My Life as an Author

by Martin Farquhar Tupper

It is right that in a book of self-revelations, like this genuine autobiography, some special recognition should be made before its close of gratitude to the Great Giver of all good, and of the spiritual longings of His penitent. These feelings I prefer to show after the author's poetic custom in verse. Let the first be a trilogy of unpublished sonnets lately written on

What We Shall Be.

I.

"We—all and each—have faculties and powers
Here undeveloped, lying deep within,
Crush'd by the weight of circumstance and sin;
Latent, as germs conceal their hidden flowers,
Till some new clime, with genial suns and showers
Give them the force consummate life to win:
Even so we, poor prisoners of Time,
Victims of others' evil and our own,
Cannot expand in this tempestuous clime,
But full of excellences in us sown,
Must wait that better life, and there, full blown,
In spiritual perfectness sublime
The prizes of our nature we shall gain,
Which now we struggle for in vain—in vain!"

II.

"Who does not feel within him he could be
Anything, everything, of great and good?
That, give him but the chance, he could and would
Soar on the wings of triumph strong and free?
And think not this is vanity, for he,
If one of Glory's heirs, is of the band
'I said that ye are gods!'—on this we stand
Through the eternal ages infinite,
Growing like Christ in hope and love and light
As grafted into Him: there shall we see,
And know as we are known; no hindrance then
Shall bind our wings, or shut our eyes or ears;
Led upward, onward, through ten million years,
We shall expand in spirit,—but still be Men."

III.

"Each hath his specialty; we see in some
Music or painting, eloquence or skill,
With, or without, an effort of the will,
As by spontaneous inspiration come
Ev'n in this mingled crowd of good and ill,
To make us hail a Wonder:—but Elsewhere
Without or let or hindrance we shall use
Forces neglected here, but nurtured there;
Till all the powers of every classic Muse,
Ninefold, may dwell in each—as each may choose:
Since Heaven for creatures must have creature gifts,
Not only love, religion, gratitude,
But also light, and every force that lifts
Man's spirit to the heights of Great and Good."

For a second take my recent open protest against the pestilential atheism so rife in our midst:—

I.