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  The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Angel in the Cloud, by Edwin W. Fuller.
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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57504 ***</div>

<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;
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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" />







<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57504 ***</div>

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