ’neath the furry robe the oath is heard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And boisterous laughter at the ribald jest.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The coldest hearts beat ’neath the warmest clothes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And often all the blessings wealth can give,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are heaped on one, whose daily life reviles<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The very name of Him who doth bestow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While in a freezing garret, o’er the coals<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, bluely flickering with the feeble flame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seem cold themselves, a trusting Christian bends;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her faith all mocked by cruel circumstance.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cold, bare walls, the chilling air-swept floor;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some broken stools, a mattress stuffed with straw,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upholstering the apartment. Through the sash,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wind, with jaggèd lips of broken glass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shrieks in its freezing spite. A cold-blued babe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With face too thin to hold a dimple’s print,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With famished gums tugs at the arid breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thrusting its bare, splotched arms, in eagerness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From out the poor white blanket’s ravelled edge.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beside the mother sits a little boy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With one red frost-cracked hand spread out, in vain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To warm above the faintly-burning coals;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The other pressing hardly ’gainst his teeth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A stale and tasteless loaf of smallest size,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which lifting often to the mother’s view,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He offers part; she only shakes her head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sadly smiles upon the gaunt young face.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet in her basket, on a pile of work,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An open Bible lies with outstretched leaves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose verses speak in keenest irony:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Do good,” and “verily thou shalt be fed.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so through all the world, the righteous poor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wicked rich. Deceit, and fraud, and craft<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reap large rewards, while pure integrity<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must gnaw the bone of faith with here and there<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A speck of flesh called consciousness of right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To reach the marrow in another world.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But man within himself’s the greatest paradox;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“A little animal,” as Voltaire says,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet a greater wonder than the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or spangled firmament. That little one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can weigh and measure all the wheeling worlds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But finds within his “five feet” home, a Sphinx<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose riddle he can never solve.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">“Thyself,”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The oracles of old bade men to know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if to mock their very impotence;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And man, to know himself, for centuries<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has toiled and studied deep, in vain.&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not man in flesh, for blest Hippocrates<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bright trimmed his lamp, and passed it down the line,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And each disciple adding of his oil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It blazes now above the ghastly corpse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till every fibre, every thread-like vein,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is known familiar as a city’s streets;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The little muscle twitching back the lip,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rejoicing in a name that spans the page.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But man in mind, that is not seen nor felt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But only knows he is, through consciousness.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sees an outside world, with all its throng<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of busy people who care not for him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And only few that know he does exist;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet he feels the independent world<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is but effect produced upon himself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Universe is packed within his mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His mind within its little house of clay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What is that mind? Has it a formal shape?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And has it substance, color, weight, or force?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What are the chains that bind it to the flesh?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That never break except in death, though oft<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The faculties are sent far out through space?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where is it placed, in head, or hands, or feet?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And can it have existence without place?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if a place, it must extension have,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if extended, it is matter proven.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Poor man! he has but mind to view mind with,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And might as well attempt to see the eye<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without a mirror! True, faint consciousness<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Holds up a little glass, wherein he sees<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A few vague facts that cannot satisfy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For these, and their attendant laws, have fought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mental champions of the world till now<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That each may deck them in his livery,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And claim them as his own discovery.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hedged in, man does not know that he is paled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And struggles fiercely ’gainst the boundaries,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And strives to get a glimpse of those far realms<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of thought sublime, where his short wings would sink<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With helpless fluttering, through the vast profound.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the coals of curiosity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A writhing worm, he’s laid; and twists and turns,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To find, in vain, the healing salve of Truth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But grant that mind exists in fullest play:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How does it work and what its modes of thought?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here consciousness may act, and hold to view<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A dim outline of powers, contraposed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In such a conflict, every one may seize<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The doctrine suits him best. Hence different creeds&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Desire battling reason, reason will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And will the weathercock of motive’s wind;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Motive the cringing slave of circumstance.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And here Charybdis rises; no control<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has man o’er circumstance, but circumstance<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Begets the motive governing the will;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then how can man be free? Yet some may say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man can obey the motive, or can not.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He can, but only when a stronger rules.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That we without a motive never act,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I do declare, though in the face of Reid.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That that is strongest which impels, a child<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Might know, although Jouffroy exclaims,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“You’re reasoning in a circle.” Let us place<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An iron fragment ’twixt two magnet-bars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What one attracts is thereby stronger proved.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or it may be the really weaker one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But yet, because of nearness to the steel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Possess a relatively greater force.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so of motives, howe’er trivial they,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The one that moves is strongest to the mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To illustrate: Suppose I pare a peach;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A friend near by me banteringly asserts<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That I can not refrain from eating it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two motives now arise&mdash;the appetite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the desire to prove my self-control.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I hesitate awhile, then laughing say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“I would not give the peach to prove you wrong.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But as my teeth press on it, pride springs up,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bids me show that I am not the slave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of appetite, and far away I hurl<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tinted, fragrant sphere.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Was not each thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spontaneous? Could I control their rise?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How perfectly absurd to talk of choice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Between two motives offered to the mind!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if the motive was a horse we’d choose<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To pull our minds about. There is no choice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until the motive makes it; then we choose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not ’tween the motives, but the acts.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">If, then,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The spring of action is the motive’s power,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The motive being far beyond our sway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where is our freedom? But a fabled myth!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And man but differs from a star in this,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The laws of stars are fixed and definite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And every movement there can be foretold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of man, no deed can be foreseen till done.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At most we can but form a general guess<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How he will act, at such a time and place.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even if we knew the motives that would rise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We could not prophesy unless we knew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our subject’s frame of mind; for differently,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On different minds, same motives often act.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hence, we can tell the conduct of a friend<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More surely than a stranger’s, since we know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By long acquaintance, how his motives work.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But should new motives rise, we cannot tell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until experience gives us data new.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus we will ride beside a friend alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And show to him our money without fear,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because we know the motives&mdash;love for us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Honor, and horror of disgraceful crime&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are stronger with him than cupidity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But with a stranger we would feel unsafe;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor would we trust our friend, were we alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon an island, wrecked, and without food,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And saw his eye with hunger glare, and heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The famished motive whispering to him, “Kill!”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If he were free, would we feel slightest fear?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For all his soul would shudder from the deed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And never motive could impel such crime.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Upon this principal all law is made;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For were man free he could not be controlled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all compliance would be his caprice.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But since he is the tyrant-motive’s slave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The law to govern motive only seeks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And builds its sanction on the base of pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As motive strongest in the human heart.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It only falls below perfection’s height,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because there are exceptions to the rule;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When hate and passion, lust and greed of gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prove stronger than the fear of distant pain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And could the law know fully every heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And vary sanction, there would be no crime.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But law itself, and the obeying world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are proofs against the grosser form of Fate:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That all is preordained, nor can be changed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All human life is vacillating life;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We make our plans each day, then alter them.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We form resolves one hour that break the next,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And no one dares assert that he will act,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the morrow, in a certain way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But cries, it all depends on circumstance.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And this is strange, that while we cannot change<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our lives one tittle by our own free will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We help, each day, to change our neighbor’s course;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he assists the motives changing ours.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For all relations to our fellow-men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are powers that form our lives, in spite of us.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But we may change our motives, often do,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By changing place, or circumstance of life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By hearing, reading, or reflective thought;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet are these very things from motives done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And motives mocking all our vain commands.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One motive made the object of an act,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Another rises subject of the act;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to the final motive we can never reach.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The world’s a self-adjusting, vast machine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose human comparts cannot guide themselves;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And each is but a puppet to the whole,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet adds its mite towards its government;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here, in this motive circle, lies all Fate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our fellow-men with motives furnish us,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While we contribute to their motive fund.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The real power, hidden deep within,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Escapes the eye of careless consciousness;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who proudly tells us we are action’s cause.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon this error men, mistaken, raise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The edifice of law in all its forms;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That yet performs its varied functions well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because it offers motives that restrain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till stronger overcome, and crime ensues.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The motive gibbet lifts its warning arms;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pillory gapes its scolloped lips for necks;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lash grows stiff with blood and shreds of flesh;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The treadmill yields beneath the wearied feet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Sabbath after Sabbath preachers tell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of judgment, and of awful Hell, and Heaven;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All these, to stronger make, than lust of sin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet, to lead my reasoning to its end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I find a chaos of absurdity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If I am by an unruled motive driven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why act at all? Why passive not recline<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the lap of destiny, and wait her arms?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why struggle to acquire means of life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Fate must fill our mouths or let us die?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why go not naked forth into the world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And trust to Fate for clothes? Why spring aside<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From falling weight, or flee a burning house,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or fight with instinct strength the clasp of waves?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because we cannot help it; every act<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Behind it has a motive, whose command<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We, willing or unwilling, must obey.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Law governs motives, motives create law;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Between the reflex action man is placed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The helpless shuttlecock of unjust Fate!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now passive driven to commit a crime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then by the driver laid upon the rack;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Zeno’s slave, compelled by Fate to steal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then compelled by Fate to bear the lash!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What gross injustice is the rule of life!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A sentient being made without a will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And placed a cat’s-paw in the hands of Fate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who rakes the moral embers for a sin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, found, must burn the helpless one alone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All right and wrong, and whate’er makes man man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are gone, and language is half obsolete;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No need of words to tell of moral worth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Existing not, nor e’en conceivable;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No words of blame or commendation, given<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">According to the intention of a deed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No words of cheer or comfort, to incite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For man must act without our useless tongues;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No words of prayer, if Fate supplies our wants;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No words of prayer, if Fate locks up her store;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No words of love, for fondest love were loathed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If fanned by Fate to flame. No words of hate,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For all forgive a wrong when helpless done;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The buds that bloom upon the desert heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lose all their sweetness when they’re forced to grow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All pleasure’s marred because it is not earned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And pain more painful since ’tis undeserved.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Man falling from his high estate, becomes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A brute with keener sensibilities;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Endowed with mind, upon whose plastic face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fate writes its batch of lies; poor man believes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And prates of moral agency, and cants<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of good <i>he</i> does, and evil that <i>he</i> shuns.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With blind content, he rests in false belief,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And happy thus escapes the mental rack&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The consciousness of what he really is.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And yet why false belief? The world believes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And acting, moves in general harmony;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could harmony from such an error flow?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would all believe, would not some one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have doubted by his works as well as faith?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The veriest skeptic walks the earth to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if he held the seal of freest will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shapes its course, and judges all mankind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By freedom’s rule.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Then may not that be true<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which most believe, and those who doubt profess<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In every act; as that which few believe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to which none conform?<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Two paths I see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One marked Free-Will, the other Fate. The first,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Extending far as human thought can reach,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through lovely meads with sweetest flowers, and fruits<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of actions clearly shown as right and wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because of choice ’twixt the two; of laws<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With sanction suiting agents who are free;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of courts acquitting the insane of crime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of crime made crime, alone, when done as crime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of judgment passed by public sentiment<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On action in the ratio of liberty.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Delightful view; but seek an entrance there&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The towering bars of unruled motive stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the path, and none can overleap.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The field of Fate lies open; nothing bars<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our progress there. A thousand different ways<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The path diverges. Every by-path leads<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To some foul pit or bottomless abyss.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along each side are strewed the whitening bones<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of venturous pilgrims, lost amid its snares,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some broken on the rocks of gross decree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who hold an unchanged destiny from birth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who will not take a medicine if sick,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who cant of “To be, will be,” and the time<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unalterably set to each man’s life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some stranded on the finer form of Fate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who say it works by means. Hence they believe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In using all preventives to disease,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In going boating in a rubber belt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In placing Franklin rods upon a house,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In preaching, and in praying men repent.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These, when one dies, cry out, “It was his time.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or if he should recover, “It was not.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their fate is always ex post facto fate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And knowing not the future, they abide<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The issue of events, and then confirm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their dogged dogmas.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Still another class,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though fewer far in numbers, perish here.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These are the sophists; men who deeply dive<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath the surface of effect, and trace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our actions to their source. They find that man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made in the glorious image of his God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is not an independent cause, but works<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From motive causes out of his control.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They find that every mental act must flow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From outside source, then fearlessly ascend<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The chain of being to a height divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And dare to fetter the Eternal mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And throw their bonds around Omnipotence.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As well a spider in an eagle’s nest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Might, from his hidden web among the twigs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Attempt to throw his little gluey thread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Around the mottled wing, whose muscled strength<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beats hurried vacuums in the ocean’s spray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or circling upward, parts the thunder-cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bursts above; and shaking off the mists,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With rigid feathers bright as burnished steel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Floats proudly through the tranquil air.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Which realm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall now be mine, Free-Will or Fate? The one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stands open wide, but all in ruin ends;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The other, fair if once within the pale;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But how to scale the barriers none can tell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bah! all is doubt. I’ll leave the mystic paths<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where, on each side, are ranged the phantom shapes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of disputants, alive and dead, who fight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With foolish zeal, o’er myths intangible;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When each one cries “Eureka!” for his creed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That scarcely lives a day, then yields its place.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Roman ’gainst a Roman, Greek to Greek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A zealous Omar with an Ali paired;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A saintly Pharisee in hot dispute<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Sadducees. Along th’ illustrious rows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of lesser lights, who advocate the creeds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of their respective masters, we descend<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To later days and see Titanic minds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Exert their giant strength to reach the truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, baffled, fall. Locke, ever elsewhere clear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here mystified Spinoza’s dizzy wing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O’erweighted by his strange “imperium;”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hobbes, with his new intrinsic liberty;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Belsham’s quaint reduction too absurd;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Sufficient reason,” reared in Leibnitz’s strength;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reid, Collins, Edwards, Tappan, Priestley, Clarke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All push each other from the door of Truth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">None ever have, nor ever will, on earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reach truth of theory concerning Fate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It stands as whole from every touch of man<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As ocean’s broad blue scroll, whose rubber waves<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Erase the furrows of the plowing keels.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then, careless whether man be king or slave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I’ll take his actions, whether free or not,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And trace them to their sources. Deep the dive,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, throwing off the buoys of Charity<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Faith, and all the prejudice of life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I grasp the lead of Doubt, and downward sink<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into the cesspool of the human heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To find the fount, that to the surface casts<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A thousand bubbles of such varied hues:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pale white bubble of hypocrisy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The murky bubble of revenge and hate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The frail gilt bubble of ambition’s hope,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rainbow bubble of sweet love in youth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dull slime bubble of a sensual lust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The crystal bubble of true charity!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Instead of analyzing every fact<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of moral nature, searching for its source,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I’ll name a source most probable, and try<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The facts upon it; if they fit, confirm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If not, reject. With Hobbes and Paley then<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I join; and here avow that all mankind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have but one source of action&mdash;Love of self&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet not self-love as understands the world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For that’s a name for error shown by few;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But natural instinct that impels all men<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To give self pleasure, and to save it pain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For pain and pleasure are Life’s only modes&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No neutral state&mdash;we suffer, or enjoy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And every action’s linked with one of these.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We cannot act without a consciousness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A consciousness of pleasure or of pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The very automatic workings of our frames<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are pleasures, unmarked from their constancy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But if impeded, they produce a pain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This instinct, teaching us to pleasure seek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And pain avoid, none ever disobey;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For be their conduct what it may, a crime<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or virtue, greed or pure benevolence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To find the greatest pleasure is their aim.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nay, start not, critic, but attend the proofs.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A man exists within himself alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Himself, or he would lose identity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To him the world exists but by effects<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon himself. His actions toward it then<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bear reference to himself. He cannot act<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without affecting self. His nature’s law<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Demands that self be dealt with pleasantly.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There is no pain or pleasure in the world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But as he feels th’ reality in self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or fancies it by signs in other men.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This fancied pain is never <i>real</i> pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But yields a <i>real</i> reflex. Others’ pain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is never pain to us, unless we know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It does exist. Within a hundred yards<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A neighbor dies, in agony intense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet we feel no slightest trace of pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unless informed thereof. ’Tis only when we know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And therefore are affected, that we feel.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The modes of pain and pleasure are then two,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A real and a fancied one. The first acute,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In ratio of our sensibilities;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The last in ratio of our image-power.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These gifts in different men unequal are,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hence life’s varied phases. One may deem<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A real pain far greater than a pain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In fancy formed, from others’ sufferings;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He eats alone, and drives the starving off.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Another’s fancy paints more vividly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he endures keen hunger to supply<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The poor with food. And so of pleasure too,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And this moves all to shun the greatest pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And find the greatest pleasure.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Different minds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And each at different times of life, possess<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A different standard of this highest good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The swaddled infant wails for its own food,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because its highest pleasure is alone in sense;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The child will from its playmate hide a cake<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until it learns that praise for sharing it<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gives greater pleasure than the sweetened taste;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One boy at school proves insubordinate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His schoolmates’ praise he deems his highest good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Another studies well, because he values more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A parent’s smile. The murderer with his knife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The maiden praying in her purity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The miser dying over hoards of gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The widow casting thither her two mites,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A white-veil bending o’er the dying couch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A stained beauty floating through the waltz,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The preacher’s zeal, the gambler’s eager zest;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All have one motive, greatest good to self!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The tender stop their ears, and cry aloud:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“What! do you dare assert the gambler seeks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With hellish zeal the faintest shade of good?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That he is holy as the Man of God?”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By no means, yet he seeks his good the same.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not good as you’ve been taught to apprehend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But good, the greatest to his frame of mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do not exclaim that good is always good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And never differs from itself. Anon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We’ll speak of abstract truths, if such there be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That good and pleasure are synonymous<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At times of action, is most surely plain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For pleasure’s but the consciousness of good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or satisfaction of our tendencies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If all the gambler’s soul is bent on gain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then at the moment gain is greatest good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But should you reason with him, and explain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Another life, and make it really seem<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To him the best, he straight would change his course.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“But,” cries my friend, “the preacher, if he’s true,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must labor, not for self, but others’ good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in proportion as the self’s forgot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And others cared for, does his conduct rise.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But he can not, if conscious, forget self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For everything he does is felt within;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But deeds for others’ good a pleasure give;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If done in pain to self, the pleasure’s more.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To gain the pleasure, self is put to pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just as a vesication brings relief.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If he refused to undergo the pain<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remorse would double it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Among his flock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some one is sick; to visit him is right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And done, affords a pleasure. Sweeter far<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That pleasure, if he walks through snow and ice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At duty’s call!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">Sublime self-sacrifice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of which men prate, is nothing more nor less<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than base self-worship. Little pain endured<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">T’ avoid a great; a smaller pleasure lost<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To gain a larger!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">All the preacher’s words,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That burn or die upon the stolid ear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are spoken from this motive, good to self.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You stare; but it is true. Why does he preach?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To save men’s souls?&mdash;Why does he try to save?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because he loves his fellow-men? Not so.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His love for them but to the pleasure adds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which duty done confers; but all his work<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must be with reference to himself alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though cunning self the real motive hides,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And leaves his broad philanthropy and love<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To claim the merit. Let a score of men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The blackest sinners, die. He knows it not,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And feels no pang; but if he is informed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He suffers reflex pain. And if his charge,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remorseful tortures for unfaithfulness.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And only is the state of souls to him<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of interest, as they are known. When known,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It is a source of pleasure or of pain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which all his labor is to gain or shun.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“This difference then,” says one, “between men’s lives;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some live for present, some for future good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sensual care for self on earth alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mystic cares for self beyond the grave.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Both love a present self, in present time.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They differ in their notions of its good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stern ascetic, with his shirt of hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His bleeding penitential knees, his fasts<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To almost death, his soul-exhausting prayers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is seeking, cries the world, good after death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet his course of life is that alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which could yield pleasure in his state of mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He suffers, it is true, but hope of Heaven<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus rendered sure, as much a present good<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is, as the food that feasts the epicure.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The contemplation of his future home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which he is thus securing, is a balm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That heals his stripes, and sweetens all their pain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The penance blows upon his blood-wealed breast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are bliss compared to lashes of remorse.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So for the greater good, the hope of Heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He undergoes “the trivial pain of flesh.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The epicure cares not a fig for Heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But finds his greatest good in pleasing sense.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so the man who gives his wealth away<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is just as selfish as the money-slave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who grinds out life amid his dusty bags.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They both seek happiness with equal zest:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The one finds pleasure in the many thanks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of those receiving, or the public’s praise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or if concealed, in consciousness of right;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The other in the consciousness of wealth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If all men act from motives just the same,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where is the right and wrong? In the effect?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The quality of actions must be judged<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From their intent, and not their consequence.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If two men matches light for their cigars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And from one careless dropped, a house is burned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is he that dropped it guiltier of crime<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than he whose match went out? Most surely no!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then is the miser blameless, though he turn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The helpless orphan freezing from his door;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Dives should not be commended more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though all his goods to feed the poor he gives.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How then shall we determine quality<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of actions, when their sources are the same,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And their effects possess no quality?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two dead men lie in blood beside the way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The one shot by a friend, an accident;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The other murdered for his gold. ’Tis plain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No wrong lies in th’ effects, for both are ’like;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And of the agents, he of accident<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had no intent, and therefore did no wrong.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The other killed to satisfy the self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A motive founding all the Christian work,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And right if that is right. The wrong<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then lies between the motive and effect,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And must exist in the effecting means.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet how within the means is wrong proved wrong?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jouffroy would say, because a disregard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of others’ rights; for here he places good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When classifying Nature’s moral facts.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He makes the child first serve flesh self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then moral self, and last to others’ good<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ascend, and general order. What a myth!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if man thought of others, save effect<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From them upon himself. But order gives<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A greater good to self; therefore he joins<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His strength to others, creates laws that bind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Himself and them, and produce harmony.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He thus surrenders minor good of self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To gain a greater. This is all the need<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He has of order, though Jouffroy asserts<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That order universal is the Good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet still he says that private good of each<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is but a fragment of the absolute,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And that regard for every being’s rights<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is binding as the universal law!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Regard for others’ rights indeed, when men<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unharmed agree to hang a man for crime!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not for the crime&mdash;that’s past; but to prevent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A second crime, which crime alone exists<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In apprehensive fancy. Thus for wrong<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That’s but forethought, they do a real wrong.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To save their rights from harm they fear may come.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They strip a fellow-man of actual right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And highest, right of life; then dare to call<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their action pure, divinely just, and good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the farce of empty names.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">They make<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of gross injustice individual,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A flimsy justice, for mankind at large,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cry, Let it be done, though Heaven fall!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if a whole could differ from its parts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or right be made from wrong. Yet some may say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That one is sacrificed for many’s good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or hung that many may avoid his fate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And that his crime deserved what he received.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But law must value every man alike,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cannot save one man, or thousand men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From future evil, only possible,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By greatest evil to another man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In its own view of justice. Nor can crime<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Meet punishment, at mortal hands, by right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For murder’s murder, done by one or twelve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And legal murder’s done in colder blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose stains are chalked by vain authority.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Authority! the child of numbers and self-love!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Regard for rights of things, indeed, when beasts<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And birds must yield their right of life that man<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May please his right of taste. When, during Lent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The holy-days of fasting and of prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The scaly victims crowd the Bishop’s board,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their flesh unfleshed by Conscience’ pliant rule,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our palates must be for a moment pleased,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though costing something agonies of death;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And worse than robbers, what we cannot give,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We dare to take.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">They have no souls, say you?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor after death exist?<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">That nothing’s lost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Philosophy maintains as axiom truth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An object disappears, but somewhere lives<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In other form. The water-pool to mist<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is changed, the powder into flame and smoke.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My pointer dies, his body, decomposed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The air, the soil, and vegetation feeds;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet still exists, although disintegrate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For there was something, while the pointer lived,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That was not body, but that governed it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A spirit, essence, call it what you will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A something seen but through phenomena,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And by them proved most clearly to exist.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A something, not the feet that made them run,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A something, not the eyes, but knew they saw,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A something, without which the eyes could see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As much as glasses can without the eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The something, “Carlo” named, that knew the name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pointer dies, and we dissect the flesh.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All there, none missing, to the tiniest nerve;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet something’s gone, the more important part,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And can you say that it has ceased to be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When th’ flesh, inferior to it, still exists?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The spirit, if existent, must be whole,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor can be parted till material proven.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Carlo lives, seems plain as I shall live;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He lived for self, and so did I; we fare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alike in after-life, we differ here<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In consciousness of immortality.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I digress.<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">Where is the right and wrong?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This is the Gordian knot no sword can cut,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All sages of the world, with wisdom-teeth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have gnawed this file without the least effect.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thousand savants of old Greece and Rome<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Proclaimed a thousand theories of good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That each, successive, proud devoid of truth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A myriad moderns have advanced their views,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each gained a few disciples, who avowed their truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And each, by some one else, been proven wrong.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Bentham marches out utility,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A moral test from benefit or harm.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if the good depended on effect,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And good would not be good, though universe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In all its phases found no use! And Price<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Parades his “reason,” with its simple good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who’d rather give the question up, than err,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so declares it cannot be defined.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Wollaston declares that good is truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which no one doubts, far as it goes; it goes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Toward good, as far as truth, its attribute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond, it cannot reach. And Montesquieu<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Clarke, relation’s order preach; a rule<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That makes the growing grain, or falling shower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A moral agent, capable of good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Wolf and Malebranche perfection see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And therefore good, in God; but their sight fails,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And God may mirror good, but man’s weak eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne’er see it. Adam Smith, with “sentiment”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Proceeds to dress a thought, and call it, good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And makes the abstract of a Universe<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arise from puling human sympathy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The largest concourse follow Hutcheson,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Although the greater part ne’er heard of him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The world at large believes in moral sense;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They call it conscience! Oh the precious word!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though stretched and warped, they almost deify,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And term it man’s tribunal in his breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where he may judge his actions, right or wrong.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What nonsense! Conscience is but consciousness<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of soul, and idea of its good. We form<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This idea from regard of fellow-men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Association, and from thought. We find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sometimes the good of soul conflicts with flesh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when we know the soul above the flesh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We yield to that the preference. Hence arise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The foolish notions of self disregard.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The savage does not know he has a soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And therefore has no conscience. He can steal<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without remorse. But when he learns of soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He finds it has a good, and by this test<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tries moral actions, are they good for soul?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And this is conscience.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Yet is conscience changed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By circumstance. The Hindoo mother tears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The helpless infant from her trickling breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To feed the crocodile, and save her soul;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She’s happier in its conscience-murdered wail<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than in its gleeful prattle on her knee.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And daily we see one commit a deed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without a pang, another dare not do.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If conscience may be warped but one degree<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By plain Sorites, it may be reversed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And only prove an interested thought.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To abstract good no man has found the key,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though in the various forms of concrete good<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We see the similars, and from these frame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A good that serves the purposes of life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We pass it as we do the concept, “Man,”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But never ope to count the attributes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our purest right is but approximate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To this vague abstract idea, how obtained,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We know not. Plato says ’tis memory<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of previous life. Perhaps! ’Tis very dim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In this; and yet it rocks the cradle world<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As strongly as the baby man can bear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so of truth, or aught abstract, we know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of such existence somewhere, that is all.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“But we,” cries one, “do hold some abstract truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In perfect form. The truth of science’ laws,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The truths of numbers, each are perfect truths.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The truths of science are hypotheses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And only true as far as they explain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But perfect truth must save all facts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ever rose or possibly can rise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“The priest of Nature” thought he held the truth<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When throughout space he tracked the motes of light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ground the sunbeams into dazzling dust.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our quivering waves through subtle ether flash,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And drown Sir Isaac’s atoms in a flood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of glorious truth; till some new fact shall rise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To give our truth the lie, and cause a change<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of theory.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Our numbers no truth have,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or but a shadow, cast on Earth by truth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Existent in some unknown world. We make<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our little numbers fit the shadow’s line<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As best they can, and boast eternal truth!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet take a simple form of numbers, “two,”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We cannot have a perfect thought of this,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because the mind directly asks, two what?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Tis not enough chameleon to feed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On empty air. Two units, we reply<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then what is meant by unity? An “One,”&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mind can only cognize o-n-e,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which makes three units and not one.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">The mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must have a concrete object to adjust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The abstract on, before it comprehends.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But two concretes are never two, because<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They never can be proved exactly ’like.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To illustrate: suppose two ivory balls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of finest mold, and equal weight, precise<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As hair-hung scales, arranged most delicate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can prove; yet they can not be shown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To differ, not the trillionth of a grain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or if they could, they may in density<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be unlike; then to equal weight, one must<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be larger by the trillionth of an inch.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even if alike in density and weight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No one will dare assert that they possess<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A perfect similarity in all.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The abstract two is twice as much as one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But our two balls unlike, perforce must be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Greater or less than two of either one;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But two of one, the same can never be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On poor, imperfect Earth. Thus all our twos<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fall, in some measure, short of concept two.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if we paint the concept to the eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The figure 2 of finest stereotype,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath the microscope imperfect shows.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so our perfect numbers, wisdom’s boast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are faint, uncertain shadows in the mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That we can never picture to the eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor truthfully apply to anything.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We use a ragged, ill-drawn substitute,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That answers all the purposes of life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The truths of mathematics, so sublime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are never true to us, concretely known;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in the abstract so concealed are they,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No man can swear he has their perfect form.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We can’t conceive a line without some breadth&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The perfect line possesses length alone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth never saw a pure right-angle drawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pythag’ras cannot prove his theorem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The finest quadrant is but nearest truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The closest measures but approximate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all from Sanconiathon to Pierce,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With grandest soaring into Number’s realms,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have only fluttered feebly o’er the ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their heaven-strong wings by feebling matter tied.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Man is a pris’ner, but the prison walls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are very vast; so vast the universe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lies, like a mote, within their mighty scope.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Most are content to grovel on the earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some rise a little way, and sink again;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And some, on noble wing, soar to the bounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And eager beat the bars. Beyond these walls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The abstract lies, and oft the straggling rays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through crevices and chinks, stray to our jail;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And these we fondly hug as truth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Poor man!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The glimpses of the great Beyond have roused,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For centuries, his curious soul to flight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With eagle eye fixed on the distant goal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He cleaves his way, till dashed against the walls;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some fall with bruiséd wing again to Earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And some cling bravely there, so eager they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To reach the untouched prize, and so intent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their gaze upon its light, they notice not<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bounds, till Hamilton, with wary eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Discovers the Eternal bounding line,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sadly shows its hopeless fixity.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But man on Earth I love to ridicule,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A little clod of sordid selfishness!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I’ll take his mental acts of every kind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And see how self originates them all;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I’ll follow Stewart, since he classifies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With shrewd discretion, though his reasoning err,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He places first the appetites; and these<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perforce are selfish, as our self alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must feel and suffer with our wants. Our food<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tastes good alone to us. The richest feast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In others’ mouths, could never satisfy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our appetite for food; self must be fed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Desires are next; and that of knowledge, first,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is proven selfish, by his quoted line<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Cicero&mdash;that “knowledge is the food<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of mind”&mdash;and food is ever sought for self.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Desire of social intercourse with men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From thought that it will better self, proceeds.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man’s state is friendly, not a state of war,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For instinct teaches him society<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will offer many benefits to self;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And only when he has a cause to fear<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That self will suffer, does he learn to war.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Desire to gain esteem, is self in search<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of approbation; like the appetite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The end pursued affects alone the self.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lastly Stewart boasts posthumous fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When self, as sacrificed, can seek no good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To prove the motive is a selfish good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I’ll not assert enjoyment after life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But say, the pleasure of the millions’ praise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Anticipated in the present thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And intense consciousness of heroism,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Far more than compensates the pangs of death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Curtius leaping down the dread abyss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enjoys his fame enough, before he strikes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To pay for every pain of mangling death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Affections next adorn the moral page.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At that of kindred, mothers cry aloud:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“For shame! for shame! do you pretend to say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I love my child with any thought of self?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I would lay my arm upon the block,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And have it severed for his slightest good!”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I’ll square your love by Reason’s rigid rule,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And test its source. Why do you love him so?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For benefit he has conferred, or may?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No, as the helpless babe, demanding care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You love him most. Your love is instinct then,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And like the cow her calf, you love your child;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That you may care for him, before self moves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then do you love him always just the same,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When rude and bad as when obedient?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I’ll dissect your love, and take away<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each part affecting self; and see what’s left.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He now has grown beyond your instinct love;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You love him, first, because he is your son,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And you would suffer blame, if you did not;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You love him, too, because he does reflect<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A credit on yourself. You feel assured<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That others thinking well of him, think well<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of you. Because it flatters all your pride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To think so fine a life is part of yours;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because his high opinion of your worth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Evokes a meet return; because you look<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into the future, and see honors bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Awaiting you through him; because you feel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The world is praising you for loving him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And would condemn you, did you not. And last,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You feel the pleasure deep of self-esteem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because you fill the public’s and your own<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Romantic ideas of a mother’s love.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Let each component part be now destroyed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And see if still you love him. As a man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He plunges into vice of vilest kinds;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His bright reflections on yourself are gone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And people think the worse of you, for him;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You never smile, but frown, upon him now,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But still you love him dearly! To his vice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He adds a crime, a foul and blasting crime;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your pride is gone, you feel a bitter shame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A score of opposites to love creep in;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A righteous anger at his foolish sins,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A just contempt for nature, weak as his;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But yet you love him fondly, for the world<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is lauding you for “mother’s holy love”;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And you delight its clinging strength to show,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You gain in public credit by your woes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And get the soothing martyr’s sympathy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But let him still grow worse, and sink so low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That people say you are disgraced through him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your warmest friends will not acquaintance own,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your love for such an object’s ridiculed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gains respect from none. Your only chance<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is to disown him. How you loud proclaim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“He’s not my child but by the accident<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of birth!”<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Do yet you love him in your heart?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This then because you think yourself so good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So heaven-like, for loving him disgraced,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You go to see him in the shameful jail;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He spits upon, and beats you from his cell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tells you that he hates your very name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now all your love is gone, except the glow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of pity for him chained to dungeon floor;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he’s released, and deeper goes in crime;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, lastly, Pity yields. Your heart is stone!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But love was only touched in selfish part,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet should you still deny your love is self’s;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of several children, do you not love most<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The one whose conduct pleases most yourself?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But love, unselfish, never could be moved<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By anything affecting self alone.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The throbbing hearts of lovers beat for self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And this I’ll prove, though Pyramus may vow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He has no thought but Thisbe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Take away<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love’s sensual part, which is an appetite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And therefore selfish, by its Nature’s law;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And what remains is, first, a slight conceit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At our discernment in the choice we’ve made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then a pride that we have won the prize;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A pride, that some one thinks we are the best;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A pleasure in her presence, too, we feel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because in every look she manifests<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her preference for us. This is flattering<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond all else that we have ever known.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A friend may raise our self-esteem, indeed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By showing constantly his own esteem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But never can man’s vanity receive<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A higher tribute than a woman’s love!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This tribute, we, of course, reciprocate,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when together, we increase self-love<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By mutual words expressing our regard.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet when our love is deepest, if we find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our Self is not so worshipped as we thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our love grows cold; and when we are not loved<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We cease to love. To illustrate permit:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You’re on the topmost wave of fervid love&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wilder flame than poets ever sung;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You’ve passed the timid declaration’s bounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And revel in a full assured return.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no need for check upon your heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It has full leave to pour its gushing tide<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of feeling forth, and meet responsive floods.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You meet her in the parlor’s solitude,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No meddling eye to watch the sacred scene.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The purple curtains hang their corded folds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the tell-tale windows; closed the door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sealed with softest list. The rich divan<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is drawn before the ruddy grate that glows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With red between the bars, and blue above.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You sit beside The Angel of your dreams,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gaze in adoration. What a form!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Revealed in faultless symmetry by robes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of rare, exquisite elegance, and taste,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That fit the tap’ring waist and arching neck.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And how superbly flow the torrents of her hair!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which she has shaken loose, because “it’s you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span>”;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her great brown eyes that gaze so dreamily<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the flowers of the vellum-screen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That wards the fire from her tinted cheek!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One hollow foot, in dainty, bronze bootee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tapping the tufted lion on the rug;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A snowy hand with blazing solitaire&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pledge of your betrothal&mdash;nestling soft<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Within your own.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">And thus you sit, and breathe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With tones so soft, because the ear’s so near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mutual confidence of little cares;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And how you longed for months to tell your love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But feared a cold rebuke; and how you dared<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To hope through all the gloom; and how you grieved<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At every favor shown to other men;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How now the clouds have flown away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all is brightness, joy, and tender love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then drawing nearer, round the slender waist<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You pass an arm; and nestling cheek to cheek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Palm throbbing palm, you hush all useless words,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thought meets thought, in silent love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now and then, you leave the cheek, to kiss<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The coral lips; yet not with transient touch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But with a fervid, lingering pressure there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if you longed to force the lips apart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And drink the soul; while both her melting orbs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are drooped beneath your burning inch-near eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The parting hour must come. The good-night said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You rise to leave; and turning, at the door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You see her head drooped on the sofa’s arm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You fancy she is sighing that you’re gone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stealing back on tiptoe, gently raise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The beauteous face, and take it ’twixt your palms;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gazing on the features radiant,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Distorted queerly by your pressing hands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You feel that life, the parting cannot bear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That you must stay forever there, or die!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Another effort, one more nectar sip,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You rush from out the room, and slam the door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just on the steps, you meet your rival’s face.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He has an easy confidence, and walks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into the house, as if it were his own.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Poor fellow! how you really pity him!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You can afford to be magnanimous,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And deprecate his certain, cruel fate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You murmur: “Well, he brings it on himself,”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And turn to go. The window’s near the ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And slightly raised. Although you know it’s mean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You cannot now resist, but creep up near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with a finger part the curtain’s fringe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You see your darling run across the room<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With both extended hands, and hear her say:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Oh Fred! I am so very glad you’ve come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I feared that stupid thing would never leave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I had to let him take my hand awhile,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mumble over it, to get him off.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You grasp the iron railing for support,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, faint and dizzy with the agony<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of love’s departure, cling till all has fled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then stagger home without a trace of love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet only Self is touched; her beauty’s there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her sparkling wit, and her intelligence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her manner even, towards you, has not changed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, were you with her, she would be the same.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love’s every motive disappeared with Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No pride of conquest, no romance of thought;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You meet no sympathy, but ridicule!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A mother’s love may last through injury,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because it reaps the self’s reward of praise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For constancy, through wrong. The lover’s flame.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unless supplied with fuel-self, dies out,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For, burning, ’twould deserve supreme contempt.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The less affairs of life are traced to Self.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The code of Etiquette, that Chesterfield<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Defines “Benevolence in little things,”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is but a scheme to give Self consciousness<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of excellence in breeding, and to keep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Our Circle” sep’rate by its shibboleth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stately bow, the graceful sip of wine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The useless little finger’s dainty crook<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In lifting up the fragile Sevres cup,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The holding of the hat in morning calls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The touch of it when passing through the streets,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The drawing of a glove, the use of cane&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our every act is coupled with the thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How well Self does all this.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">Our very words<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are used to gratify the self. Men talk<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By preference, for they judge their words<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will gain them more applause than listening.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But if attention yields more fruit to Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How patiently they hear the longest tale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And laugh in glee at its insipid close!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If with superiors, we attend, because<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Attention pleases more with them than words;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But if inferiors, we must talk the most,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since their attention flatters us so much.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cause of converse, Self, is oftenest food.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How few the talks that are not spiced with “I,”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What “I” can do, or did or will!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">Sometimes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Self is held, on purpose, up for jest;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As when men tell a joke upon themselves.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But here the shame of conduct or mishap<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is more than balanced by the hearty laugh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which gives its pleasant witness to our wit.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We never tell what will present ourselves<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In such an aspect laughter cannot heal;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Although it compliments our telling powers.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Attentions to the fair, but seek for Self<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their smiles of favor. Little deeds of love<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To those around us, look for their reward.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The youth polite, who gives his chair to Age,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Without a thought of Self,” is yet provoked,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If Age do not evince, by nod or smile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His obligation to that unthought Self.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The very qualities we call innate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arise and rule through Self. Our reverence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or tendency to worship, is to gain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A good. Religion grows this tendency<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into the various Churches, all whose ends<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are to secure eternal good for Self.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And those who preach that man does sacrifice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Himself for fellow-men, I ask, why none<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will give his soul for others’? Many give<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The paltry life on Earth for others’ good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The very stones would cry “O! fool!” to him<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who’d yield his soul; for that is highest Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And nothing e’er can compensate its loss.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In all these things, Self stands behind the scenes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And men see not the force that moves them on.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in the boudoir, ’tis enthroned supreme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And does not care to hide the cloven foot.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In every home, the marble and the log,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In mammoth trunks, and chests of simple pine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In rosewood cases, and the pasteboard box,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are crammed the slaves of Self, to poor and rich,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The clothes that, fine or common, feed its pride.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The velvets, satins, silken <i>robes de flamme</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The worsted, calico, and homespun stripe;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Guipure, Valenciennes, and Appliqué,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gimp, galloon, and shallow bias frill;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Talmas, Arabs, basques and paletots,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The coarse plaid shawl, the hood, and woollen scarf;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The chignons, chatelaines, and plaited braids,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The beaded net, and tight-screwed knot of hair;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dazzling jewels, ranged in season sets,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pinchbeck, gilt, and waxen trinketry;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tinted boots, half-way the silken hose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The shoes that tie o’er cotton blue-and-white;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The corset laced to hasten ready Death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The leather belt, that cuts the broad, thick waist;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bosom heaving only waves of wire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bosom, cotton stuffed, beyond all shape;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The belladonna sparkling in the eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The finger tip, and water without soap;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rouge and carmine for the city cheeks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The berries’ ruddy juice for rural ones;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pearly powder, with its poisoned dust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cup of flour to ghastlify the face;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All these, and thousand fixtures none can count,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man’s vanity, and woman’s love of show,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Appropriate for Self.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">And such is Man!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The puzzle of the Universe! Within,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A giant to himself; without, a babe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A giant that we cannot but despise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A babe we must admire for his power.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His mind, Promethean spark divine, can pierce<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The shadowy Past, and gaze in rapturous awe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the birth of worlds, that from the Mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eternal spring to blazing entities,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And whirl their radiant orbs through cooling space;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or place the earth beneath its curious ken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with an “Open Sesame!” descend<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into its rocky chambers, there unfold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stone archives, and read their graven truths&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth’s history written by itself therein&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How age by age, a globe of liquid fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It dimmer grew, and dark and stiff,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And drying, took a rough, uneven face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Above the wave, the mountain’s smoking top<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Appeared, beneath it gaped the valley’s gorge;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But smoking still, it stood a gloomy globe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Naked and without life. And how the trees<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And herbs their robes of foliage brought; their form<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And life adapted to their heated bed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And how a stream of animation poured<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon its face, when ready to sustain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great beasts who trod the cindered soil unscathed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tramped the fervid plains with unscorched soles.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great fish whose hardened fins hot waters churned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That steamed at every stroke. How periods passed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fields and forests teemed with gentler life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The waters wound in rivers to the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then spread their vap’ry wings and fled to land.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The oceans tossed in bondage patiently;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Volcanic mountains closed their festering mouths,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Earth made ready for her master, Man.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It traces Man, expelled from Paradise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along the winding track of centuries.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It marks his slow development, from two,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To families, and tribes, and nations vast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It gazes on the wondrous scenes of war,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And peace, and battle plain, and civic game;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lives through each, with all of real life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Except the body’s presence there. It turns<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From man to beasts and birds, and careless strokes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lion’s mane, the humbird’s scarlet throat.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It tracks the mammoth to his jungle home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or creeps within the infusoria’s cell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It measures Earth from pole to pole, or weighs<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bit of brass, that lights the battery spark.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is Earth too small, it plumes its flight through space;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From world to world, as bird from twig to twig,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It flies, and furls its wing upon their discs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To tell their weight, and giant size, or breathe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their very air to find its gaseous parts.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now bathing in pale Saturn’s misty rings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or chasing all the moons of Jupiter<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Behind his darkened cone. The glorious sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With dazzling vapor robe, and seas of fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose cyclones dart the forkèd flames far out,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lap so hungrily amid the stars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is but its playhouse, where it rides the storms,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That sweep vast trenches through the surging fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In which the little Earth could roll unseen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or bolder still, beyond our system’s bounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It soars amid the wilderness of worlds;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Finds one condemned to meet a doom of fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And makes its very flames inscribe their names,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In dusky lines, upon the spectroscope.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With shuddering thought to see a world consumed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fate prepared for ours, it lingers there<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until the lurid conflagration dies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then seeks Earth, and leaves the laggard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To plod its journey vast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">The smallest mote<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of dust that settles on an insect’s wing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It can dissect to atoms ultimate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With these, too small for sight, may Fancy deal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And revel in her Lilliputian realm.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These atoms forming all, by Boscovitch<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are proved, in everything, to be alike;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ultimate, since indivisible.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each in its place maintained by innate force<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And relatively far from each, as Earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Sun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Suppose, then, each to be a world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Peopled with busy life, a human flood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As earnest in their little plans as we,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As grand in their opinion of themselves!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! what a depth of contrast for the mind!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The finest grain of sand, upon the beach,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has in its form a million perfect worlds!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or take the other scale, suppose the Earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our great and glorious Earth, to only form<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The millionth atom of some grain of sand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That shines unnoticed on an ocean’s shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose waves wash o’er our whirling stars and sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Too insignificant to feel their surge.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Another step on either side, and mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In flesh, shrinks from the giant grasp.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet noble are its pinions, strong their flight;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thrice, only, do they droop their baffled strength,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the Future, Infinite, Abstract!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The first is locked, the second out of reach,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The third a maze that none can penetrate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The first, alone to inspiration opes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The second dashed to Earth her boldest wing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spinoza’s, who essayed the idea God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And grappling bravely with the grand concept,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So far above the utmost strength of Man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Placed God’s existence in extent and thought;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And filled all space with God. The Universe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A bud or bloom of the Eternal Mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That opens like a flower into this form,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And may retract Creation in Itself!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alas! that effort so sublime should end<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In mystery and doubt.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">A Universe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How vast so ever, has its bounds somewhere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Space possesses none, and God in Space,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would be so far beyond Creation’s speck,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He scarce would know it did exist. That part<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Mind, expressed in matter, would be lost<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amid the Infinite domains of thought.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet Man in flesh, the casket of the mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose wondrous power I’ve told, is ever chained,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A grovelling worm, to Earth, and never leaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sod where he must lie. No time is his<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But present; not a mem’ry of the past.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His very food, while in his mouth, alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tastes good. He stands a dummy in the world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That only acts when acted on. How great<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mystery of union ’tween the two!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A feather touches not the body, but the mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perceives it; yet the mind may live through scenes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The body never knew, nor can. Yet not<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With vivid life&mdash;the sense is lacking there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The memory of a banquet may be plain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So that the daintest dish could be described,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As well as if the eye and tongue were there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The eye and tongue, alone the present know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And find no good in anything that’s past.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All thought is folly, every path is dark;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Truth gleaming fairly in the distant haze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On near approach becomes the blackest lie.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man and his soul may go, nor will I fret<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To learn their mystic bonds. A worm I am,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And worm I must remain, till Death shall burst<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The chrysalis, and free the web-wound wings.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, oh! ’twere grand to spurn the clogging Earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cleave the air towards yonder looming cloud;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To stand upon its red-bound crest and dare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The storm-king’s wildest wrath.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">My thoughts<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grew dull, my eyelids slowly closed, the scene<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Became confused and melted into sleep.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And far up in the blue, as yet untouched<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By clouds, I saw a white descending speck.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Methought ’twas but a feather from the breast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of some migrating swan, that Earthward fell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And watched to see it caught upon the wind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sail a tiny kite to fairy land.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But circling down, the speck became a dove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A heron, then a swan, and larger still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till I could mark a pair of great white wings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Between which hung its wondrous form. Still down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It swept, till scarce above the trees it stood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Resting on quivering wings, as if it sought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A place to ’light. I saw then what it was,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A steed of matchless beauty, agile grace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Combined with muscled strength; but ere I drew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The first long breath, that follows such surprise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It gently downward swooped, and at my feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With dainty hoof, the turf impatient pawed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enrapt, I gazed upon its beauteous form,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its sculptured head, and countenance benign,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The soft sad eyes, the arrow-pointed ears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The scarlet nostrils opening like two flowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sinewed neck, curved like a swimming swan’s,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The splendid mane, a cataract of milk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That poured its foaming torrents half to Earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tap’ring limbs, tipped with pink-hued hoofs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That touched our soil with a proud disdain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dazzling satin coat, and netting veins,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And last the glorious wings, whose feathers lapped<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like scales of creamy gold. What seemed a cloth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of woven snow, with richest silver fringe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Draped with its gorgeous folds the shining flanks.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It was perfection’s type, the absolute,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not one defect; the tiniest hair was smooth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The smallest feather’s edge unfrayed. The eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without the slightest bloodshot fleck, or mote.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No fault the microscope could have revealed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though magnifying many million times.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So great my wonder, that I could not move,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But lay entranced, while he stood waiting there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till wearied with my long delay, he raised<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His wings half-way, and eager trembled them,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As bluebirds do when near their mate; a neigh<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of trumpet tone aroused me. Then I sprang<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon his back, and wildly shouted “On!”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A spring with gathered feet, a clash of wings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That made me cling in terror, and we swept<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Earth into the air. Woods, plains, and streams<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flashed by beneath, as, up and on, we charged<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Straight to the frowning cloud.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">My very brain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reeled with our lightning speed, and dizzy height,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And oh! how silent was the air. No sound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Except the steady beat of fanning wings,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That hurled us on a rod at every stroke.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bellowing winds were loosed and fiercely met<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our flight. They tossed the broad white mane across<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My shrinking shoulders, like a scarf of silk;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They blew the strong-quilled feathers all awry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And like a banner beat the silvered cloth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But swerving not to right or left, we pressed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Straight onward to the goal.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">At last I reined<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My steed upon the shaggy ridge of clouds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And caracoled along the beetling cliffs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up to the very summit. Then I paused.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Behind me lay the world with all its hum<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of life, the distant city’s veil of smoke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The village gleaming white amid the trees;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The very orchard I had left, now seemed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A downy nest of green, and far away<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I caught the shimmer of the sea, where sails,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With glidings, glittered like the snowy gulls.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Behind all was serene, before me seethed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The caldron of the tempest’s wrath.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Thick clouds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thrice tenfold blacker than the black outside<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We see, deep in the crackling fire-crypts writhed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And boiling rose and fell. A deafening blast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Roaring its thunder voice above the scene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if the fiends of Hell concocted there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The scalding beverage of the damned.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">My horse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had snuffed the fumes, and rearing on the brink,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That fearful brink, an instant pawed the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then sprang off. A suffocating plunge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through heat and blinding smoke, while to his neck<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Convulsively I clung! Down through the cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until I gasped for breath, and felt my brain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was bursting with the fervid weight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">He stopped<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before a large pavilion, round whose walls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As faithful guard, a whirlwind fierce revolved,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And at whose folded door, with dazzling blade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lightning stood a sentinel. My steed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was passport, and I passed within, but stopped<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the threshold, dumb with awe. The walls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seemed blazing mirrors, whose bright polished sides<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Threw back in flaming lineaments” the form<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of every object there,&mdash;a trembling wretch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With pallid countenance, shown ghastly red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon a horse of War’s own direful hue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I saw reflected there. The floor seemed made<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of tesselated froth, whose bubbles burst,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With constant hissing, into rainbow sparks;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While like the sulph’rous canopy, that drapes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At evening’s close, a gory battle-field,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The roof of crimson vapor drooped and rose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With every breath and every slightest sound.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in the center of the glowing room,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon a sapphire throne an Angel sat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon whose brow Rebuke and Wisdom met.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He gazed upon me with such pitying look,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet withal so stern, that all my pride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was gone, and humble as a conquered child,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I ran with trembling haste and near the throne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kneeled down.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">“Vain man,” he said, “and hast thou dared<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To doubt the providence of God; Behold!”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, lo! one side of the pavilion rose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And out before me lay Immensity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The frothy floor, now crumbling from the edge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dissolved away close to my very feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The walls contracted their three sides in one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I, beside a throne I dared not grasp,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stood on a narrow ledge of fragile foam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That clicked its thousand little globes of air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With every motion of my feet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Far down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Below, the black abyss of chaos yawned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So vast, I gasped while gazing, and so deep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Sun’s swift arrowy rays flash down for years,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And scarcely reach the dark confines, or fade<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amid the impenetrable gloom. Methought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Twas Hell’s wide jaws, that opened underneath<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Universe, to catch as crumbs the worlds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Condemned, and shaken from their orbit’s track.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And long I looked into the vast black throat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To trace the murky glow of hidden fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or catch the distant roar. But all was still;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No murmur broke the silence of its gloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No faintest glimmer told of lurking light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No smoky volumes curdled in its depths;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As dark as Egypt’s plague, serenely calm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Defying light, the empty hall of Space,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where twinkled not a star nor blazed a sun.&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A grand eternal night!<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">I shuddering turned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With freezing blood to think of falling there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stretched a palsied hand to touch the throne.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Angel’s eye was sterner, as he waved<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Towards my steed, who seemed of marble carved.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wings unfolded, and he leaped in air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beating from off the ledge the flakes of foam<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That sank, with airy spirals, out of sight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With slanting flight across the gulf he sheared;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moveless wings were not extended straight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But stood, at graceful angle, o’er his back,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As, swifter than a swooping kite, he flashed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Adown the gloom. His flowing mane broad borne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out level, like another wing; his feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With slow ellipses moving alternate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if he trod an unseen path. ’Twas grand<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To see his graceful form, more snowy white<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against the black relief, sublimely float<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across the dark profound, and down its depths,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pass from my view. As when an Eagle soars<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond our vision in the azure sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We wonder what he sees, or whither flies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So I stood wondering if he would return,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And what his destination down th’ abyss.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Above, around, all was infinitude<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of light and harmony. The worlds moved on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In mazy multitude, without a jar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Star circling planet, planet sun, and suns<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In systems, farther yet and farther still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till multiplying millions mingled formed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A sheet of milky hue. And far beyond<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The last pale star, appeared a dazzling spot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That flamed with brightness so ineffable<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The eye shrank ’neath its gleam. And from its light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Athwart the endless realms of space, there streamed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A radiance that illumed the Universe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And down across the chasm of Chaos flung<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wavering band of purple and of gold.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in that distant spot my ’wildered eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Traced out the figure of a Great White Throne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round which, in grand and solemn majesty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Slow swept Creation’s boundless macrocosm.&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I felt too insignificant to pray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But mutely waited for the Angel’s words.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He spoke not, but the curtains closer drew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And left a narrow opening in front.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then with a speed the lightning ne’er attained,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our cloud pavilion swiftly whirled through space.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A seed that would have slain me with its haste,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had not the Angel been so near.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">As on the cars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We dash through towns, and mark the hurrying lights,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or shudder at an engine rattling by;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So through our door, I marked the countless worlds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In clustering systems, chained by gravity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flash by an endless course. A second’s time<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sufficed to pass our little group of stars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That waltz about our Sun, as if it lit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The very Universe. Then systems came,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round which our system moves, and these<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round others, till the series grew so vast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I shrank from looking. Great Alcyone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our telescopic giantess, a babe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amid the monsters of the starry tribe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The last familiar face in Heaven’s throng,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blazed by the door; an instant, out of sight!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And after all that we have known or named<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Earth were far behind, the millions came<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In endless multitude; and on we swept,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till worlds became a dull monotony,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the wonders of the Heavens were shown.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A planet wheels its huge proportions past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its pimpled face with red volcanoes thick,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, with our speed, seem girdling bands of light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Sun, whose flame would fade our yellow spark,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Roars out a moment at our narrow door<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As through its blaze we fly, then dies away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Casting a weird and momentary gleam<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the Angel’s unrelenting face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A meteor tears its whizzing way along,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All showering off the scintillating sparks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That mark its trail. Far off, a comet runs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its bended course, the mighty fan-like tail<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lit with a myriad globes of dancing fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That seemed like Argus’ eyes on Juno’s bird.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And on we sped, till one last Sun appeared,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A monstrous hemisphere of concave shape,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And brilliancy intense; it seemed to stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On great Creation’s bounds, a lense of light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Close by its vast red rim we shaved, and passed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond, to empty space unoccupied.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No world, no sun, no object passed the door;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The steady blue, tinged with a brightening gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alone was seen. Still on and on we flew,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until a score of ages seemed elapsed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I had near forgotten Earth and home.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And yet the air grew brighter, till I feared<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That we approached a sun, so infinite<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In light, that I should sink in dazzled death.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We came to rest, the curtains fell away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lo! I stood within the light of Heaven.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And oh! its glorious light! No angry red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor blinding white, nor sickly yellow glare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But one vast golden flood, sublime, serene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No object near, on which it could reflect,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It formed the very atmosphere itself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An air in which the soul could bathe and breathe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ever live without its fleshly food.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No object near, for on the farthest bounds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of space immense as mortal can conceive,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Creation hung, a group of clustering motes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where only suns were seen as tiny specks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Earth and smaller stars were out of sight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No object near, for farther than the motes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The walls of Heaven, in glorious grandeur loomed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet near as flesh and blood could bear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">How grand!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From infinite to infinite extent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The glittering battlements were spread, the height<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Above conception, built of purest gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet gold transparent, for I could discern<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though indistinctly, domes and spires beyond,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the wondrous workmanship divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That blazed with jewels, flashing varied hues<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In perfect union; and bright happy fields,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That bloomed with flowers immortal, in whose midst<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The crystal river ran. And through the scenes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thronged million forms, that each sought happiness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From million varied, purified desires.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each face serenely bright as Evening’s star,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And some I thought I knew, were dear to me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But as I gazed, they ever disappeared.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Along the walls, twelve gates of pearl were seen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So great their breadth, and high their jewelled arch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Earth could almost trundle in untouched,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in each arch was fixed a giant bell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of silver, with a golden tongue that hung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A pendant sun. So wide the silver lips,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Chimularee plucked up by the roots,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as a clapper swung within its circ,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would tinkle, like a pebble, noiselessly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against the rigid side. And as the saved<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were brought in teeming host, by Angel bands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the gates, the bells began their swing;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to and fro the ponderous tongue was hurled,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till through the portals marched the shouting throng,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then it fell against the bounding side.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And loud and long their booming thunder<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rends the golden air asunder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While the ransomed, passing under,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fall in praise beneath the bells,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose mighty throbbing welcome tells;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the Angels hush their harps in wonder&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bells of Heaven, glory booming bells!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Gentler now, the silver’s shiver<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Purls the rippling waves that quiver<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the ether’s tide forever,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Mellow as they left the bells,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose softening vibrate welcome tells;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the quavers play adown the river&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bells of Heaven, softly sobbing bells!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then the dreamy cadence dying,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sings as soft as zephyrs sighing;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faintest echoes cease replying<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the murmur of the bells,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose stilling tremor welcome tells,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faintly as the snow-flakes falling, lying&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bells of Heaven, dreamy murmuring bells!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And in and out those Gates of Pearl, there streamed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A ceaseless throng of Angels, errand bound.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From one came forth a band of choristers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With shining harps, and sweeping out through space,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their long white lines bent gracefully, they sang.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Although so far away, that purest air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brought every note exquisite to my ear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Twas richly worth life’s toil, to catch one bar<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Heavenly melody. Oh! I would give<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My pitiful existence, once again<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To hear the strains that floated to me then,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So full, so deep, so ravishingly sweet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now gentle as a mother’s lullaby,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They almost died away, then louder rose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rolled their volumes through the boundless realms,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That trembled with the diapason grand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until eternal echoes caught the strain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And glory in the highest swelled sublime.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Entranced, I lay with ’wildered half-closed eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till from another gate, another host<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Marched forth, the armies of the living God.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath their thunder-tread all Heaven shook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And at their head the tall Archangel strode.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How grandly terrible his mien! His face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lit with a soul that only kneels to Three;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lofty brows drawn slightly to a frown<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The eyes that beam with vast intelligence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The depths of distance piercing with their glance;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The chiselled lips, compressed with stern resolve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet marked with lines and curves of tender love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ever with a sigh Wrath’s vial broke<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the doomed. His splendid form so tall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That as he paused a moment in the gate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His dazzling crest just grazed the silver bell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He wore no arms nor armor, save a sword<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without a sheath, that blazed as broad and bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As sunset bars that shear the zenith’s blue&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A sword, that falling flatly on the host<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Xerxes, would have crushed them as we crush<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A swarm of ants. An edge-stroke on the Earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would gash the rocky shell to caverned fire.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unfolding wings would shake a continent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He floated down the depths. Behind him came<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A million foll’wers, counterparts in all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save presence of command.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">I wondered not<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That one should breathe upon the Syrian might,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still the sleeping hearts, four thousand score.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And from Creation’s little corner came<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Guardian Angels, bearing in their arms<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their charges during life. As laden bees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They flew to Heaven’s hive; and some passed by<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So closely I their burdens could discern;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And though they came from far-off, unseen Earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stiffened forms were borne all tenderly.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some bore the dimpled babe, with soft-closed eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if upon its mother’s breast; its hands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unhardened yet by toil of life, its face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unfurrowed yet by care’s sharp plough; and some<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The age-bent form, with ghostly silvered hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And features gaunt in death, that would have seemed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A hideous sight, in any light but Heaven’s;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some bore the rich, who made of Mammon friends,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who wore the purple with a stainless soul;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some bore the poor, who mastered poverty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And broke the ashen crust beneath God’s smile;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their work-worn hands now folded peacefully,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And passing towards the harp, the weary feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So often blistered in life’s bitter dust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To tread with kings the golden streets of Heaven;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And some the maiden form bore lovingly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So fair, they seemed twin sisters.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">And I saw,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, passing through the amber air, they caught<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its glowing dust upon them, and were changed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The livid to the radiant. Then as they<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Approached the City, all the walls were thronged,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the harps were throbbing to be swept.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mid the throng there moved a dazzling Form,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The jewels of whose crown were shaped like thorns.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He stood to welcome, and the gates unclosed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And passing through them, all the death sealed eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were opened, and they lived!<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">And then I knew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What happiness could mean. To leave the Earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With all its torturing pains and ills of flesh;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lingering, long disease, the wasted frame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, e’en in health, the constant dread of death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That like the sword of Damocles impends,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And none may tell its fall.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">And worse than flesh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tortures of the mind in fetters bound;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its chafings at its puling impotence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its longing after things beyond its reach,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its craving after knowledge never given,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its constant discontent with present time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its looking towards a future, that but breaks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To light alone in distance, never near;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its maddening retrospect o’er wasted life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And loss of golden opportunities;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its consciousness of merit none admit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its sense of gross injustice from the world;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The forced reflections on the sway of self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And consequent contempt for all mankind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or shameful servitude to their regard;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The poisoned thorns, that skirt the “Narrow Way”;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sneering laugh, the tongue of calumny,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The envious spites and hates ’tween man and man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The doubts that swarm with thought about our soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That whispers all our labor here is vain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That death is but extinction, Heaven a myth!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To leave all these, and find a perfect life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To know that Heaven is sure eternally,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That sickness ne’er again will waste our frame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That death shall never come again. The mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In perfect peace and happiness; the hidden<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spread out before its ken; a sweet content<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pervading every thought, because “just now”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yields happiness as great as future years;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because Life’s highest end is now attained.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The consciousness of merit, with reward<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Surpassing far all we deserved. A Home<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of perfect peace, no envious spite or hate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Within its sacred walls, but all pure love<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Towards our fellows, gratitude to God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A gratitude that all Eternal life<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will not suffice to prove. ’Twere joy enough<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lie before the Throne, and ever cry<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our thanks for mercy so supreme! And oh!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The vast tranquillity of those who feel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That life on Earth is ended, Heaven gained!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Angel marked my gaze of rapt delight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And said, “Wouldst thou go nearer?” Swift as light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We moved towards the City. On the steps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In dreamy ecstasy, I lay, afraid to move,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lest all the panorama should dissolve.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I cared not that I was unfit to go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I cared not that I must return to Earth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I felt one moment in the Golden walls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was worth a dungeon’s chains “threescore and ten.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The glory of its music, and its light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grew too intense, and sense forsook my brain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Again my eyes unclosed, and ’mid the stars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Familiar faces of the telescope,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We sped, while on the last confines of space,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The City lay with golden halo girt.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The systems passed, we neared old homelike Earth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And far enough to take a hemisphere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At single glance, we paused. The little globe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was puffing on, like Kepler’s idea-beast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With breath like tides, and echo sounds of life;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus trundling on its journey round the sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While o’er its back swarmed men the parasites.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As rustic lad, who visits some great town,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Returns ashamed of humble country home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So I now blushed to own the world I’d thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was once so great.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">The Angel pointed down,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And said, “Behold the vast domains of Earth!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Behold the wondrous works of man, that calls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Himself the measure of the Universe!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those gleaming threads are rivers, and the pools<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His boundless oceans. Those slow-gliding dots<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gallant ships, in which he braves the storms<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The largest white one, see, is laboring now<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath a cloud, your hand from here might span;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What tiny tossings, like a jasmine’s bloom<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That drifts along the ripples of a brook!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now on the wave, now ’neath it, now ’tis gone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pool hath gulfed it like a flake of snow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">See, there are railroad lines, what works of art!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou canst not see the blackened threadlike tracks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But thou mayst see the thundering train, that creeps<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across the landscape like a score of ants<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Well laden, tandem, crawl across the floor.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Twill take a day to reach yon smoky patch<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of pebbles! ’Tis a great metropolis!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Man is proud in power and lasting strength;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Art hath budded into perfect bloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where towering domes defy the touch of Time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rock-ribbed structures reck not of his scythe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On every side, proclaimed Creation’s lord,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Poor flattered Man the title proudly takes&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One little gap of Earth, and not a spire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would lift its gilded vane; the very dust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would never rise above the chasm’s mouth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mark yon crowd outside the city’s bounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They hail Man’s triumph over Nature’s laws;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He conquers gravity, and dares to fly!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The speck-like globe slow rises in the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While all the throng below shout, “God-like Man!”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How pitiful! The flag-decked car but drags<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its way, a finger’s breadth above their heads,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And falls, a few leagues off, into the sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When ships must rescue Man, the king of air!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“He soon will touch the stars,” enthusiasts cry;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His highest flights ne’er reach the mountain-top,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That lifts its mole-hill head above the plain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What different views above and underneath!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From one, the silken pear cleaves through the cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And floats, beyond your vision, in the blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And franchised Man no longer wears Earth’s chain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The other sees him drifting o’er the ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath the level of the hills around,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The captive still of watchful gravity.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Upon yon strip of land, two insect swarms<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are drawn up, front to front, in serried lines;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These are the armies, ’neath whose trampling tread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The very Earth doth tremble, now they join<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In dreadful conflict. From the battling ranks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leap tiny bits of flame, and puffs of smoke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where thundering cannon belch their carnage forth;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The heated missile cleaves its sparkling way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The screaming shell its smoke-traced curve; the sword<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gleams redly with the varnish of its blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bayonets like ripples on a lake.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How palsied every arm, how still each heart!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If one discharge of Heaven’s artillery roared<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Above their heads&mdash;not that faint mutter thou<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perchance hast heard from some electric cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But when a meteor curves immensity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bursts in glittering fragments that would dash<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy world an atom from their path. But God<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hath thrown the blanket of His atmosphere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Around the Earth, and shield, it from the jar<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of pealing salvos, that reverberate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through Heaven’s illimitable dome.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Yet thou,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The meanest of thy race of worms, hast dared<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To question God’s designs. Know then that He<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ordains that all, His glory shall work out.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The coral architect beneath the wave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doth magnify Him, as the burning sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That lights a thousand worlds. His power directs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mechanism of a Universe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose vastness thou hast been allowed to see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet the mottled sparrow in the hedge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Falls not without His notice. Magnitude<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is not the seal of power, though man thinks so;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The least brown feather of the sparrow’s wing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In adaptation to its end displays<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God’s wisdom, as the ocean. Harmony<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is Heaven’s watchword, key to all designs.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A tendency towards perfection’s end<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pervades Creation; to this perfect end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The polity Divine is leading Earth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Endowed with reason, Man, perforce, is free;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And God, forseeing how he’ll freely act,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Adjusts all circumstance accordingly.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The order of this sequence, Man doth learn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In part; adapts himself to these fixed laws;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thus is formed a general harmony.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Although the individual may oppose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His forseen freedom, acting in a net<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of circumstance, secures the wished-for end.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bloodiest wars are sources of great good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Invasive floods rouse national energies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or, mingling, form a greater people still;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hume’s skepticism foils its own design,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rouses lusty champions of the Truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who build its walls far stronger than before.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Poor sordid Man! like all your gold-slave race,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You deem wealth happiness. Hence, all your doubts<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">About God’s providence are based on gold.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wicked have it, and the righteous not.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What you assert is oftenest reversed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in a census of the world, you’d find<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The good, in every land, the wealthiest.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Earth is not the bar where Man is judged;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But only where free-will and circumstance<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May join in general progress. Gold is good!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then good depends on use of circumstance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not on moral merit. Well ’tis so!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For were the righteous only blessed, all men<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would righteousness pursue, from sordid aims,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The most devout, who love their money best;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thus good actions’ essence would be lost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That they be done for good, within itself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not for benefit to be conferred.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then for your doubts about the righteous poor;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A certain law is fixed for general good,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some actions yield a gain and some a loss.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wicked man may use the first, and gain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A righteous man may use the last, and lose;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wicked does not gain by wickedness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But by compliance with this natural law.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The righteous, still as righteous, might have gained<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By different course of conduct, had he known;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But his condition now, can but be changed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By special miracle; but miracles,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In favor of the righteous, would destroy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All strife for good as good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their compensation in another world;<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">The poor may find<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And even here, in consciousness of right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In surety of Heav’n, and peace of mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in the case you’ve stated, like all those<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who talk as you have done, you overdraw,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And color more with Fancy than with Truth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You’ll find no widow, perfect in her trust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As you’ve described, who is so destitute.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Go search the lanes and alleys; where you find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The greatest squalor, there is greatest crime;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For poverty is oftenest but a name<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For reckless vice, and vile depravity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your case is but exception to the rule,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not the rule, of Providence. To give<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The righteous, only, wealth and worldly store<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would take away Man’s freedom, and all good.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But I will answer in your folly’s mode.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The justice, then, of Nature’s laws you doubt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forgetting they are fixed for general good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not for individual. These laws,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In their effects, you praise as very good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, in their causes, call the most unjust.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fertile fields, with grain for man’s support,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are nourished by a miasmatic air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, sickening but a few, feeds all the world.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While, were the air all pure, a few were well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And millions starving. In the tropics, too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The scenes you deprecate, themselves but cause<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The very beauties you admire. Unjust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You would enjoy effects without a cause.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The goods of Nature often take their rise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From what to man proves evil. For the goods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He makes his mind to meet the evils; then<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can he complain, or think it hard to bear?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Nature’s dealings towards Man are just.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He knows that he is free, and Nature not;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If he opposes Nature’s laws and falls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is Nature to be blamed? The widow’s cot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is frail; the laws of general good require<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A storm; it comes, and shattered falls the cot.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Should God have saved it by a miracle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then all His people could demand the same,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Earth would soon become the bar of God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God may exert a special providence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Man may not detect it, as the rule<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Invariable of life, and still be free;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he were thus compelled to seek the good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Nature, over Man, holds not a tyranny,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But keeps the perfect pandect of her laws,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Man is free to obey them, or oppose.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Like shallow-thoughted reasoners of Earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You make assertions without slightest proof,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or faintest shade of truth. Your thesis, this:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God marks with disapproval all the good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And blesses all the evil with His smile.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Entirely false in every case! The good<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are ever happiest, in peace of mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In ease of conscience, and the hope of Heaven.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wicked may be even rich, but wealth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And happiness are far from synonyms.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is happiness the child of circumstance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or is it not the offspring of the mind?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if the mind be tranquil and serene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Does happiness not follow everywhere?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cause of doubt in you, and many more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is that the thousands who profess the good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are ever mourning their unhappy lot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sighing o’er the gloomy, narrow way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tribulation of the promise read,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without its good cheer context. These are they<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who stamp with misery’s blackest seal, a life<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of righteousness. By these you cannot judge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For they are not what they profess, and would<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be miserable in Heaven, unless changed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But take the truly good, one who’s content<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To take whate’er befalls, submissively;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who feels assured that all works for the best;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take him, in all conditions, rich or poor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In sickness or in health, in pain or ease;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Compare your happy wicked, with his gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Twill not require a moment to decide<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which one is happier!<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Again, you ask<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why Man was not created happy, and kept so?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His very freedom and intelligence<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prevents a forcèd happiness. The ends<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all Creation would be marred, and Man<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lose personality. A happiness<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made universal, asks morality<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That’s universally compelled; and lost<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is all the scheme of virtue and reward.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man, forced to action would degenerate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into a listless, lifeless thing; the world<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lose all its fine machinery of thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Combined with action. Beautiful variety<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could not exist, dull sameness would be life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Man is placed, with free intelligence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amid surroundings from which he may cull<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A happiness intense, whate’er their nature be.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If bright, the consciousness they are deserved;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If gloomy, sweet reflections that they drape<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A future all the brighter for their gloom.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But Man, within himself, your puzzle proves;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not to you alone, for Angel wings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have hovered o’er your globe, and Angel minds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Peered curiously into his soul, to learn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its mysteries, in vain. The Mind Supreme<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That formed the soul, alone can understand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its wondrous depths. ’Tis not surprising then<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Man has tried in vain to know himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His mind, compared with his body, seems so great,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He deems its power unlimited. He finds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It weak, before the barriers of thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That gird it, mountain high, on every side.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No path can he pursue that’s infinite.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And few exist, that do not thither lead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hence all the vagaries that have obtained<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Among your race. The doubt of everything,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is only too far tracing of a thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into absurdity intense. If you<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deem all the world effect upon yourself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A principle of fairness would demand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That you accord the right to other men.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The question then arises, who is he<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That really does exist, and all the rest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His ideas? Sure your neighbor has the right<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To claim the honor, just as well as you!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hume’s foolish thought, extended to its length,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will answer not a single end of life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And terminates in nonsense none believe.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The conflict of the mental powers defeats<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your inquiries. You cannot reconcile<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The unruled circumstance, with Man’s free-will<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You deem the motive free, and Man its slave;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if the motive, unintelligent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could have a freedom, or a slavery!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You make the motive to exist within the mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When it, perforce, must be without. You get<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The unruled motive from the circumstance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When this itself must act upon the mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if <i>free</i> motives rise within the mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are a <i>part</i>, and therefore <i>mind</i> is free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And what you deemed a motive to the mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was mental action, and its modes of thought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The motive is confined to circumstance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mind the circumstance can oft control,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And even when it cannot, acts at will.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The mind may to a kingdom be compared,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Reason occupies the throne. Beneath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its scepter bow, in perfect vassalage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The faculties, desires, and appetites.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These then are acted on by motive powers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And straight report the action to their king,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who does impartially decide for each.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The unruled motive is without the mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And forms no part of it, although the parts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Receiving motive action, so are called.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus when you hunger, the desire of food,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Confined to mind, is not a motive power;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But urged by motive bodily demand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It tells the need to Reason, who decides.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus when you pare your peach, the tempting fruit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fleshly need, move on the appetite,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who begs the Reason for consent to eat;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your friend’s opinion of your self-control,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is motive to Desire of esteem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who begs the Reason to refuse consent.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Reason, then, like righteous judge, decrees<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In favor of that one, more strongly shown;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And feels a perfect freedom in its choice.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">’Tis most unfair to wait the action’s end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then cry, the mind was forced to choose this act;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But choice is Reason’s free decree. Sometimes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Reason errs, and evil then ensues;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Reason, now more conscious that ’tis free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Regrets it had not acted otherwise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By knowing what your reason deems the best,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You judge how other men will act. You learn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By intercourse, what they permit to change<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Reason’s sentence. So, while with a friend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You show your wealth, because you know he’s free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And can, and will, resist impulse to crime.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were he not free, you’d dare not go alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With him, for, any moment, might arise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A motive irresistible, and he<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would kill and rob, because that motive’s slave.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were he not free, you were no more secure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In pleasant parlance, than on desert isle.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The laws are made for man, alone, as free.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For, otherwise, the motives they present<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were blind attempts so coincide with Fate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They would complete the gross absurdity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Man collective governing himself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And therefore free, while individuals<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are helpless slaves of motives they but aid<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To furnish.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Fate, as held in fullest form,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yourself has proved the theory of fools;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For were it true, a blind passivity<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were Man’s perfection on the Earth. Compare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The two; Free-will as held, whate’er their faith,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By every one, in daily practices;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A world of harmony, for very wars<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yield good; a mechanism complicate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That even Angels, wondering at, admire;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A world, whose wondrous progress is maintained<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By practical belief in liberty.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And on the other hand, behold a world<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of universal inactivity!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its millions starving for delinquent Fate;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I doubt your faith would last till dinner-time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A morning’s lapse would change a hungry globe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To firm belief in free-will work for food.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With many, God’s foreknowledge binds free-will;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He knows the future, how each man will act,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And man can never change from what God knows.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They reason thus, that prescience is decree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And what God knows will happen, must take place.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That God may know the future of <i>free</i>-will<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I prove by this. Suppose two worlds alike,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And governed by two Gods. Each one can see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And foresee all transpires in both the worlds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet each o’er th’ other’s world exerts no power.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A man in one does wrong; the other God<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May have foreseen the action for an age,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet had not slightest power to cause or stop.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Does his foreknowledge qualify the act?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If thus you can suppose, why not believe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When errors flow from opposite belief?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God in the future stands, and waits for man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who works the present, only gift of Time.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no future save in God’s own mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man’s future means continued present time;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God’s future is but present time to Him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In which He lives, not will live when it comes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man’s acts He sees as done, not to be done.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And God compels not more than Man does Man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who sees his fellow’s deeds, not causes them.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man only knows Man’s present acts; but God<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The future sees, as present to His mind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To end with perfect proof, you know you’re free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This all the world attests, and each believes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How subtle soe’er may his reasoning be,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He contradicts it throughout all his life;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all his plans, and all the right and wrong<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of self and friends he bases on free-will.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If disbelief no inconvenience prove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Few men believe what is not understood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet the most familiar things of life<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are far beyond their comprehensions’ power.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who understands the turning of the food<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To sinew, muscle, blood, and bone? yet who<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will starve because he knows not how ’tis done?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who understands the mystery of birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when and where the soul originates?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet a million mothers bend, to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O’er tender babes, and know that they exist;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A billion people know they once were born.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who understands the mystery of death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And how the soul is severed from its clay?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet who has not wept o’er departed ones,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Received the dying clasp, the dying look,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And known, full well, Death’s bitter, bitter truth?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">None comprehends the movement of a limb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet many boast the powers of their’s might.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then why doubt freedom of the will, when life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In every phase, but proves its certain truth?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The edifice of shallow theorists<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the sweeping blade of practice falls.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Your dive into the heart yields folly’s fruit;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The selfish theory, carried to its end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Makes wrong of right, and overturns the world.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And strong it is in seeming; for the self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In human conduct, plays important part.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But ’tis not action’s only source, nor dims<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The quality of every action’s worth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Tis true that Man exists in self alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in himself feels pain or pleasure. True,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An instinct teaches to avoid the one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And seek the other; true, that every act,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How small soe’er, gives pleasure or gives pain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet thousand deeds are done without regard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To one or other, or effect on Self.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Howe’er an action may affect the Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If he that acts has not a thought of it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The action is not selfish. You appeal<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Man, and so will I appeal to you.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You find a helpless brute, with broken limb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the roadside, moaning out its pain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now, though to aid will surely pleasure give,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to neglect will cause remorseful pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is there a single thought of this, when you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With kindest hand, bind up the swollen bruise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hold the grateful water to its mouth?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is not each thought to ease the sufferer’s pain?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is not the Self first found, when on your way<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You go, with lighter heart, for kindness done?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And while you think with pleasure on the deed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would you not feel despised in your own eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If consciousness revealed ’twas done for Self?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But should you say that Self was thus concealed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still evoked the deed, the argument<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The same; if Self was out of thought, the deed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had other source.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">In all, you thus mistake<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The deed’s effect, unthought of, for its source.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God, in His wisdom, hath affixed to good<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Performed, a pleasure, and to evil, pain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But selfish actions are not good, you’ve said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And therefore cannot slightest pleasure yield.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here, then, your system contradicts itself;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All actions emanate from love of Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To find the highest pleasure for that Self;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet the pleasure’s lost by very search;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What good soe’er apparently is sought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The consciousness of selfish aims destroys.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And here is wisdom manifest. When Self<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would seek the good, for pleasure to the Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pleasure is not found; but when it seeks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The good alone, true pleasure is conferred.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I mean the Self of soul, not Self of flesh;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For pleasure to the sense, to be attained<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is sought; these two are mingled intricate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(And hard to separate), in thousand ways.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But when Man’s higher Self would seek its good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It must forget the Self. In every case<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You instanced, Self of soul must be unthought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For pleasure will not come at call of Self.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your gambler none will doubt has selfish ends;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not so the preacher, for his pleasure sought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would ne’er be found; it must be out of thought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His burning eloquence, his pastoral care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can not proceed from any love of Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Self would suffer, when it knew their source;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But as he acts from love of good as good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Self is happy. When he ascertains<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That some have died in sin through his neglect,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Self is grieved, not that it was uncared,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For care of Self would not allay the pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But that a duty had not been performed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That good had been neglected, as a good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gambler’s object may be highest good<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Self, according to his estimate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The preacher seeks a good, but not for Self;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Self appears, the good to evil turns.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor is the mystic selfish in his cave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save that he buries talents in himself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That might avail for good to other men;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But all his mind is bent on pleasing God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His only thought of Self is for its pain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And this he deems acceptable to Heaven.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You can not judge by your analysis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But by what passes in the actor’s mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One surely then could not be selfish termed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who only lived to mortify the Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Howe’er mistaken may his conduct be.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor is the man, who gives his wealth away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If from right principles he gives. ’Tis true,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He finds a pleasure in the deed when done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But if to gain that pleasure he has given,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It turns to gall and wormwood in his grasp.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If two men matches light, and know full well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If one is dropped, a house will be consumed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He is the most guilty that allows its fall.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The miser, then, who knows he does a wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is by that knowledge rendered criminal.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“The quality of actions must be judged”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From their intents, that often differ wide;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The man who shoots his friend by accident<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has no intent, and therefore does no wrong;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he who murders does a score of wrongs,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A score of basest motives prompt the deed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All centred in the Self. The Christian’s work<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must, from its very nature, have no Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or it becomes unchristian. Man can judge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not from effect, but motives ascertained<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By inference, and experience. The law<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is formed hereon, and modified by years.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Time teaches men that punishment will stop,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And only punishment, the spread of crime.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Instinct and Nature’s order teaches you<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That pain must follow wrong. A man commits<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A crime; if left unpunished, he repeats;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And others, seeing his security,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will do as he has done. So all mankind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would hasten on to lawlessness and ruin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But law, for real wrong inflicts a wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which would be just did it no farther go;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But it is proved expedient, inasmuch<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As it prevents continued crime. Then death<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By law can not be murder termed, since good<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In aim and end, without malicious thought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus good to many flows from wrong to one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(If that may wrong be termed that takes the rights<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By conduct forfeited), who should receive,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though none reaped benefit. For many’s good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The law is made, yet never does a wrong<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To individuals, unless deserved.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Throughout your reas’ning, like all Earthly minds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When dataless, essaying hidden truths,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You wander blindly in conjecture’s field,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if you find the truth, it is a chance.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You fain would raise a stone of skepticism,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By granting souls immortal unto beasts;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You prove your pointer must possess a soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And by your argument, the trees have souls;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For when an oak has fallen, every twig<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May still be there, and something, life, be gone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A chair, a table, anything you see,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Possesses something, not of any parts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But that to which the parts are said, belong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, one by one, take all the parts away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The something called the table must exist,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For ’twas not in a part, nor is removed.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The mind of beasts exists but through their flesh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And is developed subject to its laws,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And flesh is the condition of their life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When flesh dissolves, the mind disintegrates,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ceases to exist. Man feels within,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The consciousness of soul, that would survive<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though flesh were torn to shreds upon the wheel.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The parts of soul that live alone through flesh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must perish with it in the hour of death.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But having postulated Self, as source<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of human conduct, you compel the acts<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To fit your theory. You change effect<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For cause. Where’er a moral pleasure’s found,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You judge that for its gain the deed was done;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if the pleasure could be gained by search!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Self does enter largely into inner life<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is very plain, for everything affects,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In some way, Self; but does the mind regard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Effect, or is its object something else?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The appetites, affections, and desires,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You make of selfish origin, yet know<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That is not selfish, which alone affects;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But acting with a reference to effect.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The appetites are instincts; as you breathe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You hunger, thirst, in helplessness. Not Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But food or drink, the object of your thought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And even while the taste is in your mouth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mind dwells on the taste, not on the Self.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Desires are partly selfish in their mode;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Desire of knowledge, seeking honor’s meed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is selfish; led by curiosity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Tis not more selfish than an appetite.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Desire of power, esteem, and wide-spread fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is selfish, when the thought of their effect<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Self shapes out the conduct; when desired<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For their own sake, unselfish.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">On the list<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Affections terminate, you falsely rail<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mother, and the lover; both sincere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And both without a thought of selfish aim.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Tis no reproach to say the mother’s love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In fervid instinct, and development,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is like the cow’s, that God in wisdom gives.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No love so pure as that which moves the cow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To hover round her young, to bear the blows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Impatient hunger deals the udder drained,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To smooth with loving tongue the tender coat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or meet the playful forehead with her own;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With threatening horn, to guard approach of harm;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And watch, with ceaseless care, the charge in sleep.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her careful love continues, till the calf<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has grown beyond her need, and ceases then.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A mother loves because it is her child:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This is the surest reason you could give.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Th’ affection is spontaneous in her breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But fed and strengthened by his life, if good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The opposites to love you named, affect<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her love, by not an injury done to Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But by their evil, which her soul abhors.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her son’s antagonism’s not to her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But to the good she loves. Her heart withdraws<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its twining tendrils from unworthiness.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As usual, you select supposed effects,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then assume their causes. Could you see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mother’s heart, you’d find the loss of love<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Caused not by wrong to her, but wrong abstract<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Developed in the concrete deeds of crime.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her love is governed by a moral sense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or idea of the good; the people’s thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">About herself comes in as after-part.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bad treatment to herself, although it pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deals not a fatal blow to love, except<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As showing lack of principle in him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so your lover is not hurt in Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But moral sense. The loved one’s perfidy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not her ridicule, beheads your love;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her stunning words were playful pleasantry,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Did they not show the baseness of the heart.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Indeed, to turn your reasoning on yourself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her manner even towards you has not changed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And were you present, she would still seem yours;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her eaves-dropped words do not affect the Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save as they show her falsity of heart.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tossing on your pillow, through the night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The crushing thought of wrecked integrity<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gives deeper pain than all her ridicule.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Self, though pained at thought of being duped,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enjoys relief in thought of its escape.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To show that Love is built on higher grounds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than paltry good for Self; that it must have,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As corner-stone, a percept of the good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Existing in the object loved, suppose<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You’re on the topmost height of wildest love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your arm around her, and your lingering kiss<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon her lips; and Self is king of love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She, nestling on your shoulder, finds ’tis wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That love, however true, may grow too warm;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That every kiss, however pure, abstracts<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some little part from maiden modesty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And steals a pebble from her honor’s wall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rising with the firm resolve, says, “Cease,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unwind your arm, restrain your fervid lips;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It may be wrong, and right is surely safe!”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now though the Self is bitterly denied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rapturous clasp and tender kiss forbid,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is not your love increased a thousand-fold?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do not you feel intensely gratified<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At this assurance of her moral worth?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And would you, for the world, breath aught to cause<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her pain, or least regret for her resolve?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How firm your trust, how sweet your confidence!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You know ’twas not capricious prudery,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For your caresses had been oft received;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor was it sly hypocrisy to win<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your heart, for that was long since hers. No thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But spotless purity, inspired the act;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And you are happy, though the Self’s denied.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The little things of life, that men account<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without a moral value, may be done<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With reference to Self; but oftenest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mind regards the act, not its effect<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the Self. The code of Etiquette,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The small amenities of social life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The converse, and the articles of dress,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May all belong to Self; but moral acts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those known as right or wrong, have higher source<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than Self in any mode.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Within Man’s breast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There’s something, apprehending good and bad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Called conscience, or the moral sense; it views,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Impartially, each act of his, decides<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its quality by rule of right and wrong;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All trust its judgments most implicitly.&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The good is found, yields greatest happiness;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet seek it for the sake of happiness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And good is evil, with its misery!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The good must be pursued, because a good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The evil shunned, because an evil. Thus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moral sense discerns these qualities<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In others, and directs our love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">A blow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The deadliest to our love, would be a blow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aimed at the principle of good. A love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Existing through the injuries done to Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May meet the public’s praise, and feel its own;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But love would merit self-contempt, that loved<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whate’er opposed the good. The son may treat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mother with unkindness, yet her love<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be undiminished; if he lie, or steal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her love is less; she cannot love his deed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cannot love the heart from which they flow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So with the youth who gives his chair to Age,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He does not so resent that Self’s denied<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its meed of thanks, as that ingratitude<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Should thus be manifest, in little things.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A comrade, served the same, would anger cause.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But him who would give up the highest Self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The soul, for others’ good, you deem a fool;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ask why sacrifice ne’er claimed a soul?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because the soul cannot be sacrificed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No harm to that can others benefit.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But if it could, how truly grand the man<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who’d take eternal woe for fellow-men!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But God, who makes the soul the care of life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Makes every soul stand for itself alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in His wisdom hath ordained this law:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The greater good man gets for his own soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The greater good on others’ he confers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While evil to himself, an evil gives.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then comes the question of this abstract good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That moral sense declares the end of life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What is its nature? whence does it arise?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And whence does man derive the half-formed thought?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You have compared the systems that define,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each in its way, the hidden theory.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">None satisfy, though each some element<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sets forth in clear distinctness. Take them all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Select the true of each, as Cousin does,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And will eclecticism satisfy?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And does the soul not cry for something more?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For something that it feels ’twill never reach,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The good, as known to minds unclogged with flesh?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man takes the dim outlines of abstract thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And seeking to evolve their perfect form,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The very outlines grow more indistinct;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As gazing at a star will make it fade.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man’s only forms of good are blent with flesh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when he seeks to take the flesh away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And leave the abstract, he is thus confused,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if he should withdraw the wick and oil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And seek to find the flame still in the lamp.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To learn the source of ideas of the Good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trace Man collective, to his babyhood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For ’mid the prejudice of full-grown thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The truth would be effectually concealed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through every people scattered o’er the globe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There does prevail some idea of a God;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though rude and barbarous this idea be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It still, in some form, does exist. The good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With all, bears reference to this thought;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And what this Deity approves is good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And what He disapproves is bad. Men learn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What He approves, and what He disapproves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By revelation, inference, and instinct.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God’s sanction then is origin of Good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though afterwards men learn the sweet effects,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And practise it for its own sake; and call<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their little effort, grandest abstract truth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Developing in intellectual strength,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They plaster up this good in various forms,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until, refined beyond all subtilty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It seems to them a self-existent good.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The good is then a certain quality,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In actions, or existence, that assures<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Divine approval. This vast idea, God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Creation sows in every human heart;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All Nature’s grand designs demand a God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A God intelligent. The same instinct<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That tells His being, teaches what He loves;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And what He loves with every people’s good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But different nations entertain ideas<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Diverse in reference to a Deity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And different notions of what pleases Him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One deems the care of God’s child-gift her good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Another tears the heart-strings from her babe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And feeds, for good, the sacred crocodile.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The good lies in the thought of pleasing God:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The consciousness that God is pleased with us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A pleasure yields, and good might there be sought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For pleasure’s sake, and prove a selfish aim;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But moral selfishness a pain imparts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And good, for pleasure sought, defeats the search.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The good is sought, because it pleases God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not with the doer, but with what is done.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Good has its origin in th’ idea God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And what He loves; but to continue good<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It must retain approval in the act,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not transfer it to the agent’s self.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The consciousness that God approves a deed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Makes Man approve, and thus his mind is brought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In correlation with the Mind Divine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The man who does an alms, if done to gain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God’s favor for himself, feels selfish pain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But if because the act, not he, will please,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He finds the pleasure. Man, as time rolls on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Finds general laws that please or displease God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ranging, under these, subordinates<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amenable to them and not to God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moral quality of lesser deeds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He reckons by these laws, nor does ascend<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To God, that gives their moral quality.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jouffroy, in Order, placed the Abstract Good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And paused a step below the real truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The idea God, whence Order emanates.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thus Man, progressing, good withdraws from God<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And seems an independent entity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And man denominates it, Abstract Good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He can attain the Abstract but in part;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When mind is freed from flesh, he may attain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To its full grandeur. Here, at most, he grasps<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A faint outline, and fits it on concrete.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No concept occupies one act of mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But opening the lettered label, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May count the attributes, and by an act<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Complex, of memory and cognition, gain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some idea of his Abstract. Thus of “Man,”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One act can only cognize M-A-N,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But opening, he finds the attributes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As “mammal,” “biped,” “vertebrate.” This act<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is complex, and he cannot unitize,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save by the bundle of a word. You’ve said<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It answers all the purposes of life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then why seek more? lest speculation vain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Point out dim realms, where Man can never tread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These baffling thoughts are given, as peacocks’ feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Man’s fond pride. The simplest avenue<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of thought, pursued, will reach absurdity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To comprehension finite.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Even the truth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of numbers you presume to doubt. Two balls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You claim, can ne’er be two unless alike.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You mingle quantity and number, foolishly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if a ball the size of Earth, and one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A tiny mustard-seed, would not be two!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You deem all Mathematics wide at fault,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because Man’s powers to illustrate are weak.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth has oft seen a pure right angle drawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because Man’s sight could not detect a flaw;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if to his discernment perfect made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He must admit its perfect form. If life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In every intricate demand, finds truth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why seek to overturn by sophistry?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You see and know Achilles far beyond<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tortoise, yet the super-wise must prove<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That he can never pass the creeping thing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Although his speed a hundred times as swift!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Man commences, he may find a doubt<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In everything; his life, his neighbor’s life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The outside world, may all be but a myth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then let him so believe, but let him act<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Consistently; but does the skeptic so?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He crams all Nature in his little mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet how he cringes to her slightest law!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He flees the rain, and wards the cold, or fears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lightning’s glittering blow. He doubts his frame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can work by mechanism so absurd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet will not for a day refrain from food!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When Man compares his body and his mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tries the power of each, he magnifies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mind to Deity, and yet how small<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Compared with what it has to learn! The more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man knows, the more he finds he does not know;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as a traveller toiling up the hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each upward step reveals a wider view<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of fields of thought sublime he dares not hope<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To ever reach in life; and wearily he sits<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Him down upon the mountain-side, so far<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath its untrod top, and recklessly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doubts everything, because beyond his grasp.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All skeptic reasoning ends, as did your own,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No fruit but blind bewilderment of thought!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And none but fools will e’er believe sincere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The faith that doubts alone by theory,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet approves by practice. Such is yours;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stern necessities of life demand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A practical belief, and such is given;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still, forsooth, because your narrow mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cannot contain the Truth in perfect form,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You dare deny it does exist. But few<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of skeptic minds are let to live on Earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And even these made instruments of good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In calling forth defenders of the Truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who add their strength to its Eternal Walls.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then here behold God’s wisdom manifest!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amid the care of countless greater orbs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He watches Earth, and knows its smallest thing.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Man, as individual, is free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Collective Man is being surely led<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Towards an end, but when it will be reached,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God knows alone. Then Man will be removed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into a higher or a lower sphere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he has worthy proved. With Man ’twill be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A great event; his awful Judgment-day!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When from those far-off realms, the Son shall come<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Angel retinue, and through the worlds,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall lead their solemn flight, to where we stand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as the trump shall peal its clarion tones,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And beat away Earth’s gauze of atmosphere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The millions living, and the billions dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will leave the sod, and “caught up in the air,”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall stand before the Throne, to hear their doom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, faces pale with fear, and trembling limbs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will be on every side, as on the air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They rest, with nothing solid ’neath their feet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And see dismantled Earth burst into flames,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And reel along its track, a globe of fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The volumed smoke, a dusky envelope;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its revolutions wrapping pliant flames,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In scarlet girdles, round its bulging waist,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hurling streams of centrifugal sparks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In broad red tangents, from the burning orb.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the conflagration Man will gaze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With shuddering horror; ’tis his only home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The scene of all his fame, the source of wealth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For which he toiled so wearily. All gone!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He would not touch a mountain of pure gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For ’twould be useless now! Poor, pauper Man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without his money, chiefest aim of life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stands homeless ’mid a Universe, to learn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If God will be his Father, or his Foe!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And from the blackness underneath, the swarms<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Evil ones are thronged, their hideous forms<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Half shown in lurid light, as here and there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They flit, like sharks, expectant of their prey.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then comes the closing scene. The sentence passed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The righteous breaking forth to joyous praise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall thread Creation’s wondrous maze of life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with their Leader, sweep towards yon Heaven;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While down the black abyss, with cries of woe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That make the darkness tremble, the condemned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are dragged, into its gloom,&mdash;and all is o’er&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth’s ashes float in scattered clouds through space&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Man the grandest era of all Time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To God, completion of Salvation’s scheme!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But Man deems Judgment too far off for thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor will prepare for such a distant fate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet there is something, far more sure than aught<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Uncertain life can offer; its decision, too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is just as final as the Judgment doom;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still ’tis oftenest farthest from the thought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Tis Death, the welcome or unwelcome guest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of every man, and yet how few prepare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For its approach! They give all else a care;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wealth, honor, fame, get all their time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While certain Death’s forgotten, till disease<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gives warning; then with hasty penitence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The knees are worn, the heart’s thick rubbish cleared;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But oft too late; the heart will not be cleared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">{116}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stubborn knees will not consent to bend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The house is set in order, while the guest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In sable robes, stands at the throbbing door.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And now to close thy lesson, look through this!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He gave to me a strangely fashioned glass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through which, when I had looked to Earth, I saw<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A long black wall, that towered immensely high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So none might see beyond. Before its length,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mankind were ranged, all weaving busily;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The young and old, the maiden and the man;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The infant hands unconscious plied the thread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The aged with a feeble, listless move.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They wove the warp of Life, and drew its thread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From o’er the wall; none knew how far its end<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was off, nor when ’twould reach the busy hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor did they care, in aught by action shown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But bending o’er their work, without a glance<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Towards the thread, that still so smoothly ran,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They threw the shuttle back and forth again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till suddenly the ravelled end appeared,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fell from the wall, and to the shuttle crept;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then the weaver laid his work aside,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With folded hands, was wrapped within his warp,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To wait the Master’s sentence on his task.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I saw the thread, in passing through their hands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Received the various colors, from their touch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tinged the different patterns that they wove.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">{117}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And oh! how different in design! Some wove<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A spotless fabric, whose pure simple plan<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was always ready for the ending thread;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come when it would, no part was incomplete;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But what was done, could bear th’ Inspector’s eye.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And others wove a dark and dingy rag,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That bore no pattern, save its filthiness;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fit garment for the fool who weaves for flames!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some wove the great red woof of war,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With clashing swords, and crossing bayonets,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With ghastly bones, and famished widows’ homes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With all the grim machinery of Death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To gain a paltry crown, or curule chair;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perchance, before the crown or chair is reached,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thread gives out, the work is incomplete,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in the gory cloak his hands have wrought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With all its stains unwashed, the hero sleeps.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some shuttles shape the gilded temple, Fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And count on thread to weave its topmost dome;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But ere the lowest pinnacle is touched,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The brittle filament is snapped. Some weave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bema, with its loud applause; and some<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gaudy chaplet of the bacchanal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And others sweated bays of honest toil.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But all the fabrics bear the yellow stain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of gold, o’er which the sinner and the saint<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unseemly strive, and he seems happiest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose work is yellowest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">{118}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Along the wall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“A fountain filled with blood,” plays constantly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where man may cleanse the fabric as he weaves;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet few avail themselves; the waters flow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Man works on, without regard to stains,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till thread worn thin arouses him to fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or breaks before the damning dyes are cleansed.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And down the line I ran my anxious eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To find a weaver I might recognize,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And saw, at last, a form by mirrors known.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! ’twas a shameful texture that I wove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So dark its hue, so little saving white,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such seldom bathing in the fountain stream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I could not look, but bowed my blushing face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And like the publican of old, cried out,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Be merciful to me a sinner!”<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">“Rise!”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Angel said, “And worship God alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Return to Earth, enjoy an humble faith,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose simple trust shall make thee happier<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than all the grandeur of philosophy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Should doubts arise, remember, God’s designs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Above a finite comprehension stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And finite doubts, about the Infinite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Assume absurdity’s intensest form.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man, from the stand-point of the Present, looks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And disappointed, bitterly complains<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">{119}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of what would move his deepest gratitude,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could he the issue of the morrow know.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God sees the future, and in kindness deals<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To every man his complement of good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Remember then the weakness of thy mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor doubt because thou canst not understand.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To gather scattered jewels thou must kneel;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So on thy knees seek truth, and thou shalt find;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The nearer Earth thy face, the nearer Heaven<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy heart. And now farewell!”<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">I sprang to clasp<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His hand in gratitude, but with a wave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of parting benediction, he was gone!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then in an instant, like an aerolite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With naught to bear me up, I fell to Earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swifter and swifter, with increasing speed!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now bursting through a sunlit bank of cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And clutching, vainly, at the yielding mist,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or through a cradling storm, with thunder charged,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down through the open air, whose parted breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hissed death into my ears, while all below<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seemed rushing up to meet and mangle me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I shrieked aloud, “Oh save me!”&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">And awoke.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The day was o’er, and night had drawn her shades;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The twinkling eyes of Heaven shone through the leaves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lit the tiny rain-globes on the grass;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">{120}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cloud had passed, and on th’ horizon’s verge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A monster firefly, with shimmering flash,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It slowly crawled behind the curve of death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And evening’s silence deeper seemed than noon’s,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For not a sound disturbed the hush of night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save katydids, with quavering monotones,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Returning contradictions from the trees.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All drenched and chilled, with trembling limbs I rose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And homeward bent my steps; and pondering<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon my dream, this moral from it drew:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man cannot judge the Eternal Mind by his,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But must accept the mysteries of Life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As purposes Divine, with perfect ends.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in our darkest clouds, God’s Angels stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To work Man’s present and eternal good.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">{121}</a></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="THE_VILLAGE_ON_THE_TAR" id="THE_VILLAGE_ON_THE_TAR"></a>THE VILLAGE ON THE TAR<br /><br />
+<small>DEDICATED TO PETTIGREW COUNCIL NO 1. F. OF T.</small></h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="ig"><span class="letra">A</span> DRUNKARD in a distant town lay dying on his bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="ig">There was lack of woman’s gentle touch about his fevered head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But a comrade stood beside him, and wiped the foam away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That bubbled through his frothy lips, to hear what he might say.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The poor inebriate faltered, as he caught that comrade’s eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he said, “<span class="lftspc">’</span>Tis hard, far, far from home ’mid strangers thus to die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take a message and a token to my friends away so far,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Louisburg’s my native place, the village on the Tar.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Tell my brothers and companions, should they ever wish to know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The story of the fallen, ah! the fallen one so low,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">{122}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That we drank the whole night deeply, and when at last ’twas o’er,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full many a form lay beastly drunk along the barroom floor.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there were ’mid those wretches some who had long served sin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their bloated features telling well what faithful slaves they’d been;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And some were young and had not on the Hell-path entered far&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And one was from the village, the village on the Tar.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Tell my mother that her other sons may still some comfort prove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I, in even childhood, would scorn that mother’s love;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when she called the children to lift up the evening prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One form was always missing, there was e’er one vacant chair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For my father was a drunkard, and even as a child<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He taught my little feet to tread the road to ruin wild;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when he died and left us to dispute about his will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I let them take whate’er they would, but kept my father’s ‘still,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">{123}</a></span>’<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with sottish love I used it till its venomed ‘worm’ did gnaw<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My soul, my mind, my very life, in the village on the Taw.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Tell my sister oft to weep for me with sad and drooping head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When she sees the wine flow freely, that poison ruby red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to turn her back upon it, with deep and burning shame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For her brother fell before it and disgraced the fam’ly name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if a drunkard seeks her love, oh! tell her, for my sake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To shun the loathsome creature, as she would a deadly snake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And have the old ‘still’ torn away, its fragments scattered far,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the honor of the village, the village on the Tar.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“There’s another, not a sister; in the merry days of old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You’d have known her by the dark blue eye, and hair of wavy gold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Too gentle e’er to chide me, too devoted e’er to hate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She loved me, though oft warned by all to shun the dreaded fate.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">{124}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell her the last night of my life&mdash;for ere the morning dawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My body will be tenantless, my clay-chained spirit gone&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I dreamed I stood beside her, and in those lovely blue depths saw<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The merry light that cheered me, in the village on the Taw.<a name="FNanchor_A_2" id="FNanchor_A_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“I saw the old Tar hurrying on its bubbles to the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As men on life’s waves e’er are swept towards eternity;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the rippling waters mingled with the warbling of the birds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Returned soft silvery echoes to my deep impassioned words;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in those listening ears I poured the sweet tho’ time-worn story,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While swimming were those love-lit eyes, in all their tear-pearled glory;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And her little hand was closely pressed in mine so brown and braw,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah! I no more shall meet her, in the village on the Taw.”<a name="FNanchor_A_3" id="FNanchor_A_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He ceased to speak, and through his frame there ran a shiver slight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His blood-shot eyes rolled inward and revealed their ghastly white,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">{125}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His swollen tongue protruded, o’er his face a pallor spread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His comrade touched his pulse&mdash;’twas still&mdash;and he was with the dead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moon from her pavilion, in the blue-draped fleecy cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the window o’er the corpse had thrown her pale but ghostly shroud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The same moon that gazing upon that couch of straw.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was bathing in a silver flood the village on the Taw.<a name="FNanchor_A_4" id="FNanchor_A_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="c"><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> The Indian name of this river was <i>Taw</i>.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Publisher.</span></p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="REQUIESCAM" id="REQUIESCAM"></a>REQUIESCAM</h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Oh</span>! give me a grave in a lone, gloomy dell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By the side of a deep, swift creek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the ripples run like a tinkling bell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the grassy nooks, where love so well<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The minnows to play hide and seek!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where in summer the thick twining foliage weaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A green, arching roof upon high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the rain-drops fall from the dripping eaves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like tears of grief from the weeping leaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On the face upturned to the sky!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">{126}</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where the silence frightens the birds away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And all is still, dreary and weird,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Except, perchance at the close of day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bittern’s boom or the crane’s hoarse bray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Floating over the swamp, is heard.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where the dusky wolf and the antlered deer<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ever shun the dark, haunted ground;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the crouching panther ventures near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His tawny coat all bristling with fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At the sight of the low, red mound.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where at twilight gray, the lone whippoorwill<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">May perch on the stake at my head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with its unearthly, tremulous trill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dreary gloom of the whole place fill<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With a requiem over the dead.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where the greater the ruin in earth’s damp mold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The greater the contrast will prove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the weary wings of my spirit I fold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In heaven, and swell with a bright harp of gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The grand pealing anthem of love.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>February 9th, 1867</i><br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">{127}</a></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="LINES_TO_AN_ANALYTICAL_GEOMETRY" id="LINES_TO_AN_ANALYTICAL_GEOMETRY"></a>LINES TO AN ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY<br /><br />
+<small>KNOWN TO THE STUDENTS AS “MISS ANNIE”</small><br /><br />
+<small>WRITTEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1866</small></h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">At</span> “Elysium” chum and I were sitting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across our vision memories flitting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Talking, smoking, often spitting<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On the hearth, not on the floor;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When suddenly we heard a spluttering,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As of book leaves madly flutt’ring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some one there seemed slowly mutt’ring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At the bookcase, not the door.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Wildly springing to my feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Chum with fright seemed tied t’ his seat),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dreading, fearing I should meet<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What so like a ghost had spoken&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fellow members, if you’re able<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To believe what seemed a fable,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I saw “Miss Annie” on the table,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With rage and anger almost choking.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then without a bow or bend,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">{128}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sitting up upon one end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without preface thus began&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While we both in wonder stared:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“O ye worthless lazy scamps!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Talk about your midnight lamps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While I’m in the bookcase crampt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To what can such Sophs be compared?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Here you’ll sit and smoke and talk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To-morrow morn to black-board walk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seize your ‘ruler’ and your chalk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Then I hope get badly ‘rushed.’<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! the present generation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such neglect to education,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blood and scissors! thunderation!”<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She was so mad the tears forth gushed.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Chum and I had heard enough<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To put us both in quite a huff,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So just to stop her noisome stuff<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I sprang and seized her by the collar.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">George jumped up and grabbed the poker,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shouted, “Edwin, try to choke her!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We’ll stop her mouth, a darned old croaker,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Squeeze her tight and make her ‘holloa.’<span class="lftspc">”</span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To the fire we held her near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still she showed no signs of fear.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">{129}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Shall the red coals be your bier?”<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She shook her leaves and fluttered, “No.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now my face with anger flushes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Covered first with scarlet blushes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I cried, “Will you again e’er ‘rush’ us?”<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Quoth Miss Annie, “Evermore.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Book or fiend,” I cried, up starting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Be that word our sign of parting.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then I, in my vengeance darting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hurled her in the embers red.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She slightly quivered, slowly burned;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the sickening sight I turned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet from her this lesson learned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Prepare before you go to bed.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LINES_TO_COUSINS_C_AND_E" id="LINES_TO_COUSINS_C_AND_E"></a>LINES TO COUSINS C. AND E.<br /><br />
+<small>ON THE BIRTH OF THEIR LITTLE DAUGHTER</small></h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The</span> marriage over, from the train<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of watching seraphs, one long strain<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Of gratulation broke.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then were still the rustling wings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fingers hushed the throbbing strings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">While thus an angel spoke:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">{130}</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Who’ll go to earth to bless this pair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With angel child, beneath their care<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Be trained for bliss or woe?”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He ceased, and from the throng sprang three,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faith, Love, and spotless Purity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">These knelt, and said “We’ll go.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dear cousins, to you these are sent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Three spirits in one being blent.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">It is a jewel rare.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! keep her pure as when first given,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Guide her faith from Earth to Heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Guard her love with care.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>May, 1867.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="THE_DEVIL_OUTDONE" id="THE_DEVIL_OUTDONE"></a>THE DEVIL OUTDONE;<br /><br />
+<small>OR,</small><br /><br />
+<small>THE GUARD OF THE SULPHUR LAKE</small></h2>
+
+<p>To her who sent me the Valentine with the cutting irony, “Don’t I look
+pretty in church?” these lines are respectfully inscribed. Not knowing
+her name, I will call her “Taters,” as she drew her elegant and tasty
+simile from that vegetable.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The</span> Devil was sitting one morning below,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">{131}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he seemed much perplexed as to what he must do,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For his dark brows would knit, and he’d stamp on the ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And flap his great wings till floating around<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were the ashes and feathers.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">At last with an air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of resolve he threw himself back in his chair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lit a brimstone cigar, and touched a small bell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An imp appeared, bowed, and on his face fell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Cloven-foot,” said the D&mdash;&mdash;, “what’s the news from the fire?”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“My liege, the great ape has ceased to inspire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The victims with terror; they fear him no more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And continually crawl from the flames to the shore.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Well, Cloven-foot, I had most certainly thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When from Africa’s wilds that baboon you brought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He’d prove such a guard for the great Sulphur Lake<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wretches would ne’er cease before him to quake.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now go up to earth, and search till you find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Something uglier far, then quick seize and bind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bring it to me; and if it beats the baboon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I’ll reward you. Be sure to return just as soon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As ’tis possible, and above all things to choose<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">{132}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An object whose countenance never will lose<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its hideous novelty.” The imp bowed and withdrew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And swiftly to earth on his errand he flew;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in vain did he search where the gorillas roam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or the jungles of Bengal, the fierce tiger’s home.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In vain throughout Europe he searched every place;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nowhere could he find the requisite face.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Frustrated and weary, with deep despair frantic,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was skimming the waves of the tossing Atlantic.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A few pinion strokes, and he stood on the shore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the New World, and through it began to explore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But all was in vain, till he chanced to alight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a sweet little village, one smiling morn bright.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Disguising himself, he attended the church,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not hoping to find the object of search,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But just for the fun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">As he stood with the throng<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That were watching the College girls marching along,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He caught a slight glimpse of Miss “Tater’s” sweet face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sprang to her side, clasped her in embrace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as he plunged downward he said to himself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Here’s one will compete with the African elf.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">{133}</a></span>”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He soon furled his wing on the Plutonian shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to his dark ruler his fair burden bore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the Valentine sender came into sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Devil himself started back with affright.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“Whew! whew!” whistled he, “she’ll do, I declare!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Go bring the baboon, and let them compare.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The imp disappeared, then returned with the ape,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A creature most frightful in feature and shape.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His head was oblong and perfectly bald,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Running back from his eyes&mdash;no forehead at all;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His eyeballs were white, their sockets deep red;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His long, glistening teeth strung with human-flesh shred,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The gore of his victims from his fingers’ ends flowed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And round his lank limbs candescent chains glowed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In front of Miss “Taters” this creature was led;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He gave a look, yelled, and fainted stone dead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“By my tongs,” quoth the Devil, “she’s rather too hard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the old fellow; she’ll make a capital guard.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take her down to the fire.” The imp led the way<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And far down they went from the clear light of day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down, down, till the air was all smoky and red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the tumult of hell seemed bursting her head;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">{134}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down, down, till the piteous wails and the moans<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the tortured but echoed the jeers and the groans<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the fiends. Down, down, till they came to the lake<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That scorches and scalds, but never will slake<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thirst of its victims. Far out on its breast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It would heave them anon on the red foaming crest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of a billow, then plunge them far deeper beneath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its boiling bosom, in torture to seethe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along the hot shore the poor creatures would crawl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To pant and to rest from their terrible thrall.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From their bodies all smoking the lava would stream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While the shriveled flesh peeled from each quiv’ring limb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And their heart-piercing shrieks rose higher and higher,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the tongue of each wave licked them back in the fire.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But as soon as Miss “Taters” had come where they were<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Every noise was hushed, not a sound could you hear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Twas a wonder indeed, and the wonder increased,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the billows of crimson their torture surge ceased.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">{135}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the imp had examined more closely, he found<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The victims had fainted, the fire gone down.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He hurried her back to his master and said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“The fires are out, and the wretches are dead.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“What, the fires extinguished! those fires of old!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take her back! I begin e’en myself to feel cold!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She’ll ruin us all with her terrible face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She’s rather hard-favored for even this place.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>April, 1867.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="THE_SUNFLOWER" id="THE_SUNFLOWER"></a>THE SUNFLOWER</h2>
+
+<p class="csml">LINES SUGGESTED BY OBSERVING GEN. PETTIGREW’S NAME OMITTED IN MRS.
+DOWNING’S “MEMORIAL FLOWERS” AND IN THE “SOUTHERN BOUQUET”</p>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">When</span> poets cull memorial flowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With which our martyrs’ graves to strew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They choose no one in Nature’s bowers<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">For Pettigrew.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet there is one, and only one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Which truly represents his name;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A flower that revels in the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And drinks his flame.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A flower that opens when, all red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sun hath kissed the eastern skies;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">{136}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But westward turned, it droops its head<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And proudly dies.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thus when the sun of victory sheared<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Its gory way o’er clouds of war,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This flower’s tow’ring crest appeared<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">A beacon star.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And in its gorgeous, glorious rays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This flower basked, and only bowed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When coming conquest’s bloody haze<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">That sun did shroud.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Crushed flower, with thy broken stem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I’ll keep thee near to typify<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fallen form; the hero’s fame<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Can never die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>June 19th, 1867.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="AN_ELEGY" id="AN_ELEGY"></a>AN ELEGY<br /><br />
+<small>WRITTEN ON THE ROTUNDA STEPS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 1868</small></h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The</span> bell the knell of evening lecture tolls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The thronging students pour from every door;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tutor gathers up his notes and rolls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And homeward wends his weary way once more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">{137}</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The noisy crowd is gone, there is a pause,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And hushed is all the busy hum and whirl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save where from yonder room breaks loud applause<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That welcomes some professor’s parting “curl.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Save that from yonder plain, the lower lawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Some base-ball novice makes harsh rhyms to <i>psalm</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because a veteran, with his hands of horn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Has “pitched” too “hot” a ball for his soft palm.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Beneath those balconies, along those rows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where sinks the wall in many a jail-like cell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each wrapped in silence now and in repose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The minstrels of the “Calathump” do dwell.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The whispered call of evil-masking night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The signal whistle of the well-known crew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bumping bang of “blowers” beat with might,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Will often rouse the “Nippers of Peru.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For them in vain for hours their hearts will burn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While busy housewives tremble at their noise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And frightened children to their fathers turn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Too badly scared to think of play or toys.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oft has th’ rotunda echoed to their songs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In dulcet strains that on the still air broke;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">{138}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oft has the lawn resounded with their gongs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That roared and rattled ’neath their sturdy stroke.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Let not their victims mock th’ infernal din,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Coal-scuttle drums, and clarion paper trump;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But let them hear with a sardonic “grin,”<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The hideous clamor of a “Calathump.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The boast of Mozart, or Beethoven’s pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sweetest notes Von Weber ever gave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alike would prove harsh dissonance beside<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The gushing concord of one college stave.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To-night upon their pillows will be laid<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Heads that are pregnant with some secret plan;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hands that a “poker” often may have swayed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or waked to ecstasy an old tin pan.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In vain grave study holds before their gaze<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her ample page and honor’s glittering roll;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fire of “frolic” in their bosom plays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And warms the devilish current of their soul.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Full many a mind that might have nations hurled<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">About as toys, has hid its talents rare;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And many a voice that might have moved a world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Has cracked in shoutings on the midnight air.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">{139}</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Some village Hampden here by night may bawl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Some unknown Milton, but by no means mute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some David that may soothe a savage Saul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As yet entirely guiltless of a lute.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The applause of gaping urchins to command,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The darkies’ laughter at their quaint disguise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A few short words from some one to the band,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This is their sole reward, their hard-earned prize.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Would start to nip with dry and husky throttle?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whene’er they march along the Devil’s way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They take his own peculiar seal, the bottle.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Amid the madding crowd that gathers thick,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A moving pandemonium they stray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And down those much frequented walks of brick<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They hold the noisy tenor of their way.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<h3>THE EPIGRAM</h3>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Here go at last, all yelling to the town,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A band of youths to Judson’s too well known;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fair science ever met their darkest frown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And foul intemperance marked them for her own.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Small is their bounty, but “a drink” they chime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As round the crowded counter many jam;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">{140}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each gives to Judson (all he has) a dime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Each gets from him (’tis all he wants) a dram.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>January, 1868.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="FIRE_EYES" id="FIRE_EYES"></a>FIRE EYES</h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hast thou on summer’s eve ere marked<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The storm on cloud wings soaring high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And spreading far his pinions black,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Across the blue good-natured sky?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hast thou seen from ’neath his brow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The lightning’s eye gleam fiercely bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if to pierce a thousand foes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With daggers of his living light?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As flash the lightnings in the skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So gleam, when angry, “Fire Eyes.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hast thou on autumn eve e’er seen<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sun just nestling on his pillow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While sapphire clouds were silver-fringed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As seafoam crests the surging billow?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hast thou seen the golden gaze<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sun bestows on Nature fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That dyes the gorgeous landscape o’er<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And almost melts the amber air?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As beams the sun on autumn skies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So smile, when pleased, bright “Fire Eyes.”<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">{141}</a></span></div></div>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="MY_DARLINGS_JESSAMINE" id="MY_DARLINGS_JESSAMINE"></a>MY DARLING’S JESSAMINE</h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">’Twas only a sprig of white jessamine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That came in a letter she wrote;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I value it more than the costliest vine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose tendrils o’er marble-carved trellis-work twine:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>’Twas worn at my darling one’s throat</i>.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A throat that encages the nightingale’s trill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sweetens each silvery note,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I think as I hear, in a rapturous thrill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her voice, whose volume can heaven’s dome fill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That the <i>angels have lent her a throat</i>.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">More sweet than exotics that Fashion dupes wear<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As through the gay ballroom they float!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the leaves of my Bible I laid it with care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More <i>sacredly dear</i> than a <i>buried friend’s hair</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Since worn at my darling one’s throat!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>July, 1870.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">{142}</a></span></div></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="THE_PARTING_SHIP" id="THE_PARTING_SHIP"></a>THE PARTING SHIP</h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">In</span> pensive mood I stood upon the quay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where busy Commerce plied her energy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where loading vessels hung their sails at rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rose and fell, upon the water’s breast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where busy little tugs with hissing steam<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Buried their noses in the foaming stream.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Near by, a steamer in a paneled wharf<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chafed at her chains and panted to be off.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A strange, mysterious ship, no pennon bold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her nation or her destination told;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No crew was seen, no farewell song was sung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No parting loved ones to each other clung;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No wife was weeping on her husband’s neck,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No mother blessed her wayward boy on deck.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A ceaseless throng pressed through the cabin door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if they longed to leave their native shore;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No backward glance, no tearful farewell view,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And no one seemed to think home worth adieu.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At last the bell was rung, the plank was drawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with a shivering sigh, the ship was gone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then as I marked her curving track of foam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wondered in what waters she would roam;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I thought of those on board, the reckless air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of their departure, and I breathed a prayer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">{143}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A red-haired man stood turning up a wheel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That wound a clanking chain upon a reel;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I laid a coin upon his brawny hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And asked him, “Who thus leave their native land?”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He leaned upon his wheel and closed one eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if the lid were burdened with a sty;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then with a laugh he answered, “By the devil’s spleen and liver,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It’s on’y a Fulton ferry-boat a’gwine a’gross East River.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="TO_M_mdash_FROM_Emdashmdash" id="TO_M_mdash_FROM_Emdashmdash"></a>TO M&mdash;&mdash;, FROM E&mdash;&mdash;<br /><br />
+<small>WRITTEN ON THE FLY-LEAF OF A BIBLE</small></h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">One</span> year of sweetest love intense!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One year of mutual confidence!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One year of gazing into eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In which the love-light never dies!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One year of clasping hands, that thrill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With throbbing love from life’s red rill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One year of clouds, whose transient shade<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The after glory brighter made!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One year of doubts, whose fleeting rust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could not corrode our links of trust!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One year of prayer, whose pleading tone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has for <i>each other</i> sued the Throne!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One year <i>together</i>&mdash;may it prove<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">{144}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prophetic of our earthly love!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One year <i>each other’s</i>&mdash;may it be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A type of our <i>eternity</i>!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Sunday, May, 1871.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="UNDER_THE_PINES" id="UNDER_THE_PINES"></a>UNDER THE PINES<br /><br />
+<small>“TELL THEM TO BURY ME UNDER THE PINES AT HOME.” FROM “SEA GIFT.”</small></h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I <span class="smcap">would</span> not rest in the moldering tomb<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the grim church-yard, where the ivy twines,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But make me a grave in the forest’s gloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the breezes wave, like a soldier’s plume,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Each dark-green bough of the dear old pines;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where the lights and shadows softly merge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the sun-flakes sift through the netted vines;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the sea winds, sad with the sob of the surge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the harp-leaves sweep a solemn dirge<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the dead beneath the sighing pines.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When the winter’s icy fingers sow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The mound with jewels till it shines,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cowled in hoods of glistening snow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like white-veiled sisters bending low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bow, sorrowing, the silent pines.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">{145}</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">While others fought for cities proud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For fertile plains and wealth of mines,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I breathed the sulph’rous battle cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I bared my breast, and took my shroud<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the land where wave the grand old pines.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Though comrades sigh and loved ones weep<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the form shot down in the battle lines,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In my grave of blood I gladly sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If the life I gave will help to keep<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Vandal’s foot from the Land of Pines.<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">* * * * * * * * * *</span><br />
+<span class="i0">The Vandal’s foot hath pressed our sod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His heel hath crushed our sacred shrines;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, bowing ’neath the chastening rod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We lift our hearts and hands to God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And cry: “Oh! save our Land of Pines!”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="THE_LAST_LOOK" id="THE_LAST_LOOK"></a>THE LAST LOOK<br /><br />
+<small>TO MARY</small></h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Do</span> not fasten the lid of the coffin down yet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let me have a long look at the face of my pet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Please all quit the chamber and pull to the door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And leave me alone with my darling once more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">{146}</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Is this little Ethel, so cold, and so still!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beat, beat, breaking heart, ’gainst God’s mystic will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remember, O Christ, thou didst dread thine own cup,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And while I drink mine, let thine arm bear me up.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But the moments are fleeting: I must stamp on my brain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each dear little feature, for never again<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can I touch her; and only God measures how much<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Affection a mother conveys by her touch.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh! dear little head, oh! dear little hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So silken, so golden, so soft, and so fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will I never more smooth it? Oh! help me, my God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To bear this worst stroke of the chastening rod.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Those bright little eyes that used to feign sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or sparkle so merrily, playing at peep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Closed forever! And yet they seemed closed with a sigh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if for our sake she regretted to die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And that dear little <i>mouth</i>, once so warm and so soft,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Always willing to kiss you, no matter how oft,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cold and rigid, without the least tremor of breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How could you claim <i>Ethel</i>, O pitiless death!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">{147}</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her hands! No, ’twill kill me to think how they wove<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through my daily existence a tissue of love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each finger’s a print upon memory’s page,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That will brighten, thank God! and not dim with my age.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sick or well, they were ready at every request<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To amuse us: sweet hands! they deserve a sweet rest.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their last little trick was to wipe “Bopeep’s” eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their last little gesture, to wave us good-bye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Little feet! little feet, how dark the heart’s gloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where your patter is hushed in that desolate room!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For oh! ’twas a sight sweet beyond all compare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To see little “Frisky” rock back in her chair.<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">* * * * * * * * * *</span><br />
+
+<span class="i0">O Father! have mercy, and grant me thy grace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To see, through this frown, the smile on thy face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To feel that this sorrow is sent for the best,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to learn from my darling a lesson of rest.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>February 16th, 1875.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">{148}</a></span></div></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LINES_WRITTEN_AT_THE_REQUEST_OF_AN_UNKNOWN_FRIEND" id="LINES_WRITTEN_AT_THE_REQUEST_OF_AN_UNKNOWN_FRIEND"></a>LINES WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF AN UNKNOWN FRIEND</h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">We’ve</span> never met; I’ve never pressed your hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor caught the light of Friendship in your eyes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet bound by grief, between two graves we stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And mingle tears, and hear each other’s sighs.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The same dark wings have taken from each hearth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The brightest jewel of the circle there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And poor Faith stumbles at the mound of earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And feebly yields her place to wan Despair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The same dear Christ that took our little one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And laid her precious head upon His breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In tender love called home your darling son<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To enter early his eternal rest.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But who could stand beside the open tomb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And hear the clods fall on the coffin lid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And see deep underneath the earthen gloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The dearest love of life forever hid?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Could we not hear the grave’s red lips proclaim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">“I am the Resurrection and the Life,”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And realize that Death in Jesus’ name<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is only rest from labor, pain, and strife?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">{149}</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">’Tis hard to feel assured our sainted dead<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Are happy <i>there</i>, as we could make them here;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We love them so we give them up with dread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And lay them in Christ’s arms with doubt and fear.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh! for a faith that sees in all God sends<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The kindness of a father to his son;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That prays, in every trial&mdash;if it ends<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In joy or grief, “Thy will, O Lord, be done.”<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Beneath the same dark shadow let us kneel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And lift our broken hearts in prayer to God<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That while He chastens, He will help us feel<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The wisdom of His purpose in the rod.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We are not strangers now; from heart to heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The electric chords of mutual sorrow thrill.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And clasping hands across the miles apart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We stand resolved, to “suffer and be still.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="OUT_IN_THE_RAIN" id="OUT_IN_THE_RAIN"></a>OUT IN THE RAIN</h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The</span> night is dark and cold, a beating rain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Falls ceaselessly upon the dripping roof;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dismal wind, with now a fierce, wild shriek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now a hollow moan, as if in pain,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">{150}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Circles the eaves, and bends the tortured trees that wring<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their long, bear hands in the bleak blast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">Within<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our chamber all is bright and warm. The fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Burns with a ruddy blaze. The shaded lamp<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Softens the pictures on the wall, and glows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the flowers in the carpet, till they seem<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All fresh and fragrant. Stretched upon the rug,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His collar gleaming in the fire-light, little Pip<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is sleeping on, defiant of the storm without.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The very furniture enjoys the warmth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And from its sides reflects the cheerful light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up in its painted cage, the little bird,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His yellow head beneath his soft, warm wing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is hiding. Oh! my God, out in the storm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Our little yellow head</i> is beaten by the rain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So lonely looks that precious little face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up at the cold, dark coffin’s lid above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the bleak graveyard’s solitude!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! Ethel darling, do you feel afraid?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or is Christ with you in your little grave?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When last we gazed upon those lovely eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They looked so tranquil, in their last repose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We knew that Christ’s own tender hand had sealed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their lids with His eternal peace.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! darling, are you happy up in heaven?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">{151}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And do the angels part that golden hair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As tenderly as we? O Saviour dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou knowest childhood’s tenderness. Amid<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The care of countless worlds, sometimes descend<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From thine almighty throne of power, and find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That little yellow head, and lay it on thy breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And smooth her brow with thine own pierced hand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She’ll kiss the wound and try to make it well.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tell her how we love her memory here;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And let her sometimes see us, that she may<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remember us. O Jesus, we can trust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her to thy care; and when we lay us down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To rest, beside that lonely, little grave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! let her meet us with her harp.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God help us both to make that meeting sure!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="THE_LILY_AND_THE_DEW-DROP" id="THE_LILY_AND_THE_DEW-DROP"></a>THE LILY AND THE DEW-DROP</h2>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Deep</span> in a cell of darkest green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rayless and murky with unbroken gloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With downcast head and shrinking, modest mien,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A lily of the valley shed her rare perfume,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Breathed softly, as a sea shell’s murmur, from her bloom<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">{152}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An odor so exquisite, none can tell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If ’tis an odor or a whispered sigh<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That like the dying echoes of a bell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Falls on the raptured sense so dreamily,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The soul swoons in the tearful clasp of memory.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So when an old man hears a harvest song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He used to sing, or smells the new-mown hay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A host of saddened recollections throng<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dusty chambers of his heart, and play<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the cobwebs there a soft Æolian lay.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">(<i>Unfinished.</i>)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LINES" id="LINES"></a>LINES,<br /><br />
+<small>WRITTEN AFTER HAVING A HEMORRHAGE FROM THE LUNGS</small></h2>
+
+<p class="csml">Written a short time before his death and handed to his wife with the
+request, “Do not open this until I am well, or until my death.”</p>
+
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Life</span> bloomed for me as if my path thro’ Eden<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Led its flowery way. Success had crowned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In many ways my efforts. No dark strife<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With adverse Fate its portent shadows cast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across the calm blue scope of heaven.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">And though<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">{153}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pride often chafed at plain commercial life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was but transient, for ambitious Hope<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kept ever in my view Fame’s gilded dome,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon whose highest pinnacle I chose my niche,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For vain conceit had whispered in my ear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That I had Genius to encharm the world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I looked forward to the loud applause<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of nations as a simple thing of time.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of death I thought but as a fright for those<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who have no destiny but dying. Mine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would come in age, but as a pallid seal<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Honor gained, and Life’s long labors done.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet I had felt the breath of Asrael’s wing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When from my youthful head he took my father’s hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And from my manhood’s arms my only child,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And down the past a little mound of earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tombed with the darkest sorrow of our hearts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still stands, though veiling in the folds of time.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of heaven I thought but as a distant home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A place of sweetest rest that I would gain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When weary of the burden of the world.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus gay of thought and bright of hope, I moved<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amid the flowers of my way.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">At once,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With scarce a rustle in the rose leaves, came<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A shadowy form, and standing silently<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before my pathway, breathed a whispered sigh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">{154}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if it loathed its office to perform;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then laid Consumption’s ghastly banner on my breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its pale folds crossed with fatal red.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">The sky<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grew dark, the rose leaves withered, as the form<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Withdrew, still silently; while I, alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the roadside, kneeled to pray for light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stunned surprise of sudden shattered hopes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The faith of self-appointed destiny,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still turned my eyes toward the Temple Fame.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across its gilded dome a spotless cloud<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had drifted, hiding it from view, but lo!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cloud, unfolding snowy depths, disclosed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The glories of that “House not made with hands,”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bending from it, so full of tenderness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I could discern the loved ones “gone before.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And over all I recognized the Form<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose brow endured Gabbatha’s shameful crown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose woe distilled itself in trickling blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Cedron’s murmuring wave.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">As tenderly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As ever mother touched her babe, He bore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Within His arms a little angel form,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With golden hair and blue expressive eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One dimpled hand lay on His willing cheek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While He bent down to meet the sweet caress,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The other, with that well-remembered look<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">{155}</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She kissed, and threw the kiss to me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i14">Then down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I bowed my face, and longed to know mine end.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">’Twere very sweet to leave all toil and care<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And join the blessed ones beyond the tide;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still ’twere sweet beyond compare to wait<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till eventide with loved ones here, and share<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their weal or woe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Then came a flute-like voice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That thrilled the solemn air:<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">“Pursue thy way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet humbly walk and watch, and if I come<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At midnight, or at noon, be ready.”<br /></span>
+<span class="i17">Thus<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wish to live, life’s aims subserved to God;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And each continued day and hour regard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As special gifts to be improved for Him;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To wear the girdle of the world about my loins<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So loosely that a moment will suffice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To break the clasp, and lay it down.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="fint">THE END</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Angel in the Cloud, by Edwin W. (Wiley) Fuller
+
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