They tell us that the brain is mind,
Or the mind enters through the brain,
Even as light that is confined
And colored by the window pane.
The act is fashioned by the head,
And thus man does or cannot do;
Through the red glass the light is red.
Through the blue glass the light is blue.
They do not urge their world-machine
To sounder progress, nor explain
The difficulties that were seen
And felt before—pray what is brain?
All undiscoverable, how
Can they resolve the Whence or Why
Man grew to being in the Now,
Or what is his Futurity.
...*...*...*...*
Down the world's steep, dread abysmal,
Icy as Spitzbergen's coast,
Through the night hours, long and dismal,
Ghost is calling unto ghost;
Crushed is every fairer promise,
And the good is taken from us;
Sorrow adds to former sorrow,
And, with every new to-morrow,
Some expected joy is lost.
But I will not shrink nor murmur.
Though a spectre leads me on;
Now I set my footsteps firmer,
Face me now, thou skeleton!
Trance me with thy fleshless eyeholes—
But I move to other viols
Than the rattling of thy bones,
As we tread the crazy stones,
For I see the risen sun.
With my face behind my shadow
Thrown before the risen sun,
Life I follow o'er the meadow,
And an angel thrusts me on.
Every little flower below me
Seems to see me, seems to know me;
Every bird and cloud above me
Seems (or do I dream?) to love me,
While the Angel thrusts me on.
Where the turf is softest, greenest,
Does that Angel thrust me on;
Where the landscape lies serenest
In the journey of the sun.
I shall pass through golden portals
With him, to the wise Immortals,
And behold the saints and sages
Who outshone their several ages,
For an Angel thrust them on.
...*...*...*...*