’Twasnoon in August, and the sultry heatHad driven me from sunny balconyInto the shaded hall, where spacious doorsStood open wide, and lofty windows heldTheir sashes up, to woo the breeze, in vain.The filmy lace that curtained them was still,And every silken tassel hung a-plumb.The maps and unframed pictures o’er the wallGave not a rustle; only now and thenWas heard the jingling sound of melting ice,Deep in a massive urn, whose silver sidesWith trickling dewbeads ran. The little birds,Up in their cages, perched with open beaks,And throbbing throats, upon the swaying rings,Or plashed the tepid water in their cupsWith eager breast. My favorite pointer lay,With lolling tongue, and rapid panting sides,Beside my chair, upon the matted floor.All things spoke heat, oppressive heat intense,Save swallows twittering up the chimney-flue,Whose hollow flutterings sounded cool alone.To find relief I seized my hat and book,And fled into the park. Along a pathOf smoothest gravel, oval, curving white,Between two rows of closely shaven hedge,I passed towards a latticed summer-house;A fairy bower, built in Eastern style,With spires, and balls, and fancy trellis-work,O’er which was spread the jasmine’s leafy net,To snare the straying winds. Within I fellUpon a seat of woven cane, and fannedMy streaming face in vain. The very windsSeemed to have fled, and left alone the heatTo rise from parchèd lawn and scorching fields,Like trembling incense to the blazing god.The leaves upon the wan and yellow treesHung motionless, as if of rigid steel;And e’en the feath’ry pendula of spray,With faintest oscillation, dared not wave.The withered flowers shed a hot perfume,That sickened with its fragrance; and the beesWorked lazily, as if they longed to kickThe yellow burdens from their patient thighs,And rest beneath the ivy parasols.The butterflies refrained from aimless flight,And poised on blooms with gaudy, gasping wings.The fountain scarcely raised its languid jetAn inch above its tube; the basin deignedA feeble ripple for its tinkling fall,And rolled the little waves with noiseless beatAgainst the marble side. The bright-scaled fishAll huddled ’neath the jutting ledge’s shade,Where, burnished like their magnet toy types,They rose and fell as if inanimate;Or, with a restless stroke of tinted fin,Turned in their places pettishly around;While, with each move, the tiny whirlpools spunLike crystal dimples on the water’s face.The sculptured lions crouched upon the edge,With gaping jaws, and stony, fixèd eyes,That ever on the pool glared thirstily.Deep in the park, beneath the trees, were groupedThe deer, their noses lowered to the earth,To snuff a cooler air; their slender feetImpatient stamping at the teasing flies;While o’er their heads the branching antlers spread,A mocking skeleton of shade! A fawn,Proud of his dappled coat, played here and there,Regardless of repose; the silver bell,That tinkled from a band of broidered silk,Proclaiming him a petted favorite.Save him alone, all things in view sought rest,And wearied Nature seemed to yield the strife,And smold’ring wait her speedy sacrifice.The heat grew hotter as I watched its work,And with its fervor overcome, I rose,And through the grounds, towards an orchard bentMy faltering steps in full despair of ease.Down through the lengthened rows of laden trees,Whose golden-freighted boughs o’erlapped the way,I hurried till I reached the last confines.Here stood a gnarléd veteran, now too oldTo bear much fruit, but weaving with its leavesSo dense a shade, the smallest fleck of sunCould not creep through. Beneath it spread a couchOf velvet moss, fit for the slumbers of a king.Here prone I fell, at last amid a sceneThat promised refuge from the glaring heat.Beyond me stretched the orchard’s canopyOf thick, rank foliage, almost drooping downUpon the green plush carpet underneath.Close at my feet a crystal spring burst forth,And rolled its gurgling waters down the gladeNow spreading in a rilling silver sheetO’er some broad rock, then gath’ring at its baseInto a foamy pool that churned the sand,And mingling sparks of shining isinglass,It danced away o’er gleamy, pebbly bed,Where, midst the grassy nooks and fibrous roots,The darting minnows played at hide and seek,Oft fluttering upwards, to the top, to spitA tiny bubble out, or slyly snapTh’ unwary little insect hov’ring near;Till, by its tributes widened to a brook,It poured its limpid waters undefiledIn to the river’s dun and dirty waves,—A type of childhood’s guileless purity,That mingling with the sordid world is lost.Far in the distance, lofty mountains loomed,Their blue sides trembling in the sultry haze.From me to them spread varicultured fields,That formed a patchwork landscape, which deservedThe pencil of a Rembrandt and his skill;The hardy yellow stubble smoothly shaved,With boldness lying ’neath the scorching sun;The suffering corn, with tasselled heads all bowed,And twisted arms appealing, raised to Heaven;The meadows faded by the constant blaze;The cattle lying in the hedge’s shade;Across the landscape drawn a glitt’ring band,Where winds the river, like a giant snake,The ripples flashing like his polished scales.Above the scene a lonely vulture wheeled,Turning with every curve from side to side,As if the fierce rays broiled his dusky wings;And circling onwards, dwindled to a speck,And in the distance vanished out of sight!Complete repose was stamped on everything,Save where a tireless ant tugged at a crumb,To drag it o’er th’ impeding spires of moss;And one poor robin, with her breast all paleAnd feather-scarce, hopped wearily alongThe streamlet’s edge, with plaintive clock-like chirp,And searching, found and bore the curling worm,Up to the yellow-throated brood o’erhead.Behind the mountains reared the copper cloudsOf summer skies, that whitened as they rose,Till bleached to snow, they drifted dreamily,Like gleaming icebergs, through the blue sublime.And as they, one by one, sailed far away,Methought they were as ships from Earth to Heaven,Thus slowly floating to the Eternal Port.The Thunder’s muttered growl my reverie broke,And looking toward the West, I saw a storm,With gloomy wrath, had thrown its dark-blue lineOf breastworks, quiv’ring with each grand dischargeOf its own ordnance, o’er th’ horizon’s verge.Some time it stood to gloat upon its prey,Then, girding up its strength, began its march.Extending far its black gigantic arms,It grimly clambered up the tranquil sky;Till, half-way up the arch, its shaggy browsScowled down in rage upon the frightened earth;While through its wind-cleft portals sped the darts,That brightly hurtled through the sultry air.And down the mountain-sides the shadow crept,A dark veil spreading over field and wood,Thus adding gloom to Nature’s awful hush.The fleecy racks had fled far to the East,Where sporting safely in the gilding light,They mocked the angry monster’s cumbrous speed.Then, while I marked its progress, came a train,Of dark and doubting thoughts into my mind,And bitterly thus my reflections ran:Strange is the Providence that rules the world,That sets the Medean course of Nature’s laws;Sometimes adapting law to circumstance,But oftener making law fulfilled a curse.Yon brewing storm in verdant summer comes,When vegetation spreads its foliage sails,That, like a full-rigged ship’s, are easier torn;Why comes it not in winter, when the trees,With canvas reefed by Autumn’s furling frosts,Could toss in nude defiance to the blast?The murd’rous wind precedes the gentle showerAnd ere the suffering grain has quenched its thirst,It bows the heavy head, alone of worth,And from the ripening stalk wrings out the life,While gayly nod the heads of chaff unharmed.The rank miasma floats in summer-time,When man must brave its poisoned breath or starve;It hovers sickliest over richest fieldsWhile over sterile lands the air is pure;The tallest oak is by the lightning riven,The hateful bramble on the ground is spared;The crop man needs demands his constant work,The weeds alone spring forth without the plow;The sweetest flowers wear the sharpest thorns,The deadliest reptiles lurk in fairest paths!Wherever Nature shows her brightest smile,’Tis but a mask to hide her darkest frown.The tropics seem an Eden of luscious fruitsAnd flowers, and groves of loveliest birds, and lakesThat mirror their gay plumage flitting o’er;Where man may live in luxury of thought,Without the crime of schemes, or curse of toil—The tropics seem a Hell, when all with lifeAre stifled with the foul sirocco’s breath;When from the green-robed mountain’s volcan top,A fire-fountain spouts its blazing jetFar up against the starry dome of Heaven;Returning in its vast umbrella shape,Leaps in red cataracts adown the slope,Shaves clean the mountain of its emerald hair,And leaves it bald with ashes on its head.Below, the valley is a crimson sea,Whose glowing billows break to white-hot foam;And as they surge amid the towering trees,They, tottering, bow forever to the waves;The leaves and branches, crackling into flame,Leave only clotted cinders floating there;The darting birds, their gaudy plumage singed,Fall fluttering in, with little puffs of smoke.The fleeing beasts are lapped in, bellowing,And charred to coal, drift idly with the tide.The red flood, breaking through the vale, rolls onIts devious way towards the sea; the glareIlluminating far its winding track,As if a devil flew with flaming torch,Or when an earthquake gapes its black-lined jaws,And, growling, gulps a city’s busy throngInto its greedy bowels. Or the sea bursts forthIts bands of rock, and laughing at “Thus far!”Rolls wildly over peopled towns, and homesIn fancied safety; playing fearful pranks,O’er which to chuckle in its briny bed;Jeering the stones because they cannot swim,And crushing like a shell all work of wood;Docking the laden ships upon the hills,And tossing lighter craft about like weeds;Till, wearied with the spoiling, sinks to rest.Thus Nature to herself is but half kind,But over man holds fullest tyranny;And man, a creature who cannot preventHis own existence! Why not happy made?For surely ’twere as easy to createMan in a state of happiness and good,And keep him there, as to create at all.If misery’s not deserved before his birth,Then misery must from purest malice flow;Yet malice none assign to Providence.But some may say: Were man thus happy made,He would not be a person, but a thing,And lose the very seed of happiness,The consciousness of merit. Grant ’tis true!Then why does merit rarely meet reward?And why does there appear a tendency,Throughout the polity divine, to markWith disapproval all the good in man,And bless the evil? Through the entire worldIs felt this conflict: some strange power withinExciting us to good, while all eventsProclaim its folly. Throughout Nature’s laws,Through man in every station, up to God,This fatal contradiction glares. The storm,With ruthless breath, annihilates the cotThat, frail and humble, shields the widow’s head;And while she reads within the use-worn BookThat none who trusts shall e’er be desolate,The falling timbers crush the promise out,And she is dead beneath her ruined home!The prostrate cottage passed, the very windNow howls a rough but fawning lullabyAround the marble walls, and lofty dome,That shelter pride and heartless arrogance.And when the Boaz Winter throws his skirtOf purest white across the lap of Earth,And decks her bare arborial hair with gems,Whose feeblest flash would pale the Koh-i-noor,The rich, alone, find beauty in the scene,And, clad in thankless comfort, brave the cold.The gliding steels flash through the feathery drifts,The jingling bells proclaiming happiness;Yet ’neath the furry robe the oath is heard,And boisterous laughter at the ribald jest.The coldest hearts beat ’neath the warmest clothes;And often all the blessings wealth can give,Are heaped on one, whose daily life revilesThe very name of Him who doth bestow.While in a freezing garret, o’er the coalsThat, bluely flickering with the feeble flame,Seem cold themselves, a trusting Christian bends;Her faith all mocked by cruel circumstance.The cold, bare walls, the chilling air-swept floor;Some broken stools, a mattress stuffed with straw,Upholstering the apartment. Through the sash,The wind, with jaggèd lips of broken glass,Shrieks in its freezing spite. A cold-blued babe,With face too thin to hold a dimple’s print,With famished gums tugs at the arid breast,Thrusting its bare, splotched arms, in eagerness,From out the poor white blanket’s ravelled edge.Beside the mother sits a little boy,With one red frost-cracked hand spread out, in vain,To warm above the faintly-burning coals;The other pressing hardly ’gainst his teethA stale and tasteless loaf of smallest size,Which lifting often to the mother’s view,He offers part; she only shakes her head,And sadly smiles upon the gaunt young face.Yet in her basket, on a pile of work,An open Bible lies with outstretched leaves,Whose verses speak in keenest irony:“Do good,” and “verily thou shalt be fed.”And so through all the world, the righteous poor,The wicked rich. Deceit, and fraud, and craftReap large rewards, while pure integrityMust gnaw the bone of faith with here and thereA speck of flesh called consciousness of right,To reach the marrow in another world.But man within himself’s the greatest paradox;“A little animal,” as Voltaire says,And yet a greater wonder than the sun,Or spangled firmament. That little oneCan weigh and measure all the wheeling worlds,But finds within his “five feet” home, a SphinxWhose riddle he can never solve.“Thyself,”The oracles of old bade men to know,As if to mock their very impotence;And man, to know himself, for centuriesHas toiled and studied deep, in vain.—Not man in flesh, for blest HippocratesBright trimmed his lamp, and passed it down the line,And each disciple adding of his oil,It blazes now above the ghastly corpse,Till every fibre, every thread-like vein,Is known familiar as a city’s streets;The little muscle twitching back the lip,Rejoicing in a name that spans the page.But man in mind, that is not seen nor felt,But only knows he is, through consciousness.He sees an outside world, with all its throngOf busy people who care not for him,And only few that know he does exist;And yet he feels the independent worldIs but effect produced upon himself,The Universe is packed within his mind,His mind within its little house of clay.What is that mind? Has it a formal shape?And has it substance, color, weight, or force?What are the chains that bind it to the flesh?That never break except in death, though oftThe faculties are sent far out through space?Where is it placed, in head, or hands, or feet?And can it have existence without place?And if a place, it must extension have,And if extended, it is matter proven.Poor man! he has but mind to view mind with,And might as well attempt to see the eyeWithout a mirror! True, faint consciousnessHolds up a little glass, wherein he seesA few vague facts that cannot satisfy.For these, and their attendant laws, have foughtThe mental champions of the world till nowThat each may deck them in his livery,And claim them as his own discovery.Hedged in, man does not know that he is paled,And struggles fiercely ’gainst the boundaries,And strives to get a glimpse of those far realmsOf thought sublime, where his short wings would sinkWith helpless fluttering, through the vast profound.Upon the coals of curiosity,A writhing worm, he’s laid; and twists and turns,To find, in vain, the healing salve of Truth.But grant that mind exists in fullest play:How does it work and what its modes of thought?Here consciousness may act, and hold to viewA dim outline of powers, contraposed.In such a conflict, every one may seizeThe doctrine suits him best. Hence different creeds—Desire battling reason, reason will,And will the weathercock of motive’s wind;Motive the cringing slave of circumstance.And here Charybdis rises; no controlHas man o’er circumstance, but circumstanceBegets the motive governing the will;Then how can man be free? Yet some may say,Man can obey the motive, or can not.He can, but only when a stronger rules.That we without a motive never act,I do declare, though in the face of Reid.That that is strongest which impels, a childMight know, although Jouffroy exclaims,“You’re reasoning in a circle.” Let us placeAn iron fragment ’twixt two magnet-bars,What one attracts is thereby stronger proved.Or it may be the really weaker one,But yet, because of nearness to the steel,Possess a relatively greater force.And so of motives, howe’er trivial they,The one that moves is strongest to the mind.To illustrate: Suppose I pare a peach;A friend near by me banteringly assertsThat I can not refrain from eating it.Two motives now arise—the appetite,And the desire to prove my self-control.I hesitate awhile, then laughing say,“I would not give the peach to prove you wrong.”But as my teeth press on it, pride springs up,And bids me show that I am not the slaveOf appetite, and far away I hurlThe tinted, fragrant sphere.Was not each thoughtSpontaneous? Could I control their rise?How perfectly absurd to talk of choiceBetween two motives offered to the mind!As if the motive was a horse we’d chooseTo pull our minds about. There is no choiceUntil the motive makes it; then we choose,Not ’tween the motives, but the acts.If, then,The spring of action is the motive’s power,The motive being far beyond our sway,Where is our freedom? But a fabled myth!And man but differs from a star in this,—The laws of stars are fixed and definite,And every movement there can be foretold;Of man, no deed can be foreseen till done.At most we can but form a general guessHow he will act, at such a time and place.Even if we knew the motives that would rise,We could not prophesy unless we knewOur subject’s frame of mind; for differently,On different minds, same motives often act.Hence, we can tell the conduct of a friendMore surely than a stranger’s, since we know,By long acquaintance, how his motives work.But should new motives rise, we cannot tellUntil experience gives us data new.Thus we will ride beside a friend alone,And show to him our money without fear,Because we know the motives—love for us,Honor, and horror of disgraceful crime—Are stronger with him than cupidity.But with a stranger we would feel unsafe;Nor would we trust our friend, were we aloneUpon an island, wrecked, and without food,And saw his eye with hunger glare, and heardThe famished motive whispering to him, “Kill!”If he were free, would we feel slightest fear?For all his soul would shudder from the deed,And never motive could impel such crime.Upon this principal all law is made;For were man free he could not be controlled,And all compliance would be his caprice.But since he is the tyrant-motive’s slave,The law to govern motive only seeksAnd builds its sanction on the base of pain,As motive strongest in the human heart.It only falls below perfection’s height,Because there are exceptions to the rule;When hate and passion, lust and greed of gold,Prove stronger than the fear of distant pain.And could the law know fully every heart,And vary sanction, there would be no crime.But law itself, and the obeying world,Are proofs against the grosser form of Fate:That all is preordained, nor can be changed.All human life is vacillating life;We make our plans each day, then alter them.We form resolves one hour that break the next,And no one dares assert that he will act,Upon the morrow, in a certain way;But cries, it all depends on circumstance.And this is strange, that while we cannot changeOur lives one tittle by our own free will,We help, each day, to change our neighbor’s course;And he assists the motives changing ours.For all relations to our fellow-men,Are powers that form our lives, in spite of us.But we may change our motives, often do,By changing place, or circumstance of life,By hearing, reading, or reflective thought;Yet are these very things from motives done,And motives mocking all our vain commands.One motive made the object of an act,Another rises subject of the act;And to the final motive we can never reach.The world’s a self-adjusting, vast machine,Whose human comparts cannot guide themselves;And each is but a puppet to the whole,Yet adds its mite towards its government;Here, in this motive circle, lies all Fate.Our fellow-men with motives furnish us,While we contribute to their motive fund.The real power, hidden deep within,Escapes the eye of careless consciousness;Who proudly tells us we are action’s cause.Upon this error men, mistaken, raiseThe edifice of law in all its forms;That yet performs its varied functions well,Because it offers motives that restrain,Till stronger overcome, and crime ensues.The motive gibbet lifts its warning arms;The pillory gapes its scolloped lips for necks;The lash grows stiff with blood and shreds of flesh;The treadmill yields beneath the wearied feet;And Sabbath after Sabbath preachers tellOf judgment, and of awful Hell, and Heaven;All these, to stronger make, than lust of sin.And yet, to lead my reasoning to its end,I find a chaos of absurdity.If I am by an unruled motive driven,Why act at all? Why passive not reclineUpon the lap of destiny, and wait her arms?Why struggle to acquire means of life,When Fate must fill our mouths or let us die?Why go not naked forth into the world,And trust to Fate for clothes? Why spring asideFrom falling weight, or flee a burning house,Or fight with instinct strength the clasp of waves?Because we cannot help it; every actBehind it has a motive, whose commandWe, willing or unwilling, must obey.Law governs motives, motives create law;Between the reflex action man is placed,The helpless shuttlecock of unjust Fate!Now passive driven to commit a crime,Then by the driver laid upon the rack;A Zeno’s slave, compelled by Fate to steal,And then compelled by Fate to bear the lash!What gross injustice is the rule of life!A sentient being made without a will,And placed a cat’s-paw in the hands of Fate,Who rakes the moral embers for a sin,That, found, must burn the helpless one alone.All right and wrong, and whate’er makes man man,Are gone, and language is half obsolete;No need of words to tell of moral worthExisting not, nor e’en conceivable;No words of blame or commendation, givenAccording to the intention of a deed;No words of cheer or comfort, to incite,For man must act without our useless tongues;No words of prayer, if Fate supplies our wants;No words of prayer, if Fate locks up her store;No words of love, for fondest love were loathedIf fanned by Fate to flame. No words of hate,For all forgive a wrong when helpless done;The buds that bloom upon the desert heartLose all their sweetness when they’re forced to grow;All pleasure’s marred because it is not earned,And pain more painful since ’tis undeserved.Man falling from his high estate, becomesA brute with keener sensibilities;Endowed with mind, upon whose plastic faceFate writes its batch of lies; poor man believes,And prates of moral agency, and cantsOf goodhedoes, and evil thatheshuns.With blind content, he rests in false belief,And happy thus escapes the mental rack—The consciousness of what he really is.And yet why false belief? The world believes,And acting, moves in general harmony;Could harmony from such an error flow?Would all believe, would not some oneHave doubted by his works as well as faith?The veriest skeptic walks the earth to-day,As if he held the seal of freest will,And shapes its course, and judges all mankindBy freedom’s rule.Then may not that be trueWhich most believe, and those who doubt professIn every act; as that which few believeAnd to which none conform?Two paths I see,One marked Free-Will, the other Fate. The first,Extending far as human thought can reach,Through lovely meads with sweetest flowers, and fruitsOf actions clearly shown as right and wrong,Because of choice ’twixt the two; of lawsWith sanction suiting agents who are free;Of courts acquitting the insane of crime,Of crime made crime, alone, when done as crime,Of judgment passed by public sentimentOn action in the ratio of liberty.Delightful view; but seek an entrance there—The towering bars of unruled motive standBefore the path, and none can overleap.The field of Fate lies open; nothing barsOur progress there. A thousand different waysThe path diverges. Every by-path leadsTo some foul pit or bottomless abyss.Along each side are strewed the whitening bonesOf venturous pilgrims, lost amid its snares,Some broken on the rocks of gross decree,Who hold an unchanged destiny from birth;Who will not take a medicine if sick,Who cant of “To be, will be,” and the timeUnalterably set to each man’s life.Some stranded on the finer form of Fate,Who say it works by means. Hence they believeIn using all preventives to disease,In going boating in a rubber belt,In placing Franklin rods upon a house,In preaching, and in praying men repent.These, when one dies, cry out, “It was his time.”Or if he should recover, “It was not.”Their fate is always ex post facto fate,And knowing not the future, they abideThe issue of events, and then confirmTheir dogged dogmas.Still another class,Though fewer far in numbers, perish here.These are the sophists; men who deeply diveBeneath the surface of effect, and traceOur actions to their source. They find that man,Made in the glorious image of his God,Is not an independent cause, but worksFrom motive causes out of his control.They find that every mental act must flowFrom outside source, then fearlessly ascendThe chain of being to a height divine,And dare to fetter the Eternal mind,And throw their bonds around Omnipotence.As well a spider in an eagle’s nestMight, from his hidden web among the twigs,Attempt to throw his little gluey threadAround the mottled wing, whose muscled strengthBeats hurried vacuums in the ocean’s spray,Or circling upward, parts the thunder-cloud,And bursts above; and shaking off the mists,With rigid feathers bright as burnished steel,Floats proudly through the tranquil air.Which realmShall now be mine, Free-Will or Fate? The oneStands open wide, but all in ruin ends;The other, fair if once within the pale;But how to scale the barriers none can tell.Bah! all is doubt. I’ll leave the mystic pathsWhere, on each side, are ranged the phantom shapesOf disputants, alive and dead, who fight,With foolish zeal, o’er myths intangible;When each one cries “Eureka!” for his creed.That scarcely lives a day, then yields its place.A Roman ’gainst a Roman, Greek to Greek,A zealous Omar with an Ali paired;A saintly Pharisee in hot disputeWith Sadducees. Along th’ illustrious rowsOf lesser lights, who advocate the creedsOf their respective masters, we descendTo later days and see Titanic mindsExert their giant strength to reach the truth,And, baffled, fall. Locke, ever elsewhere clear,Here mystified Spinoza’s dizzy wingO’erweighted by his strange “imperium;”Hobbes, with his new intrinsic liberty;And Belsham’s quaint reduction too absurd;“Sufficient reason,” reared in Leibnitz’s strength;Reid, Collins, Edwards, Tappan, Priestley, Clarke,All push each other from the door of Truth.
’Twasnoon in August, and the sultry heatHad driven me from sunny balconyInto the shaded hall, where spacious doorsStood open wide, and lofty windows heldTheir sashes up, to woo the breeze, in vain.The filmy lace that curtained them was still,And every silken tassel hung a-plumb.The maps and unframed pictures o’er the wallGave not a rustle; only now and thenWas heard the jingling sound of melting ice,Deep in a massive urn, whose silver sidesWith trickling dewbeads ran. The little birds,Up in their cages, perched with open beaks,And throbbing throats, upon the swaying rings,Or plashed the tepid water in their cupsWith eager breast. My favorite pointer lay,With lolling tongue, and rapid panting sides,Beside my chair, upon the matted floor.All things spoke heat, oppressive heat intense,Save swallows twittering up the chimney-flue,Whose hollow flutterings sounded cool alone.To find relief I seized my hat and book,And fled into the park. Along a pathOf smoothest gravel, oval, curving white,Between two rows of closely shaven hedge,I passed towards a latticed summer-house;A fairy bower, built in Eastern style,With spires, and balls, and fancy trellis-work,O’er which was spread the jasmine’s leafy net,To snare the straying winds. Within I fellUpon a seat of woven cane, and fannedMy streaming face in vain. The very windsSeemed to have fled, and left alone the heatTo rise from parchèd lawn and scorching fields,Like trembling incense to the blazing god.The leaves upon the wan and yellow treesHung motionless, as if of rigid steel;And e’en the feath’ry pendula of spray,With faintest oscillation, dared not wave.The withered flowers shed a hot perfume,That sickened with its fragrance; and the beesWorked lazily, as if they longed to kickThe yellow burdens from their patient thighs,And rest beneath the ivy parasols.The butterflies refrained from aimless flight,And poised on blooms with gaudy, gasping wings.The fountain scarcely raised its languid jetAn inch above its tube; the basin deignedA feeble ripple for its tinkling fall,And rolled the little waves with noiseless beatAgainst the marble side. The bright-scaled fishAll huddled ’neath the jutting ledge’s shade,Where, burnished like their magnet toy types,They rose and fell as if inanimate;Or, with a restless stroke of tinted fin,Turned in their places pettishly around;While, with each move, the tiny whirlpools spunLike crystal dimples on the water’s face.The sculptured lions crouched upon the edge,With gaping jaws, and stony, fixèd eyes,That ever on the pool glared thirstily.Deep in the park, beneath the trees, were groupedThe deer, their noses lowered to the earth,To snuff a cooler air; their slender feetImpatient stamping at the teasing flies;While o’er their heads the branching antlers spread,A mocking skeleton of shade! A fawn,Proud of his dappled coat, played here and there,Regardless of repose; the silver bell,That tinkled from a band of broidered silk,Proclaiming him a petted favorite.Save him alone, all things in view sought rest,And wearied Nature seemed to yield the strife,And smold’ring wait her speedy sacrifice.The heat grew hotter as I watched its work,And with its fervor overcome, I rose,And through the grounds, towards an orchard bentMy faltering steps in full despair of ease.Down through the lengthened rows of laden trees,Whose golden-freighted boughs o’erlapped the way,I hurried till I reached the last confines.Here stood a gnarléd veteran, now too oldTo bear much fruit, but weaving with its leavesSo dense a shade, the smallest fleck of sunCould not creep through. Beneath it spread a couchOf velvet moss, fit for the slumbers of a king.Here prone I fell, at last amid a sceneThat promised refuge from the glaring heat.Beyond me stretched the orchard’s canopyOf thick, rank foliage, almost drooping downUpon the green plush carpet underneath.Close at my feet a crystal spring burst forth,And rolled its gurgling waters down the gladeNow spreading in a rilling silver sheetO’er some broad rock, then gath’ring at its baseInto a foamy pool that churned the sand,And mingling sparks of shining isinglass,It danced away o’er gleamy, pebbly bed,Where, midst the grassy nooks and fibrous roots,The darting minnows played at hide and seek,Oft fluttering upwards, to the top, to spitA tiny bubble out, or slyly snapTh’ unwary little insect hov’ring near;Till, by its tributes widened to a brook,It poured its limpid waters undefiledIn to the river’s dun and dirty waves,—A type of childhood’s guileless purity,That mingling with the sordid world is lost.Far in the distance, lofty mountains loomed,Their blue sides trembling in the sultry haze.From me to them spread varicultured fields,That formed a patchwork landscape, which deservedThe pencil of a Rembrandt and his skill;The hardy yellow stubble smoothly shaved,With boldness lying ’neath the scorching sun;The suffering corn, with tasselled heads all bowed,And twisted arms appealing, raised to Heaven;The meadows faded by the constant blaze;The cattle lying in the hedge’s shade;Across the landscape drawn a glitt’ring band,Where winds the river, like a giant snake,The ripples flashing like his polished scales.Above the scene a lonely vulture wheeled,Turning with every curve from side to side,As if the fierce rays broiled his dusky wings;And circling onwards, dwindled to a speck,And in the distance vanished out of sight!Complete repose was stamped on everything,Save where a tireless ant tugged at a crumb,To drag it o’er th’ impeding spires of moss;And one poor robin, with her breast all paleAnd feather-scarce, hopped wearily alongThe streamlet’s edge, with plaintive clock-like chirp,And searching, found and bore the curling worm,Up to the yellow-throated brood o’erhead.Behind the mountains reared the copper cloudsOf summer skies, that whitened as they rose,Till bleached to snow, they drifted dreamily,Like gleaming icebergs, through the blue sublime.And as they, one by one, sailed far away,Methought they were as ships from Earth to Heaven,Thus slowly floating to the Eternal Port.The Thunder’s muttered growl my reverie broke,And looking toward the West, I saw a storm,With gloomy wrath, had thrown its dark-blue lineOf breastworks, quiv’ring with each grand dischargeOf its own ordnance, o’er th’ horizon’s verge.Some time it stood to gloat upon its prey,Then, girding up its strength, began its march.Extending far its black gigantic arms,It grimly clambered up the tranquil sky;Till, half-way up the arch, its shaggy browsScowled down in rage upon the frightened earth;While through its wind-cleft portals sped the darts,That brightly hurtled through the sultry air.And down the mountain-sides the shadow crept,A dark veil spreading over field and wood,Thus adding gloom to Nature’s awful hush.The fleecy racks had fled far to the East,Where sporting safely in the gilding light,They mocked the angry monster’s cumbrous speed.Then, while I marked its progress, came a train,Of dark and doubting thoughts into my mind,And bitterly thus my reflections ran:Strange is the Providence that rules the world,That sets the Medean course of Nature’s laws;Sometimes adapting law to circumstance,But oftener making law fulfilled a curse.Yon brewing storm in verdant summer comes,When vegetation spreads its foliage sails,That, like a full-rigged ship’s, are easier torn;Why comes it not in winter, when the trees,With canvas reefed by Autumn’s furling frosts,Could toss in nude defiance to the blast?The murd’rous wind precedes the gentle showerAnd ere the suffering grain has quenched its thirst,It bows the heavy head, alone of worth,And from the ripening stalk wrings out the life,While gayly nod the heads of chaff unharmed.The rank miasma floats in summer-time,When man must brave its poisoned breath or starve;It hovers sickliest over richest fieldsWhile over sterile lands the air is pure;The tallest oak is by the lightning riven,The hateful bramble on the ground is spared;The crop man needs demands his constant work,The weeds alone spring forth without the plow;The sweetest flowers wear the sharpest thorns,The deadliest reptiles lurk in fairest paths!Wherever Nature shows her brightest smile,’Tis but a mask to hide her darkest frown.The tropics seem an Eden of luscious fruitsAnd flowers, and groves of loveliest birds, and lakesThat mirror their gay plumage flitting o’er;Where man may live in luxury of thought,Without the crime of schemes, or curse of toil—The tropics seem a Hell, when all with lifeAre stifled with the foul sirocco’s breath;When from the green-robed mountain’s volcan top,A fire-fountain spouts its blazing jetFar up against the starry dome of Heaven;Returning in its vast umbrella shape,Leaps in red cataracts adown the slope,Shaves clean the mountain of its emerald hair,And leaves it bald with ashes on its head.Below, the valley is a crimson sea,Whose glowing billows break to white-hot foam;And as they surge amid the towering trees,They, tottering, bow forever to the waves;The leaves and branches, crackling into flame,Leave only clotted cinders floating there;The darting birds, their gaudy plumage singed,Fall fluttering in, with little puffs of smoke.The fleeing beasts are lapped in, bellowing,And charred to coal, drift idly with the tide.The red flood, breaking through the vale, rolls onIts devious way towards the sea; the glareIlluminating far its winding track,As if a devil flew with flaming torch,Or when an earthquake gapes its black-lined jaws,And, growling, gulps a city’s busy throngInto its greedy bowels. Or the sea bursts forthIts bands of rock, and laughing at “Thus far!”Rolls wildly over peopled towns, and homesIn fancied safety; playing fearful pranks,O’er which to chuckle in its briny bed;Jeering the stones because they cannot swim,And crushing like a shell all work of wood;Docking the laden ships upon the hills,And tossing lighter craft about like weeds;Till, wearied with the spoiling, sinks to rest.Thus Nature to herself is but half kind,But over man holds fullest tyranny;And man, a creature who cannot preventHis own existence! Why not happy made?For surely ’twere as easy to createMan in a state of happiness and good,And keep him there, as to create at all.If misery’s not deserved before his birth,Then misery must from purest malice flow;Yet malice none assign to Providence.But some may say: Were man thus happy made,He would not be a person, but a thing,And lose the very seed of happiness,The consciousness of merit. Grant ’tis true!Then why does merit rarely meet reward?And why does there appear a tendency,Throughout the polity divine, to markWith disapproval all the good in man,And bless the evil? Through the entire worldIs felt this conflict: some strange power withinExciting us to good, while all eventsProclaim its folly. Throughout Nature’s laws,Through man in every station, up to God,This fatal contradiction glares. The storm,With ruthless breath, annihilates the cotThat, frail and humble, shields the widow’s head;And while she reads within the use-worn BookThat none who trusts shall e’er be desolate,The falling timbers crush the promise out,And she is dead beneath her ruined home!The prostrate cottage passed, the very windNow howls a rough but fawning lullabyAround the marble walls, and lofty dome,That shelter pride and heartless arrogance.And when the Boaz Winter throws his skirtOf purest white across the lap of Earth,And decks her bare arborial hair with gems,Whose feeblest flash would pale the Koh-i-noor,The rich, alone, find beauty in the scene,And, clad in thankless comfort, brave the cold.The gliding steels flash through the feathery drifts,The jingling bells proclaiming happiness;Yet ’neath the furry robe the oath is heard,And boisterous laughter at the ribald jest.The coldest hearts beat ’neath the warmest clothes;And often all the blessings wealth can give,Are heaped on one, whose daily life revilesThe very name of Him who doth bestow.While in a freezing garret, o’er the coalsThat, bluely flickering with the feeble flame,Seem cold themselves, a trusting Christian bends;Her faith all mocked by cruel circumstance.The cold, bare walls, the chilling air-swept floor;Some broken stools, a mattress stuffed with straw,Upholstering the apartment. Through the sash,The wind, with jaggèd lips of broken glass,Shrieks in its freezing spite. A cold-blued babe,With face too thin to hold a dimple’s print,With famished gums tugs at the arid breast,Thrusting its bare, splotched arms, in eagerness,From out the poor white blanket’s ravelled edge.Beside the mother sits a little boy,With one red frost-cracked hand spread out, in vain,To warm above the faintly-burning coals;The other pressing hardly ’gainst his teethA stale and tasteless loaf of smallest size,Which lifting often to the mother’s view,He offers part; she only shakes her head,And sadly smiles upon the gaunt young face.Yet in her basket, on a pile of work,An open Bible lies with outstretched leaves,Whose verses speak in keenest irony:“Do good,” and “verily thou shalt be fed.”And so through all the world, the righteous poor,The wicked rich. Deceit, and fraud, and craftReap large rewards, while pure integrityMust gnaw the bone of faith with here and thereA speck of flesh called consciousness of right,To reach the marrow in another world.But man within himself’s the greatest paradox;“A little animal,” as Voltaire says,And yet a greater wonder than the sun,Or spangled firmament. That little oneCan weigh and measure all the wheeling worlds,But finds within his “five feet” home, a SphinxWhose riddle he can never solve.“Thyself,”The oracles of old bade men to know,As if to mock their very impotence;And man, to know himself, for centuriesHas toiled and studied deep, in vain.—Not man in flesh, for blest HippocratesBright trimmed his lamp, and passed it down the line,And each disciple adding of his oil,It blazes now above the ghastly corpse,Till every fibre, every thread-like vein,Is known familiar as a city’s streets;The little muscle twitching back the lip,Rejoicing in a name that spans the page.But man in mind, that is not seen nor felt,But only knows he is, through consciousness.He sees an outside world, with all its throngOf busy people who care not for him,And only few that know he does exist;And yet he feels the independent worldIs but effect produced upon himself,The Universe is packed within his mind,His mind within its little house of clay.What is that mind? Has it a formal shape?And has it substance, color, weight, or force?What are the chains that bind it to the flesh?That never break except in death, though oftThe faculties are sent far out through space?Where is it placed, in head, or hands, or feet?And can it have existence without place?And if a place, it must extension have,And if extended, it is matter proven.Poor man! he has but mind to view mind with,And might as well attempt to see the eyeWithout a mirror! True, faint consciousnessHolds up a little glass, wherein he seesA few vague facts that cannot satisfy.For these, and their attendant laws, have foughtThe mental champions of the world till nowThat each may deck them in his livery,And claim them as his own discovery.Hedged in, man does not know that he is paled,And struggles fiercely ’gainst the boundaries,And strives to get a glimpse of those far realmsOf thought sublime, where his short wings would sinkWith helpless fluttering, through the vast profound.Upon the coals of curiosity,A writhing worm, he’s laid; and twists and turns,To find, in vain, the healing salve of Truth.But grant that mind exists in fullest play:How does it work and what its modes of thought?Here consciousness may act, and hold to viewA dim outline of powers, contraposed.In such a conflict, every one may seizeThe doctrine suits him best. Hence different creeds—Desire battling reason, reason will,And will the weathercock of motive’s wind;Motive the cringing slave of circumstance.And here Charybdis rises; no controlHas man o’er circumstance, but circumstanceBegets the motive governing the will;Then how can man be free? Yet some may say,Man can obey the motive, or can not.He can, but only when a stronger rules.That we without a motive never act,I do declare, though in the face of Reid.That that is strongest which impels, a childMight know, although Jouffroy exclaims,“You’re reasoning in a circle.” Let us placeAn iron fragment ’twixt two magnet-bars,What one attracts is thereby stronger proved.Or it may be the really weaker one,But yet, because of nearness to the steel,Possess a relatively greater force.And so of motives, howe’er trivial they,The one that moves is strongest to the mind.To illustrate: Suppose I pare a peach;A friend near by me banteringly assertsThat I can not refrain from eating it.Two motives now arise—the appetite,And the desire to prove my self-control.I hesitate awhile, then laughing say,“I would not give the peach to prove you wrong.”But as my teeth press on it, pride springs up,And bids me show that I am not the slaveOf appetite, and far away I hurlThe tinted, fragrant sphere.Was not each thoughtSpontaneous? Could I control their rise?How perfectly absurd to talk of choiceBetween two motives offered to the mind!As if the motive was a horse we’d chooseTo pull our minds about. There is no choiceUntil the motive makes it; then we choose,Not ’tween the motives, but the acts.If, then,The spring of action is the motive’s power,The motive being far beyond our sway,Where is our freedom? But a fabled myth!And man but differs from a star in this,—The laws of stars are fixed and definite,And every movement there can be foretold;Of man, no deed can be foreseen till done.At most we can but form a general guessHow he will act, at such a time and place.Even if we knew the motives that would rise,We could not prophesy unless we knewOur subject’s frame of mind; for differently,On different minds, same motives often act.Hence, we can tell the conduct of a friendMore surely than a stranger’s, since we know,By long acquaintance, how his motives work.But should new motives rise, we cannot tellUntil experience gives us data new.Thus we will ride beside a friend alone,And show to him our money without fear,Because we know the motives—love for us,Honor, and horror of disgraceful crime—Are stronger with him than cupidity.But with a stranger we would feel unsafe;Nor would we trust our friend, were we aloneUpon an island, wrecked, and without food,And saw his eye with hunger glare, and heardThe famished motive whispering to him, “Kill!”If he were free, would we feel slightest fear?For all his soul would shudder from the deed,And never motive could impel such crime.Upon this principal all law is made;For were man free he could not be controlled,And all compliance would be his caprice.But since he is the tyrant-motive’s slave,The law to govern motive only seeksAnd builds its sanction on the base of pain,As motive strongest in the human heart.It only falls below perfection’s height,Because there are exceptions to the rule;When hate and passion, lust and greed of gold,Prove stronger than the fear of distant pain.And could the law know fully every heart,And vary sanction, there would be no crime.But law itself, and the obeying world,Are proofs against the grosser form of Fate:That all is preordained, nor can be changed.All human life is vacillating life;We make our plans each day, then alter them.We form resolves one hour that break the next,And no one dares assert that he will act,Upon the morrow, in a certain way;But cries, it all depends on circumstance.And this is strange, that while we cannot changeOur lives one tittle by our own free will,We help, each day, to change our neighbor’s course;And he assists the motives changing ours.For all relations to our fellow-men,Are powers that form our lives, in spite of us.But we may change our motives, often do,By changing place, or circumstance of life,By hearing, reading, or reflective thought;Yet are these very things from motives done,And motives mocking all our vain commands.One motive made the object of an act,Another rises subject of the act;And to the final motive we can never reach.The world’s a self-adjusting, vast machine,Whose human comparts cannot guide themselves;And each is but a puppet to the whole,Yet adds its mite towards its government;Here, in this motive circle, lies all Fate.Our fellow-men with motives furnish us,While we contribute to their motive fund.The real power, hidden deep within,Escapes the eye of careless consciousness;Who proudly tells us we are action’s cause.Upon this error men, mistaken, raiseThe edifice of law in all its forms;That yet performs its varied functions well,Because it offers motives that restrain,Till stronger overcome, and crime ensues.The motive gibbet lifts its warning arms;The pillory gapes its scolloped lips for necks;The lash grows stiff with blood and shreds of flesh;The treadmill yields beneath the wearied feet;And Sabbath after Sabbath preachers tellOf judgment, and of awful Hell, and Heaven;All these, to stronger make, than lust of sin.And yet, to lead my reasoning to its end,I find a chaos of absurdity.If I am by an unruled motive driven,Why act at all? Why passive not reclineUpon the lap of destiny, and wait her arms?Why struggle to acquire means of life,When Fate must fill our mouths or let us die?Why go not naked forth into the world,And trust to Fate for clothes? Why spring asideFrom falling weight, or flee a burning house,Or fight with instinct strength the clasp of waves?Because we cannot help it; every actBehind it has a motive, whose commandWe, willing or unwilling, must obey.Law governs motives, motives create law;Between the reflex action man is placed,The helpless shuttlecock of unjust Fate!Now passive driven to commit a crime,Then by the driver laid upon the rack;A Zeno’s slave, compelled by Fate to steal,And then compelled by Fate to bear the lash!What gross injustice is the rule of life!A sentient being made without a will,And placed a cat’s-paw in the hands of Fate,Who rakes the moral embers for a sin,That, found, must burn the helpless one alone.All right and wrong, and whate’er makes man man,Are gone, and language is half obsolete;No need of words to tell of moral worthExisting not, nor e’en conceivable;No words of blame or commendation, givenAccording to the intention of a deed;No words of cheer or comfort, to incite,For man must act without our useless tongues;No words of prayer, if Fate supplies our wants;No words of prayer, if Fate locks up her store;No words of love, for fondest love were loathedIf fanned by Fate to flame. No words of hate,For all forgive a wrong when helpless done;The buds that bloom upon the desert heartLose all their sweetness when they’re forced to grow;All pleasure’s marred because it is not earned,And pain more painful since ’tis undeserved.Man falling from his high estate, becomesA brute with keener sensibilities;Endowed with mind, upon whose plastic faceFate writes its batch of lies; poor man believes,And prates of moral agency, and cantsOf goodhedoes, and evil thatheshuns.With blind content, he rests in false belief,And happy thus escapes the mental rack—The consciousness of what he really is.And yet why false belief? The world believes,And acting, moves in general harmony;Could harmony from such an error flow?Would all believe, would not some oneHave doubted by his works as well as faith?The veriest skeptic walks the earth to-day,As if he held the seal of freest will,And shapes its course, and judges all mankindBy freedom’s rule.Then may not that be trueWhich most believe, and those who doubt professIn every act; as that which few believeAnd to which none conform?Two paths I see,One marked Free-Will, the other Fate. The first,Extending far as human thought can reach,Through lovely meads with sweetest flowers, and fruitsOf actions clearly shown as right and wrong,Because of choice ’twixt the two; of lawsWith sanction suiting agents who are free;Of courts acquitting the insane of crime,Of crime made crime, alone, when done as crime,Of judgment passed by public sentimentOn action in the ratio of liberty.Delightful view; but seek an entrance there—The towering bars of unruled motive standBefore the path, and none can overleap.The field of Fate lies open; nothing barsOur progress there. A thousand different waysThe path diverges. Every by-path leadsTo some foul pit or bottomless abyss.Along each side are strewed the whitening bonesOf venturous pilgrims, lost amid its snares,Some broken on the rocks of gross decree,Who hold an unchanged destiny from birth;Who will not take a medicine if sick,Who cant of “To be, will be,” and the timeUnalterably set to each man’s life.Some stranded on the finer form of Fate,Who say it works by means. Hence they believeIn using all preventives to disease,In going boating in a rubber belt,In placing Franklin rods upon a house,In preaching, and in praying men repent.These, when one dies, cry out, “It was his time.”Or if he should recover, “It was not.”Their fate is always ex post facto fate,And knowing not the future, they abideThe issue of events, and then confirmTheir dogged dogmas.Still another class,Though fewer far in numbers, perish here.These are the sophists; men who deeply diveBeneath the surface of effect, and traceOur actions to their source. They find that man,Made in the glorious image of his God,Is not an independent cause, but worksFrom motive causes out of his control.They find that every mental act must flowFrom outside source, then fearlessly ascendThe chain of being to a height divine,And dare to fetter the Eternal mind,And throw their bonds around Omnipotence.As well a spider in an eagle’s nestMight, from his hidden web among the twigs,Attempt to throw his little gluey threadAround the mottled wing, whose muscled strengthBeats hurried vacuums in the ocean’s spray,Or circling upward, parts the thunder-cloud,And bursts above; and shaking off the mists,With rigid feathers bright as burnished steel,Floats proudly through the tranquil air.Which realmShall now be mine, Free-Will or Fate? The oneStands open wide, but all in ruin ends;The other, fair if once within the pale;But how to scale the barriers none can tell.Bah! all is doubt. I’ll leave the mystic pathsWhere, on each side, are ranged the phantom shapesOf disputants, alive and dead, who fight,With foolish zeal, o’er myths intangible;When each one cries “Eureka!” for his creed.That scarcely lives a day, then yields its place.A Roman ’gainst a Roman, Greek to Greek,A zealous Omar with an Ali paired;A saintly Pharisee in hot disputeWith Sadducees. Along th’ illustrious rowsOf lesser lights, who advocate the creedsOf their respective masters, we descendTo later days and see Titanic mindsExert their giant strength to reach the truth,And, baffled, fall. Locke, ever elsewhere clear,Here mystified Spinoza’s dizzy wingO’erweighted by his strange “imperium;”Hobbes, with his new intrinsic liberty;And Belsham’s quaint reduction too absurd;“Sufficient reason,” reared in Leibnitz’s strength;Reid, Collins, Edwards, Tappan, Priestley, Clarke,All push each other from the door of Truth.
’Twasnoon in August, and the sultry heatHad driven me from sunny balconyInto the shaded hall, where spacious doorsStood open wide, and lofty windows heldTheir sashes up, to woo the breeze, in vain.The filmy lace that curtained them was still,And every silken tassel hung a-plumb.The maps and unframed pictures o’er the wallGave not a rustle; only now and thenWas heard the jingling sound of melting ice,Deep in a massive urn, whose silver sidesWith trickling dewbeads ran. The little birds,Up in their cages, perched with open beaks,And throbbing throats, upon the swaying rings,Or plashed the tepid water in their cupsWith eager breast. My favorite pointer lay,With lolling tongue, and rapid panting sides,Beside my chair, upon the matted floor.All things spoke heat, oppressive heat intense,Save swallows twittering up the chimney-flue,Whose hollow flutterings sounded cool alone.To find relief I seized my hat and book,And fled into the park. Along a pathOf smoothest gravel, oval, curving white,Between two rows of closely shaven hedge,I passed towards a latticed summer-house;A fairy bower, built in Eastern style,With spires, and balls, and fancy trellis-work,O’er which was spread the jasmine’s leafy net,To snare the straying winds. Within I fellUpon a seat of woven cane, and fannedMy streaming face in vain. The very windsSeemed to have fled, and left alone the heatTo rise from parchèd lawn and scorching fields,Like trembling incense to the blazing god.The leaves upon the wan and yellow treesHung motionless, as if of rigid steel;And e’en the feath’ry pendula of spray,With faintest oscillation, dared not wave.The withered flowers shed a hot perfume,That sickened with its fragrance; and the beesWorked lazily, as if they longed to kickThe yellow burdens from their patient thighs,And rest beneath the ivy parasols.The butterflies refrained from aimless flight,And poised on blooms with gaudy, gasping wings.The fountain scarcely raised its languid jetAn inch above its tube; the basin deignedA feeble ripple for its tinkling fall,And rolled the little waves with noiseless beatAgainst the marble side. The bright-scaled fishAll huddled ’neath the jutting ledge’s shade,Where, burnished like their magnet toy types,They rose and fell as if inanimate;Or, with a restless stroke of tinted fin,Turned in their places pettishly around;While, with each move, the tiny whirlpools spunLike crystal dimples on the water’s face.The sculptured lions crouched upon the edge,With gaping jaws, and stony, fixèd eyes,That ever on the pool glared thirstily.Deep in the park, beneath the trees, were groupedThe deer, their noses lowered to the earth,To snuff a cooler air; their slender feetImpatient stamping at the teasing flies;While o’er their heads the branching antlers spread,A mocking skeleton of shade! A fawn,Proud of his dappled coat, played here and there,Regardless of repose; the silver bell,That tinkled from a band of broidered silk,Proclaiming him a petted favorite.Save him alone, all things in view sought rest,And wearied Nature seemed to yield the strife,And smold’ring wait her speedy sacrifice.
The heat grew hotter as I watched its work,And with its fervor overcome, I rose,And through the grounds, towards an orchard bentMy faltering steps in full despair of ease.Down through the lengthened rows of laden trees,Whose golden-freighted boughs o’erlapped the way,I hurried till I reached the last confines.Here stood a gnarléd veteran, now too oldTo bear much fruit, but weaving with its leavesSo dense a shade, the smallest fleck of sunCould not creep through. Beneath it spread a couchOf velvet moss, fit for the slumbers of a king.Here prone I fell, at last amid a sceneThat promised refuge from the glaring heat.Beyond me stretched the orchard’s canopyOf thick, rank foliage, almost drooping downUpon the green plush carpet underneath.Close at my feet a crystal spring burst forth,And rolled its gurgling waters down the gladeNow spreading in a rilling silver sheetO’er some broad rock, then gath’ring at its baseInto a foamy pool that churned the sand,And mingling sparks of shining isinglass,It danced away o’er gleamy, pebbly bed,Where, midst the grassy nooks and fibrous roots,The darting minnows played at hide and seek,Oft fluttering upwards, to the top, to spitA tiny bubble out, or slyly snapTh’ unwary little insect hov’ring near;Till, by its tributes widened to a brook,It poured its limpid waters undefiledIn to the river’s dun and dirty waves,—A type of childhood’s guileless purity,That mingling with the sordid world is lost.
Far in the distance, lofty mountains loomed,Their blue sides trembling in the sultry haze.From me to them spread varicultured fields,That formed a patchwork landscape, which deservedThe pencil of a Rembrandt and his skill;The hardy yellow stubble smoothly shaved,With boldness lying ’neath the scorching sun;The suffering corn, with tasselled heads all bowed,And twisted arms appealing, raised to Heaven;The meadows faded by the constant blaze;The cattle lying in the hedge’s shade;Across the landscape drawn a glitt’ring band,Where winds the river, like a giant snake,The ripples flashing like his polished scales.Above the scene a lonely vulture wheeled,Turning with every curve from side to side,As if the fierce rays broiled his dusky wings;And circling onwards, dwindled to a speck,And in the distance vanished out of sight!Complete repose was stamped on everything,Save where a tireless ant tugged at a crumb,To drag it o’er th’ impeding spires of moss;And one poor robin, with her breast all paleAnd feather-scarce, hopped wearily alongThe streamlet’s edge, with plaintive clock-like chirp,And searching, found and bore the curling worm,Up to the yellow-throated brood o’erhead.Behind the mountains reared the copper cloudsOf summer skies, that whitened as they rose,Till bleached to snow, they drifted dreamily,Like gleaming icebergs, through the blue sublime.And as they, one by one, sailed far away,Methought they were as ships from Earth to Heaven,Thus slowly floating to the Eternal Port.The Thunder’s muttered growl my reverie broke,And looking toward the West, I saw a storm,With gloomy wrath, had thrown its dark-blue lineOf breastworks, quiv’ring with each grand dischargeOf its own ordnance, o’er th’ horizon’s verge.Some time it stood to gloat upon its prey,Then, girding up its strength, began its march.Extending far its black gigantic arms,It grimly clambered up the tranquil sky;Till, half-way up the arch, its shaggy browsScowled down in rage upon the frightened earth;While through its wind-cleft portals sped the darts,That brightly hurtled through the sultry air.And down the mountain-sides the shadow crept,A dark veil spreading over field and wood,Thus adding gloom to Nature’s awful hush.The fleecy racks had fled far to the East,Where sporting safely in the gilding light,They mocked the angry monster’s cumbrous speed.
Then, while I marked its progress, came a train,Of dark and doubting thoughts into my mind,And bitterly thus my reflections ran:Strange is the Providence that rules the world,That sets the Medean course of Nature’s laws;Sometimes adapting law to circumstance,But oftener making law fulfilled a curse.Yon brewing storm in verdant summer comes,When vegetation spreads its foliage sails,That, like a full-rigged ship’s, are easier torn;Why comes it not in winter, when the trees,With canvas reefed by Autumn’s furling frosts,Could toss in nude defiance to the blast?The murd’rous wind precedes the gentle showerAnd ere the suffering grain has quenched its thirst,It bows the heavy head, alone of worth,And from the ripening stalk wrings out the life,While gayly nod the heads of chaff unharmed.The rank miasma floats in summer-time,When man must brave its poisoned breath or starve;It hovers sickliest over richest fieldsWhile over sterile lands the air is pure;The tallest oak is by the lightning riven,The hateful bramble on the ground is spared;The crop man needs demands his constant work,The weeds alone spring forth without the plow;The sweetest flowers wear the sharpest thorns,The deadliest reptiles lurk in fairest paths!Wherever Nature shows her brightest smile,’Tis but a mask to hide her darkest frown.The tropics seem an Eden of luscious fruitsAnd flowers, and groves of loveliest birds, and lakesThat mirror their gay plumage flitting o’er;Where man may live in luxury of thought,Without the crime of schemes, or curse of toil—The tropics seem a Hell, when all with lifeAre stifled with the foul sirocco’s breath;When from the green-robed mountain’s volcan top,A fire-fountain spouts its blazing jetFar up against the starry dome of Heaven;Returning in its vast umbrella shape,Leaps in red cataracts adown the slope,Shaves clean the mountain of its emerald hair,And leaves it bald with ashes on its head.Below, the valley is a crimson sea,Whose glowing billows break to white-hot foam;And as they surge amid the towering trees,They, tottering, bow forever to the waves;The leaves and branches, crackling into flame,Leave only clotted cinders floating there;The darting birds, their gaudy plumage singed,Fall fluttering in, with little puffs of smoke.The fleeing beasts are lapped in, bellowing,And charred to coal, drift idly with the tide.The red flood, breaking through the vale, rolls onIts devious way towards the sea; the glareIlluminating far its winding track,As if a devil flew with flaming torch,Or when an earthquake gapes its black-lined jaws,And, growling, gulps a city’s busy throngInto its greedy bowels. Or the sea bursts forthIts bands of rock, and laughing at “Thus far!”Rolls wildly over peopled towns, and homesIn fancied safety; playing fearful pranks,O’er which to chuckle in its briny bed;Jeering the stones because they cannot swim,And crushing like a shell all work of wood;Docking the laden ships upon the hills,And tossing lighter craft about like weeds;Till, wearied with the spoiling, sinks to rest.
Thus Nature to herself is but half kind,But over man holds fullest tyranny;And man, a creature who cannot preventHis own existence! Why not happy made?For surely ’twere as easy to createMan in a state of happiness and good,And keep him there, as to create at all.If misery’s not deserved before his birth,Then misery must from purest malice flow;Yet malice none assign to Providence.But some may say: Were man thus happy made,He would not be a person, but a thing,And lose the very seed of happiness,The consciousness of merit. Grant ’tis true!Then why does merit rarely meet reward?And why does there appear a tendency,Throughout the polity divine, to markWith disapproval all the good in man,And bless the evil? Through the entire worldIs felt this conflict: some strange power withinExciting us to good, while all eventsProclaim its folly. Throughout Nature’s laws,Through man in every station, up to God,This fatal contradiction glares. The storm,With ruthless breath, annihilates the cotThat, frail and humble, shields the widow’s head;And while she reads within the use-worn BookThat none who trusts shall e’er be desolate,The falling timbers crush the promise out,And she is dead beneath her ruined home!The prostrate cottage passed, the very windNow howls a rough but fawning lullabyAround the marble walls, and lofty dome,That shelter pride and heartless arrogance.
And when the Boaz Winter throws his skirtOf purest white across the lap of Earth,And decks her bare arborial hair with gems,Whose feeblest flash would pale the Koh-i-noor,The rich, alone, find beauty in the scene,And, clad in thankless comfort, brave the cold.The gliding steels flash through the feathery drifts,The jingling bells proclaiming happiness;Yet ’neath the furry robe the oath is heard,And boisterous laughter at the ribald jest.The coldest hearts beat ’neath the warmest clothes;And often all the blessings wealth can give,Are heaped on one, whose daily life revilesThe very name of Him who doth bestow.While in a freezing garret, o’er the coalsThat, bluely flickering with the feeble flame,Seem cold themselves, a trusting Christian bends;Her faith all mocked by cruel circumstance.The cold, bare walls, the chilling air-swept floor;Some broken stools, a mattress stuffed with straw,Upholstering the apartment. Through the sash,The wind, with jaggèd lips of broken glass,Shrieks in its freezing spite. A cold-blued babe,With face too thin to hold a dimple’s print,With famished gums tugs at the arid breast,Thrusting its bare, splotched arms, in eagerness,From out the poor white blanket’s ravelled edge.Beside the mother sits a little boy,With one red frost-cracked hand spread out, in vain,To warm above the faintly-burning coals;The other pressing hardly ’gainst his teethA stale and tasteless loaf of smallest size,Which lifting often to the mother’s view,He offers part; she only shakes her head,And sadly smiles upon the gaunt young face.Yet in her basket, on a pile of work,An open Bible lies with outstretched leaves,Whose verses speak in keenest irony:“Do good,” and “verily thou shalt be fed.”And so through all the world, the righteous poor,The wicked rich. Deceit, and fraud, and craftReap large rewards, while pure integrityMust gnaw the bone of faith with here and thereA speck of flesh called consciousness of right,To reach the marrow in another world.But man within himself’s the greatest paradox;“A little animal,” as Voltaire says,And yet a greater wonder than the sun,Or spangled firmament. That little oneCan weigh and measure all the wheeling worlds,But finds within his “five feet” home, a SphinxWhose riddle he can never solve.“Thyself,”The oracles of old bade men to know,As if to mock their very impotence;And man, to know himself, for centuriesHas toiled and studied deep, in vain.—Not man in flesh, for blest HippocratesBright trimmed his lamp, and passed it down the line,And each disciple adding of his oil,It blazes now above the ghastly corpse,Till every fibre, every thread-like vein,Is known familiar as a city’s streets;The little muscle twitching back the lip,Rejoicing in a name that spans the page.But man in mind, that is not seen nor felt,But only knows he is, through consciousness.He sees an outside world, with all its throngOf busy people who care not for him,And only few that know he does exist;And yet he feels the independent worldIs but effect produced upon himself,The Universe is packed within his mind,His mind within its little house of clay.What is that mind? Has it a formal shape?And has it substance, color, weight, or force?What are the chains that bind it to the flesh?That never break except in death, though oftThe faculties are sent far out through space?Where is it placed, in head, or hands, or feet?And can it have existence without place?And if a place, it must extension have,And if extended, it is matter proven.Poor man! he has but mind to view mind with,And might as well attempt to see the eyeWithout a mirror! True, faint consciousnessHolds up a little glass, wherein he seesA few vague facts that cannot satisfy.For these, and their attendant laws, have foughtThe mental champions of the world till nowThat each may deck them in his livery,And claim them as his own discovery.
Hedged in, man does not know that he is paled,And struggles fiercely ’gainst the boundaries,And strives to get a glimpse of those far realmsOf thought sublime, where his short wings would sinkWith helpless fluttering, through the vast profound.Upon the coals of curiosity,A writhing worm, he’s laid; and twists and turns,To find, in vain, the healing salve of Truth.
But grant that mind exists in fullest play:How does it work and what its modes of thought?Here consciousness may act, and hold to viewA dim outline of powers, contraposed.In such a conflict, every one may seizeThe doctrine suits him best. Hence different creeds—Desire battling reason, reason will,And will the weathercock of motive’s wind;Motive the cringing slave of circumstance.And here Charybdis rises; no controlHas man o’er circumstance, but circumstanceBegets the motive governing the will;Then how can man be free? Yet some may say,Man can obey the motive, or can not.He can, but only when a stronger rules.That we without a motive never act,I do declare, though in the face of Reid.That that is strongest which impels, a childMight know, although Jouffroy exclaims,“You’re reasoning in a circle.” Let us placeAn iron fragment ’twixt two magnet-bars,What one attracts is thereby stronger proved.Or it may be the really weaker one,But yet, because of nearness to the steel,Possess a relatively greater force.And so of motives, howe’er trivial they,The one that moves is strongest to the mind.To illustrate: Suppose I pare a peach;A friend near by me banteringly assertsThat I can not refrain from eating it.Two motives now arise—the appetite,And the desire to prove my self-control.I hesitate awhile, then laughing say,“I would not give the peach to prove you wrong.”But as my teeth press on it, pride springs up,And bids me show that I am not the slaveOf appetite, and far away I hurlThe tinted, fragrant sphere.Was not each thoughtSpontaneous? Could I control their rise?How perfectly absurd to talk of choiceBetween two motives offered to the mind!As if the motive was a horse we’d chooseTo pull our minds about. There is no choiceUntil the motive makes it; then we choose,Not ’tween the motives, but the acts.If, then,The spring of action is the motive’s power,The motive being far beyond our sway,Where is our freedom? But a fabled myth!And man but differs from a star in this,—The laws of stars are fixed and definite,And every movement there can be foretold;Of man, no deed can be foreseen till done.At most we can but form a general guessHow he will act, at such a time and place.Even if we knew the motives that would rise,We could not prophesy unless we knewOur subject’s frame of mind; for differently,On different minds, same motives often act.Hence, we can tell the conduct of a friendMore surely than a stranger’s, since we know,By long acquaintance, how his motives work.But should new motives rise, we cannot tellUntil experience gives us data new.Thus we will ride beside a friend alone,And show to him our money without fear,Because we know the motives—love for us,Honor, and horror of disgraceful crime—Are stronger with him than cupidity.But with a stranger we would feel unsafe;Nor would we trust our friend, were we aloneUpon an island, wrecked, and without food,And saw his eye with hunger glare, and heardThe famished motive whispering to him, “Kill!”If he were free, would we feel slightest fear?For all his soul would shudder from the deed,And never motive could impel such crime.
Upon this principal all law is made;For were man free he could not be controlled,And all compliance would be his caprice.But since he is the tyrant-motive’s slave,The law to govern motive only seeksAnd builds its sanction on the base of pain,As motive strongest in the human heart.It only falls below perfection’s height,Because there are exceptions to the rule;When hate and passion, lust and greed of gold,Prove stronger than the fear of distant pain.And could the law know fully every heart,And vary sanction, there would be no crime.
But law itself, and the obeying world,Are proofs against the grosser form of Fate:That all is preordained, nor can be changed.All human life is vacillating life;We make our plans each day, then alter them.We form resolves one hour that break the next,And no one dares assert that he will act,Upon the morrow, in a certain way;But cries, it all depends on circumstance.And this is strange, that while we cannot changeOur lives one tittle by our own free will,We help, each day, to change our neighbor’s course;And he assists the motives changing ours.For all relations to our fellow-men,Are powers that form our lives, in spite of us.But we may change our motives, often do,By changing place, or circumstance of life,By hearing, reading, or reflective thought;Yet are these very things from motives done,And motives mocking all our vain commands.One motive made the object of an act,Another rises subject of the act;And to the final motive we can never reach.
The world’s a self-adjusting, vast machine,Whose human comparts cannot guide themselves;And each is but a puppet to the whole,Yet adds its mite towards its government;Here, in this motive circle, lies all Fate.Our fellow-men with motives furnish us,While we contribute to their motive fund.The real power, hidden deep within,Escapes the eye of careless consciousness;Who proudly tells us we are action’s cause.Upon this error men, mistaken, raiseThe edifice of law in all its forms;That yet performs its varied functions well,Because it offers motives that restrain,Till stronger overcome, and crime ensues.The motive gibbet lifts its warning arms;The pillory gapes its scolloped lips for necks;The lash grows stiff with blood and shreds of flesh;The treadmill yields beneath the wearied feet;And Sabbath after Sabbath preachers tellOf judgment, and of awful Hell, and Heaven;All these, to stronger make, than lust of sin.And yet, to lead my reasoning to its end,I find a chaos of absurdity.If I am by an unruled motive driven,Why act at all? Why passive not reclineUpon the lap of destiny, and wait her arms?Why struggle to acquire means of life,When Fate must fill our mouths or let us die?Why go not naked forth into the world,And trust to Fate for clothes? Why spring asideFrom falling weight, or flee a burning house,Or fight with instinct strength the clasp of waves?Because we cannot help it; every actBehind it has a motive, whose commandWe, willing or unwilling, must obey.
Law governs motives, motives create law;Between the reflex action man is placed,The helpless shuttlecock of unjust Fate!Now passive driven to commit a crime,Then by the driver laid upon the rack;A Zeno’s slave, compelled by Fate to steal,And then compelled by Fate to bear the lash!
What gross injustice is the rule of life!A sentient being made without a will,And placed a cat’s-paw in the hands of Fate,Who rakes the moral embers for a sin,That, found, must burn the helpless one alone.All right and wrong, and whate’er makes man man,Are gone, and language is half obsolete;No need of words to tell of moral worthExisting not, nor e’en conceivable;No words of blame or commendation, givenAccording to the intention of a deed;No words of cheer or comfort, to incite,For man must act without our useless tongues;No words of prayer, if Fate supplies our wants;No words of prayer, if Fate locks up her store;No words of love, for fondest love were loathedIf fanned by Fate to flame. No words of hate,For all forgive a wrong when helpless done;The buds that bloom upon the desert heartLose all their sweetness when they’re forced to grow;All pleasure’s marred because it is not earned,And pain more painful since ’tis undeserved.
Man falling from his high estate, becomesA brute with keener sensibilities;Endowed with mind, upon whose plastic faceFate writes its batch of lies; poor man believes,And prates of moral agency, and cantsOf goodhedoes, and evil thatheshuns.With blind content, he rests in false belief,And happy thus escapes the mental rack—The consciousness of what he really is.
And yet why false belief? The world believes,And acting, moves in general harmony;Could harmony from such an error flow?Would all believe, would not some oneHave doubted by his works as well as faith?The veriest skeptic walks the earth to-day,As if he held the seal of freest will,And shapes its course, and judges all mankindBy freedom’s rule.Then may not that be trueWhich most believe, and those who doubt professIn every act; as that which few believeAnd to which none conform?Two paths I see,One marked Free-Will, the other Fate. The first,Extending far as human thought can reach,Through lovely meads with sweetest flowers, and fruitsOf actions clearly shown as right and wrong,Because of choice ’twixt the two; of lawsWith sanction suiting agents who are free;Of courts acquitting the insane of crime,Of crime made crime, alone, when done as crime,Of judgment passed by public sentimentOn action in the ratio of liberty.Delightful view; but seek an entrance there—The towering bars of unruled motive standBefore the path, and none can overleap.
The field of Fate lies open; nothing barsOur progress there. A thousand different waysThe path diverges. Every by-path leadsTo some foul pit or bottomless abyss.Along each side are strewed the whitening bonesOf venturous pilgrims, lost amid its snares,Some broken on the rocks of gross decree,Who hold an unchanged destiny from birth;Who will not take a medicine if sick,Who cant of “To be, will be,” and the timeUnalterably set to each man’s life.Some stranded on the finer form of Fate,Who say it works by means. Hence they believeIn using all preventives to disease,In going boating in a rubber belt,In placing Franklin rods upon a house,In preaching, and in praying men repent.These, when one dies, cry out, “It was his time.”Or if he should recover, “It was not.”Their fate is always ex post facto fate,And knowing not the future, they abideThe issue of events, and then confirmTheir dogged dogmas.Still another class,Though fewer far in numbers, perish here.These are the sophists; men who deeply diveBeneath the surface of effect, and traceOur actions to their source. They find that man,Made in the glorious image of his God,Is not an independent cause, but worksFrom motive causes out of his control.They find that every mental act must flowFrom outside source, then fearlessly ascendThe chain of being to a height divine,And dare to fetter the Eternal mind,And throw their bonds around Omnipotence.As well a spider in an eagle’s nestMight, from his hidden web among the twigs,Attempt to throw his little gluey threadAround the mottled wing, whose muscled strengthBeats hurried vacuums in the ocean’s spray,Or circling upward, parts the thunder-cloud,And bursts above; and shaking off the mists,With rigid feathers bright as burnished steel,Floats proudly through the tranquil air.Which realmShall now be mine, Free-Will or Fate? The oneStands open wide, but all in ruin ends;The other, fair if once within the pale;But how to scale the barriers none can tell.Bah! all is doubt. I’ll leave the mystic pathsWhere, on each side, are ranged the phantom shapesOf disputants, alive and dead, who fight,With foolish zeal, o’er myths intangible;When each one cries “Eureka!” for his creed.That scarcely lives a day, then yields its place.A Roman ’gainst a Roman, Greek to Greek,A zealous Omar with an Ali paired;A saintly Pharisee in hot disputeWith Sadducees. Along th’ illustrious rowsOf lesser lights, who advocate the creedsOf their respective masters, we descendTo later days and see Titanic mindsExert their giant strength to reach the truth,And, baffled, fall. Locke, ever elsewhere clear,Here mystified Spinoza’s dizzy wingO’erweighted by his strange “imperium;”Hobbes, with his new intrinsic liberty;And Belsham’s quaint reduction too absurd;“Sufficient reason,” reared in Leibnitz’s strength;Reid, Collins, Edwards, Tappan, Priestley, Clarke,All push each other from the door of Truth.