Proverbial Philosophy / The First and Second Series

by Unknown

OF IMMORTALITY.

Gird up thy mind to contemplation, trembling inhabitant of earth;

Tenant of a hovel for a day,—thou art heir of the universe for ever!

For, neither congealing of the grave, nor gulphing waters of the firmament,

Nor expansive airs of heaven, nor dissipative fires of Gehenna,

Nor rust of rest, nor wear, nor waste, nor loss, nor chance, nor change,

Shall avail to quench or overwhelm the spark of soul within thee!

Thou art an imperishable leaf on the evergreen bay-tree of Existence;

A word from Wisdom's mouth, that cannot be unspoken;

A ray of Love's own light; a drop in Mercy's sea;

A creature, marvellous and fearful, begotten by the fiat of Omnipotence.

I, that speak in weakness, and ye, that hear in charity,

Shall not cease to live and feel, though flesh must see corruption;

For the prison-gates of matter shall be broken, and the shackled soul go free,

Free, for good or ill, to satisfy its appetence for ever:

For ever,—dreadful doom, to be hurried on eternally to evil,—

For ever,—happy fate, to ripen into perfectness—for ever!

And is there a thought within thy heart, O slave of sin and fear,

A black and harmful hope, that erring spirit dieth?

That primal disobedience hath ensured the death of soul,

And separate evil sealed it thine—thy curse, Annihilation?

Heed thou this; there is a Sacrifice; the Maker is Redeemer of His creature;

Freely unto each, universally to all, is restored the privilege of essence:

Whether unto grace or guilt, all must live through Him,

Live in vital joy, or live in dying woe:

Death in Adam, Life in Christ; the curse hung upon the cross:

Who art thou that heedest of redemption, as narrower than the fall?

All were dead,—He died for all; that living, they might love;

If living souls withhold their love,—still, He hath died for them.

Eve stole the knowledge; Christ gave the life:

Knowledge and life are the perquisites of soul, the privilege of Man:

Mercy stepped between, and stayed the double theft;

God gave; and giving, bought; and buying, asketh love:

And in such asking rendereth bliss, to all that hear and answer,

For love with life is heaven; and life unloving, hell.

Creature of God, His will is for thy weal, eternally progressing;

Fear not to trust a Maker's love, nor a Saviour's ransom:

He drank for all,—for thee, and me,—the poison of our deeds;

We shall not die, but live,—and, of His grace, we love.

For, in the mysteries of Mercy, the One fore-knowing Spirit

Outstrippeth reason's halting choice, and winneth men to Him:

Who shall sound the depths? who shall reach the heights?

Freedom, in the gyves of fate; and sovereignty, reconciled with justice.

If then, as annihilate by sin, the soul was ever forfeit,

Godhead paid the mighty price, the pledge hath been redeemed:

He from the waters of Oblivion raised the drowning race,

Lifting them even to Himself, the baseless Rock of Ages.

None can escape from Adam's guilt, or second Adam's guerdon:

Sin and death are thine; thine also is interminable being:

Let it be even as thou wilt, still are we ransomed from nonentity,

The worlds of bliss and woe are peopled with immortals:

And ruin is thy blame; for thou, the worst, art free

To take from Heaven the grace of love, as the gift of life:

Yet is not remedy thy praise; for thou, the best, art bound

In self, and sin, and darkling sloth, until He break the chain:

None can tell, without a struggle, if that chain be broken;

Strive to-day,—one effort more may prove that thou art free!

Here is faith and prayer, here is the Grace and the Atonement,

Here is the creature feeling for its God, and the prodigal returning to his Father.

But, behold, His reasonable children, standing in just probation,

With ears to hear, neglect; with eyes to see, refuse:

They will not have the blessing with the life, the blessing that enricheth Immortality;

And look for pleasures out of God, for heaven in life alone:

So, they snatch that awful prize, existence void of love,

And in their darkening exile make a needful hell of self.

Therefore fear, thou sinner, lest the huge blessing, Immortality,

Be blighted in thine evil to a curse,—it were better he had not been born:

Therefore hope, thou saint, for the gift of Immortality is free;

Take and live, and live in love; fear not, thou art redeemed!

The happy life, that height of hope, the knowledge of all good,

This is the blessing on obedience, obedience the child of faith:

The miserable life, that depth of all despair, the knowledge of all evil,

This is the curse upon impenitence, impenitence that sprung of unbelief.

God, from a beautiful necessity, is Love in all He doeth,

Love, a brilliant fire, to gladden or consume:

The wicked work their woe by looking upon love, and hating it:

The righteous find their joys in yearning on its loveliness for ever.

Who shall imagine Immortality, or picture its illimitable prospect?

How feebly can a faltering tongue express the vast idea!

For consider the primæval woods that bristle over broad Australia,

And count their autumn leaves, millions multiplied by millions;

Thence look up to a moonless sky from a sleeping isle of the Ægæan,

And add to these leaves yon starry host, sparkling on the midnight numberless;

Thence traverse an Arabia, some continent of eddying sand,

Gather each grain, let none escape, add them to the leaves and to the stars;

Afterward gaze upon the sea, the thousand leagues of an Atlantic,

Take drop by drop, and add their sum, to the grains, and leaves, and stars;

The drops of ocean, the desert sands, the leaves, and stars innumerable,

All might reckon for an instant, a transient flash of Time,

Compared with this intolerable blaze, the measureless enduring of Eternity!

O grandest gift of the Creator,—O largess worthy of a God,—

Who shall grasp that thrilling thought, life and joy for ever?

For the sun in heaven's heaven is Love that cannot change,

And the shining of that sun is life, to all beneath its beams:

Who shall arrest it in the firmament,—or drag it from its sphere?

Or bid its beauty smile no more, but be extinct for ever?

Yea, where God hath given, none shall take away,

Nor build up limits to His love, nor bid His bounty cease;

Wide, as space is peopled, endless as the empire of heaven,

The river of the water of life floweth on in majesty for ever!

Why should it seem a thing impossible to thee, O man of many doubts,

That God shall wake the dead, and give this mortal immortality?

Is it that such riches are unsearchable, the bounty too profuse?

And yet, what gift, to cease or change, is worthy of the King Almighty?

For remember the moment thou art not, thou mightest as well not have been;

A millennium and an hour are equal in the gulph of that desolate abyss, annihilation:

If Adam had existed till to-day, and to-day had perished utterly,

What were his gain in length of a life, that hath passed away for ever?

No tribute of thanks can exhale from the empty censer of nonentity;

The Giver, with His gift reclaimed, is mulcted of all praise.

Tell me, ye that strive in vain to cramp and dwarf the soul,

Wherefore should it cease to be, and when shall essence die?

It is,—and therefore shall be, till just obstacle opposeth:

Show no cause for change, and reason leaneth to continuance.

The body verily shall change; this curious house we live in

Never had continuing stay, but changeth every instant:

But the spiritual tenant of the house abideth in unalterable consciousness,

He may fly to many lands, but cannot flee himself.

The soil wherein ye drop the seed, by suns or rains may vary;

But the seed is the same; and soul is the seed; and flesh but its anchorage to earth.

The machine may be broken, and rust corrode the springs: but can rust feed on motion?

Worms may batten on the brain: but can worms gnaw the mind?

Dynamics are, and dwell apart, though matter be not made;

Spirit is, and can be separate, though a body were not:

Power is one, be it lever, screw, or wedge; but it needeth these for illustration:

Mind is one, be it casual or ideal; but it is shown in these.

The creature is constructed individual, for trial of his reasonable will,

Clay and soul, commingled wisely, mingled not confused:

As power is not in the spring, till somewhat give it action,

So, until spirit be infused, the organism lieth inergetic.

Or shalt thou say that mind is the delicate offspring of matter,

The bright consummate flower that must perish with its leaf?

Go to: doth weight breed lightness? is freedom the atmosphere of prisons?

When did the body elevate, expand, and bud the mind?

Lo, a red-hot cinder flung from the furnaces of Ætna,—

There is fire in that ash; but did the pumice make it?

Nay, cold clod, never canst thou generate a flame,

Nay, most exquisite machinery, nevermore elaborate a mind:

Rather do ye battle and contend, opposite the one to the other;

Till God shall stop the strife, and call the body colleague.

Garment of flesh, and art thou then a vest, so tinged with subtle poison,

Not so: fruit of disobedience, rot in dissolution, as thou must,—

The seed is in the core, its germ is safe, and life is in that germ:

Moreover, Marah shall be sweetened; and a Good Physician

Yet shall heal those gangrene wounds, the spotted plague of sin:

He, through worldly trials, and the separative cleansing of the grave,

Shall change its corruptible to glory, and wash that garment white.

Still, is the whisper in thy heart, that oftenest the bed of death

Seemeth but a sluggish ebb, of sinking soul and body?

Mind dwelling, long-time, sensual in the chambers of the flesh,

May slumber on in conscious sloth, and wilfully be dulled:

But is it therefore nigh to dissolution, even as the body of this death?

Ask the stricken conscience, gasping out its terrors;

Ask the dying miser, loth to leave his gold;

Ask the widowed poor, confiding her fatherless to strangers;

Ask the martyr-maid, a broken reed so strong,

That weak and tortured frame, with triumph on its brow!—

O thou gainsayer, the finger of disease may seem to reach the soul,

But it is a spiritual touch, sympathy with that which aileth:

Pain or fear may dislocate and shatter this delicate machinery of nerves;

But madness proveth mind: the fault is in the engine, not the impetus:

Dissipate the mists of matter, lo, the soul is clear:

Timour's cage bowed it in the dust; but now it goeth forth a freedman.

Yet more, there is reason in moralities, that the soul must live;

If God be king in heaven, or have care for earth.

Can wickedness have triumphed with impunity, or virtue toiled unseen?

Shall cruelty torture unavenged, and the innocent complain unheard?

Is there no recompense for woe, must there be no other world for justice,—

No hope in setting suns of good, nor terror for the evil at its zenith?

How shall ye make answer unto this; a just God prospering iniquity,

Wisdom encouraging the foolish, and goodness abetting the depraved!

Yet again; mine erring brother, pardon this abundance of my speech,

Yield me thy candour and thy charity, listening with a welcome:

For, even now, a thousand thoughts are trooping to my theme;

O mighty theme, O feeble thoughts! Alas! who is sufficient?

Judge not so high a cause by these poor words alone,

For lo, the advocate hath little skill: pardon and pass on:

Certify thyself with surer proofs; fledge thine own mind for flight;

Think, and pray; those better proofs shall follow on with holy aspiration.

Yet in my humbler grade to help thy weal and comfort,

Thy weal for this and higher worlds, and comfort in thy sickness,

Suffer the multitude of fancies, walking with me still in love;

But tread in fear, it is holy ground,—remember, Immortality!

Wilt thou argue from infirmities, thine abject evil state,

As how should stricken wretched man indeed exist for ever:

The brutal and besotted, the savage and the slave, the sucking infant and the idiot,

The mass of mean and common minds, and all to be immortal?—

Consider every beginning, how small it is and feeble:

Ganges, and the rolling Mississippi sprung of brooks among the mountains;

The Yew-tree of a thousand years was once a little seed,

And Nero's marble Rome, a shepherd's mud-built hovel:

A speck is on the tropic sky, and it groweth to the terrible tornado;

An apple, all too fair to see, destroyed a world of souls:

A tender babe is born,—it is Attila, scourge of the nations!

A seeming malefactor dieth,—it is Jesus, the Saviour of men!

And hive not in thy thoughts the vain and wordy notion

That nothing which was born in Time can tire out the footsteps of Infinity:

Reckon up a sum in numbers; where shall progression stop?

The starting-post is definite and fixed, but what is the goal of numeration?

So, begin upon a moment, and when shall being end?

Souls emanate from God, to travel with Him equally for ever.

Moreover, thou that objectest the unenterable circle of eternity,

That none but He from everlasting can endure, as to a future everlasting,

Consider, may it be impossible that creatures were counted in their Maker,

And so, that the confines of Eternity are filled by God alone?

Trust not thy soul upon a fancy: who would freight a bubble with a diamond,

And launch that priceless gem on the boiling rapids of a cataract?

If then we perish not at death, but walk in spirit through the darkness,

Waiting for a mansion incorruptible, whereof this body is the seed,

Tell me, when shall be the period? time and its ordeals are done:

The storms are passed, the night is at end, behold the Sabbath morning.

Is death to be conqueror again, and claim once more the victory,—

Can the enemy's corpse awaken into life, and bruise the Champion's head?

Evil, terrible ensample, that foil to the attributes of Good,

Is banished to its own black world, weeded out of earth and heaven:

Shall that great gulf be passed, and sin be sown again?—

We know but this, the book of truth proclaimeth gladly, Never!

There remaineth the will of our God: when He repenteth of His creature,

Made by self-suggested mercy, ransomed by self-sacrificing justice,—

When Truth, that swore unto his neighbour, disappointeth him, and cleaveth to a lie,—

When the counsels of Wisdom are confounded, and Love warreth with itself,—

When the Unchangeable is changed, and the arm of Omnipotence is broken,—

Then,—thy quenchless soul shall have reached the goal of its existence.

But it seemeth to thy notions of the merciful and just, a false and fearful thing,

To lay such a burden upon time, that eternity be built on its foundation:

As if so casual good or ill should colour all the future,

And the vanity of accident, or sternness of necessity, save or wreck a soul.

Were it casual, vain, or stern, this might pass for truth:

But all things are marshalled by Design, and carefully tended by Benevolence.

O man, thy Judge is righteous,—noting, remembering, and weighing;—

Want, ignorance, diversities of state, are cast into the balance of advantage:

The poisonous example of a parent asketh for allowance in the child;

Care, diseases, toils, and frailties,—all things are considered.

And again, a mysterious Omniscience knoweth the spirits that are His,

While the delicate tissues of Event are woven by the fingers of Ubiquity.

Should Providence be taken by surprise from the possible impinging of an accident,

One fortuitous grain might dislocate the banded universe:

The merest seeming trifle is ordered as the morning light;

And He, that rideth on the hurricane, is pilot of the bubble on the breaker.

Once more, consider Matter, how small a thing is father to the greatest;

Thou that lightly hast regarded the results of so-called accident.

A blade of grass took fire in the sun,—and the prairies are burnt to the horizon:

A grain of sand may blind the eye, and madden the brain to murder:

A careful fly deposited its egg in the swelling bud of an acorn,—

The sapling grew,—cankrous and gnarled,—it is yonder hollow oak:

A child touched a spring, and the spring closed a valve, and the labouring engine burst,—

A thousand lives were in that ship,—wrecked by an infant's finger!

Shall nature preach in vain? thy casualty, guided in its orbit,

Though less than a mote upon the sunbeam, saileth in a fleet of worlds;

That trivial cause, watered and observed of the Husbandman day by day,—

In calm undeviating strength doth work its large effect.

Thus, in the pettiness of life note thou seeds of grandeur,

And watch the hour-glass of Time with the eyes of an heir of Immortality.

There still be clouds of witnesses,—if thou art not weary of my speech,—

Flocks of thoughts adding lustre to the light, and pointing on to Life.

For reflect how Truth and Goodness, well and wisely put,

Commend themselves to every mind with wondrous intuition:

What is this? the recognition of a standard, unwritten, natural, uniform;

Telling of one common source, the root of Good and True.

And if thus present soul can trace descent from Deity,

Being, as it standeth, individual, a separate reasonable thing,

What should hinder that its hope may not trace gladly forward,

And, in astounding parallel, like Enoch walk with God?

Yea, the genealogy of soul, that vivifying breath of a Creator,

Breath, no transient air, but essence, energy, and reason,

Is looming on the past, and shadowing the future, sublimely as Melchisedek of old,

Having not beginning, nor end of days, but present in the majesty of Peace!

O false scholar, credulous in vanities, and only sceptical of truth,

Wherefore toil to cheat thy soul of its birthright, Immortality?

Is it for thy guilt? He pardoneth: Is it for thy frailty? He will help:

Though thou fearest, He is love; and Mercy shall be deeper than Despair:

Even for thy full-blown pride, is it much to be receiver of a God?

And lo, thy rights, He made thee; thy claims, He hath redeemed.

Hath the fair aspect of affection no beauty that thou shouldst desire it?

And are those sorrows nothing, to thee that passest by?

For it is Fact, immutable, that God hath dwelt in Man:

With gentle generous love ennobling while He bought us.

What, though thou art false, ignorant, weak and daring,—

Can the sun be quenched in heaven—or only Belisarius be blind?

But, even stooping to thy folly, grant all these hopes are vain;

Stultify reason, wrestle against conscience, and wither up the heart:

Where is thy vast advantage?—I have all that thou hast,

The buoyancy of life as strong, and term of days no shorter;

My cup is full with gladness, my griefs are not more galling:

And thus, we walk together, even to the gates of death:

There, (if not also on my journey, blessing every step,

Gladdening with light, and quickening with love, and killing all my cares,)

There,—while thou art quailing, or sullenly expecting to be nothing,—

There,—is found my gain; I triumph, where thou tremblest.

Grant all my solace is a lie, yet it is a fountain of delight,

A spice in every pleasure, and a balm for every pain:

O precious wise delusion, scattering both misery and sin,—

O vile and silly truth, depraving while it curseth!

Darkling child of knowledge, commune with Socrates and Cicero,

They had no prejudice of birth, no dull parental warpings;

See, those lustrous minds anticipate the dawning day,—

Whilst thou, poor mole, art burrowing back to darkness from the light.

I will not urge a revelation, mercies, miracles, and martyrs,

But, after twice a thousand years, go, learn thou of the pagan:

It were happier and wiser even among fools, to cling to the shadow of a hope,

Than, in the company of sages, to win the substance of despair;

But here, the sages hope; despair is with the fools,

The base bad hearts, the stolid heads, the sensual and the selfish.

And wilt thou, sorry scorner, mock the phrase, despair?

Despair for those who die and live,—for me, I live and die:

What have I to do with dread?—my taper must go out;—

I nurse no silly hopes, and therefore feel no fears:

I am hastening to an end.—O false and feeble answer:

For hope is in thee still, and fear, a racking deep anxiety.

Erring brother, listen: and take thine answer from the ancients:

Consider every end, that it is but the end of a beginning.

All things work in circles; weariness induceth unto rest,

Rest invigorateth labour, and labour causeth weariness:

War produceth peace, and peace is wanton unto war:

Light dieth into darkness, and night dawneth into day:

The rotting jungle reeds scatter fertility around;

The buffalo's dead carcase hath quickened life in millions:

The end of toil is gain, the end of gain is pleasure,

Pleasure tendeth unto waste, and waste commandeth toil.

So, is death an end,—but it breedeth an infinite beginning;

Limits are for time, and death killed time: Eternity's beginning is for ever.

Ambition, hath it any goal indeed? is not all fruition, disappointment?

A step upon the ladder, and another, and another,—we start from every end?

Look to the eras of mortality, babe, student, man,

The husband, the father, the death-bed of a saint,—and is it then an end?

That common climax, Death, shall it lead to nothing?

How strong a root of causes flowering a consequence of vapour:

That solid chain of facts, is it to be snapped for ever?

How stout a show of figures, weakly summing to nonentity.

Or haply, Death, in the doublings of thy thought, shall seem continuous ending;

A dull eternal slumber, not an end abrupt.

O most futile chrysalis, wherefore dost thou sleep?

Dreamless, unconscious, never to awake,—what object in such slumber?

If thou art still to live, it may as well be wakefully as sleeping:

How grovelling must that spirit be, to need eternal sleep!

Or was indeed the toil of life so heavy and so long,

That nevermore can rest refresh thine overburdened soul?—

Sleep is a recreance to body, but when was mind asleep?

Even in a swoon it dreameth, though all be forgotten afterward:

The muscles seek relaxing, and the irritable nerves ask peace;

But life is a constant force, spirit an unquietable impetus:

The eye may wear out as a telescope, and the brain work slow as a machine,

But soul unwearied, and for ever, is capable of effort unimpaired.

I live, move, am conscious: what shall bar my being?

Where is the rude hand, to rend this tissue of existence?

Not thine, shadowy Death, what art thou but a phantom?

Not thine, foul Corruption, what art thou but a fear?

For death is merely absent life, as darkness absent light;

Not even a suspension, for the life hath sailed away, steering gladly somewhere.

And corruption, closely noted, is but a dissolving of the parts,

The parts remain, and nothing lost, to build a better whole.

Moreover, mind is unity, however versatile and rapid;

Thou canst not entertain two coincident ideas, although they quickly follow:

And Unity hath no parts, so that there is nothing to dissolve:

An element is still unchanged in every searching solvent.

Who then shall bid me be annulled,—He that gave me being?

Amen, if God so will; I know that will is love:

But love hath promised life, and therefore I shall live;

So long as He is God, I shall be His Creature!

And here, shrewd reasoner, so eager to prove that thou must perish,

I note a sneer upon thy lip, and ridicule is haply on thy tongue:

How, said he,—creature of a God, and are not all His creatures,—

The lion, and the gnat,—yea, the mushroom, and the crystal,—have all these a soul?

Thy fancies tend to prove too much, and overshoot the mark:

If I die not with brutes, then brutes must live with me?—

I dare not tell thee that they will, for the word is not in my commission;

But of the twain it is the likelier; continuance is the chance:

Men, dying in their sins, are likened unto beasts that perish;

They are dark, animal, insensate, but have they not a lurking soul?

The spirit of a man goeth upward, reasonable, apprehending God;

The spirit of a beast goeth downward, sensual, doting on the creature:

Who told thee they die at dissolution?—boldly think it out,—

The multitude of flies, and the multitude of herbs, the world with all its beings:

Is Infinity too narrow, Omnipotence too weak, and Love so anxious to destroy,

Doth Wisdom change its plan, and a Maker cancel His created?

God's will may compass all things, to fashion and to nullify at pleasure:

Yet are there many thoughts of hope, that all which are shall live.

True, there is no conscience in the brute, beyond some educated habit,

They lay them down without a fear, and wake without a hope:

Hunger and pain is of the animal: but when did they reckon or compare?

They live, idealess, in instinct; and while they breathe they gain:

The master is an idol to his dog, who cannot rise beyond him;

And void of capability for God, there would seem small cause for an infinity.

Therefore, caviller, my poor thoughts dare not grant they live:

But is it not a great thing to assume their annihilation—and thine own?

Would it be much if a speck on space, this globe with all its millions,

Verily, after its pollution, were suffered to exist in purity?

Or much, if guiltless creatures, that were cruelly entreated upon earth,

Found some commensurate reward in lower joys hereafter?

Or much, if a Creator, prodigal of life, and filled with the profundity of love,

Rejoice in all creatures of His skill, and lead them to perfection in their kind?

O man, there are many marvels; yet life is more a mystery than death:

For death may be some stagnant life,—but life is present God!

Many are the lurking-holes of evil; who shall search them out?

Who so skilled to cut away the cancer with its fibres?

For wily minds with sinuous ease escape from lie to lie;

And cowards driven from the trench steal back to hide again.

Vain were the battle, if a warrior, having slain his foes,

Shall turn and find them vital still, unharmed, yea, unashamed:

For Error, dark magician, daily cast out killed,

Quickeneth animate anew beneath the midnight moon:

Once and again, once and again, hath reason answered wisely;

But not the less with brazen front doth folly urge her questions.

It were but unprofitable toil, a stand-up fight with unbelief:

When was there candour in a caviller, and who can satisfy the faithless?

Too long, O truant from the fold, have I tracked thy devious paths;

Too long, treacherous deserter, fought thee as a noble foeman:

Haply, my small art, and an arm too weakly for its weapon,

Hath failed to pierce thine iron coat, and reach thy stricken soul:

Haply, the fervour of my speech, and too patient sifting of thy fancies,

Shall tend to make thee prize them more, as worthier and wiser:

Go to: be mine the gain: we measure swords no more;

Go,—and a word go with thee,—Man, thou ART Immortal!

Child of light, and student in the truth, too long have I forgotten thee:

Lo, after parley with an alien, let me hold sweet converse with a brother.

Glorious hopes and ineffable imaginings, crowd our holy theme,

Fear hath been slaughtered on the portal, and Doubt driven back to darkness:

For Christ hath died, and we in Him; by faith His All is ours;

Cross and crown, and love, and life; and we shall reign in Him!

Yea, there is a fitness and a beauty in ascribing immortality to mind,

That its energies and lofty aspirations may have scope for indefinite expansion.

To learn all things is privilege of reason, and that with a growing capability,

But in this age of toil and time we scarce attain to alphabets:

How hardly in the midst of our hurry, and jostled by the cares of life,

Shall a man turn and stop to consider mighty secrets;

With barely hours, and barely powers, to fill up daily duties,

How small the glimpse of knowledge his wondering eye can catch!

And knowledge is a noting of the order wherein God's attributes evolve,

Therefore worthy of the creature, worthy of an angel's seeking;

Yea, and human knowledge, meagre though the harvest,

Hath its roots, both deep and strong; but the plants are exotic to the climate;

All we seem to know demand a longer learning,

History and science, and prophecy and art, are workings all of God:

And there are galaxies of globes, millions of unimagined beings,

Other senses, wondrous sounds, and thoughts of thrilling fire,

Powers of strange might, quickening unknown elements,

And attributes and energies of God which man may never guess.

Not in vain, O brother, hath soul the spurs of enterprize,

Nor aimlessly panteth for adventure, waiting at the cave of mystery:

Not in vain the cup of curiosity, sweet and richly spiced,

Is ruby to the sight, and ambrosia to the taste, and redolent with all fragrance:

Thou shalt drink, and deeply, filling the mind with marvels;

Thou shalt watch no more, lingering, disappointed of thy hope;

Thou shalt roam where road is none, a traveller untrammelled,

Speeding at a wish, emancipate, to where the stars are suns!

Count, count your hopes, heirs of immortality and love;

And hear my kindred faith, and turn again to bless me.

For lo, my trust is strong to dwell in many worlds,

And cull of many brethren there, sweet knowledge ever new:

I yearn for realms where fancy shall be filled, and the ecstasies of freedom shall be felt,

And the soul reign gloriously, risen to its royal destinies:

I look to recognize again, through the beautiful mask of their perfection,

The dear familiar faces I have somewhile loved on earth:

I long to talk with grateful tongue of storms and perils past,

And praise the mighty Pilot that hath steered us through the rapids:

He shall be the focus of it all, the very heart of gladness,—

My soul is athirst for God, the God who dwelt in Man!

Prophet, priest, and king, the sacrifice, the substitute, the Saviour,

Rapture of the blessed in the hunted One of earth, the Pardoner in the victim;

How many centuries of joy concentrate in that theme,

How often a Methusalem might count his thousand years, and leave it unexhausted!

And lo, the heavenly Jerusalem, with all its gates one pearl,

That pearl of countless price, the door by which we entered,—

Come, tread the golden streets, and join that glorious throng,

The happy ones of heaven and earth, ten thousand times ten thousand;

Hark, they sing that song,—and cast their crowns before Him;

Their souls alight with love,—Glory, and Praise, and Immortality!—

Veil thine eyes: no son of time may see that holy vision,

And even the seraph at thy side hath covered his face with wings.

Doth he not speak parables?—each one goeth on his way,

Ye that hear, and I that counsel, go on our ways forgetful.

For the terrible realities whereto we tend, are hidden from our eyes,

We know, but heed them not, and walk as if the temporal were all things.

Vanities, buzzing on the ear, fill its drowsy chambers,

Slow to dread those coming fears, the thunder and the trumpet;

Motes, steaming on the sight, dim our purblind eyes,

Dark to see the ponderous orb of nearing Immortality:

Hemmed in by hostile foes, the trifler is busied on an epigram;

The dull ox, driven to slaughter, careth but for pasture by the way.

Alas, that the precious things of truth, and the everlasting hills,

The mighty hopes we spake of, and the consciousness we feel,—

Alas, that all the future, and its adamantine facts,

Clouded by the present with intoxicating fumes,—

Should seem even to us, the great expectant heirs,

To us, the responsible and free, fearful sons of reason,

Only as a lovely song, sweet sounds of solemn music,

A pleasant voice, and nothing more,—doth he not speak parables?

Look to thy soul, O man, for none can be surety for his brother:

Behold, for heaven—or for hell,—thou canst not escape from Immortality!

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