You grasp the iron railing for support,And, faint and dizzy with the agonyOf love’s departure, cling till all has fled;Then stagger home without a trace of love.Yet only Self is touched; her beauty’s there,Her sparkling wit, and her intelligence,Her manner even, towards you, has not changed,And, were you with her, she would be the same.Love’s every motive disappeared with Self,No pride of conquest, no romance of thought;You meet no sympathy, but ridicule!A mother’s love may last through injury,Because it reaps the self’s reward of praiseFor constancy, through wrong. The lover’s flame.Unless supplied with fuel-self, dies out,For, burning, ’twould deserve supreme contempt.The less affairs of life are traced to Self.The code of Etiquette, that ChesterfieldDefines “Benevolence in little things,”Is but a scheme to give Self consciousnessOf excellence in breeding, and to keep“Our Circle” sep’rate by its shibboleth.The stately bow, the graceful sip of wine,The useless little finger’s dainty crookIn lifting up the fragile Sevres cup,The holding of the hat in morning calls,The touch of it when passing through the streets,The drawing of a glove, the use of cane—Our every act is coupled with the thoughtHow well Self does all this.Our very wordsAre used to gratify the self. Men talkBy preference, for they judge their wordsWill gain them more applause than listening.But if attention yields more fruit to Self,How patiently they hear the longest tale,And laugh in glee at its insipid close!If with superiors, we attend, becauseAttention pleases more with them than words;But if inferiors, we must talk the most,Since their attention flatters us so much.The cause of converse, Self, is oftenest food.How few the talks that are not spiced with “I,”What “I” can do, or did or will!Sometimes,The Self is held, on purpose, up for jest;As when men tell a joke upon themselves.But here the shame of conduct or mishapIs more than balanced by the hearty laugh,Which gives its pleasant witness to our wit.We never tell what will present ourselvesIn such an aspect laughter cannot heal;Although it compliments our telling powers.Attentions to the fair, but seek for SelfTheir smiles of favor. Little deeds of loveTo those around us, look for their reward.The youth polite, who gives his chair to Age,“Without a thought of Self,” is yet provoked,If Age do not evince, by nod or smile,His obligation to that unthought Self.The very qualities we call innate,Arise and rule through Self. Our reverence,Or tendency to worship, is to gainA good. Religion grows this tendencyInto the various Churches, all whose endsAre to secure eternal good for Self.And those who preach that man does sacrificeHimself for fellow-men, I ask, why noneWill give his soul for others’? Many giveThe paltry life on Earth for others’ good;The very stones would cry “O! fool!” to himWho’d yield his soul; for that is highest Self,And nothing e’er can compensate its loss.In all these things, Self stands behind the scenes,And men see not the force that moves them on.But in the boudoir, ’tis enthroned supreme,And does not care to hide the cloven foot.In every home, the marble and the log,In mammoth trunks, and chests of simple pine,In rosewood cases, and the pasteboard box,Are crammed the slaves of Self, to poor and rich,The clothes that, fine or common, feed its pride.The velvets, satins, silkenrobes de flamme,The worsted, calico, and homespun stripe;The Guipure, Valenciennes, and Appliqué,The gimp, galloon, and shallow bias frill;The Talmas, Arabs, basques and paletots,The coarse plaid shawl, the hood, and woollen scarf;The chignons, chatelaines, and plaited braids,The beaded net, and tight-screwed knot of hair;The dazzling jewels, ranged in season sets,The pinchbeck, gilt, and waxen trinketry;The tinted boots, half-way the silken hose,The shoes that tie o’er cotton blue-and-white;The corset laced to hasten ready Death,The leather belt, that cuts the broad, thick waist;The bosom heaving only waves of wire,The bosom, cotton stuffed, beyond all shape;The belladonna sparkling in the eye,The finger tip, and water without soap;The rouge and carmine for the city cheeks,The berries’ ruddy juice for rural ones;The pearly powder, with its poisoned dust,The cup of flour to ghastlify the face;—All these, and thousand fixtures none can count,Man’s vanity, and woman’s love of show,Appropriate for Self.And such is Man!The puzzle of the Universe! Within,A giant to himself; without, a babe.A giant that we cannot but despise,A babe we must admire for his power.His mind, Promethean spark divine, can pierceThe shadowy Past, and gaze in rapturous aweUpon the birth of worlds, that from the MindEternal spring to blazing entities,And whirl their radiant orbs through cooling space;Or place the earth beneath its curious ken,And with an “Open Sesame!” descendInto its rocky chambers, there unfoldThe stone archives, and read their graven truths—Earth’s history written by itself therein—How age by age, a globe of liquid fire,It dimmer grew, and dark and stiff,And drying, took a rough, uneven face;Above the wave, the mountain’s smoking topAppeared, beneath it gaped the valley’s gorge;But smoking still, it stood a gloomy globe,Naked and without life. And how the treesAnd herbs their robes of foliage brought; their formAnd life adapted to their heated bed.And how a stream of animation pouredUpon its face, when ready to sustain;Great beasts who trod the cindered soil unscathed,And tramped the fervid plains with unscorched soles.Great fish whose hardened fins hot waters churnedThat steamed at every stroke. How periods passedAnd fields and forests teemed with gentler life,The waters wound in rivers to the sea,Then spread their vap’ry wings and fled to land.The oceans tossed in bondage patiently;Volcanic mountains closed their festering mouths,And Earth made ready for her master, Man.It traces Man, expelled from Paradise,Along the winding track of centuries.It marks his slow development, from two,To families, and tribes, and nations vast.It gazes on the wondrous scenes of war,And peace, and battle plain, and civic game;And lives through each, with all of real life,Except the body’s presence there. It turnsFrom man to beasts and birds, and careless strokesThe lion’s mane, the humbird’s scarlet throat.It tracks the mammoth to his jungle home,Or creeps within the infusoria’s cell.It measures Earth from pole to pole, or weighsThe bit of brass, that lights the battery spark.Is Earth too small, it plumes its flight through space;From world to world, as bird from twig to twig,It flies, and furls its wing upon their discs,To tell their weight, and giant size, or breatheTheir very air to find its gaseous parts.Now bathing in pale Saturn’s misty rings,Or chasing all the moons of JupiterBehind his darkened cone. The glorious sun,With dazzling vapor robe, and seas of fire,Whose cyclones dart the forkèd flames far out,To lap so hungrily amid the stars,Is but its playhouse, where it rides the storms,That sweep vast trenches through the surging fire,In which the little Earth could roll unseen;Or bolder still, beyond our system’s bounds,It soars amid the wilderness of worlds;Finds one condemned to meet a doom of fire,And makes its very flames inscribe their names,In dusky lines, upon the spectroscope.With shuddering thought to see a world consumed,The fate prepared for ours, it lingers thereUntil the lurid conflagration dies.And then seeks Earth, and leaves the laggard,Light,To plod its journey vast.The smallest moteOf dust that settles on an insect’s wing,It can dissect to atoms ultimate.With these, too small for sight, may Fancy deal,And revel in her Lilliputian realm.These atoms forming all, by BoscovitchAre proved, in everything, to be alike;And ultimate, since indivisible.Each in its place maintained by innate forceAnd relatively far from each, as EarthFrom Sun.Suppose, then, each to be a world,Peopled with busy life, a human flood,As earnest in their little plans as we,As grand in their opinion of themselves!Oh! what a depth of contrast for the mind!The finest grain of sand, upon the beach,Has in its form a million perfect worlds!Or take the other scale, suppose the Earth,Our great and glorious Earth, to only formThe millionth atom of some grain of sand,That shines unnoticed on an ocean’s shore,Whose waves wash o’er our whirling stars and sunToo insignificant to feel their surge.Another step on either side, and mind,In flesh, shrinks from the giant grasp.Yet noble are its pinions, strong their flight;Thrice, only, do they droop their baffled strength,Before the Future, Infinite, Abstract!The first is locked, the second out of reach,The third a maze that none can penetrate.The first, alone to inspiration opes;The second dashed to Earth her boldest wing,Spinoza’s, who essayed the idea God,And grappling bravely with the grand concept,So far above the utmost strength of Man,Placed God’s existence in extent and thought;And filled all space with God. The Universe,A bud or bloom of the Eternal Mind,That opens like a flower into this form,And may retract Creation in Itself!Alas! that effort so sublime should endIn mystery and doubt.A Universe,How vast so ever, has its bounds somewhere,But Space possesses none, and God in Space,Would be so far beyond Creation’s speck,He scarce would know it did exist. That partOf Mind, expressed in matter, would be lostAmid the Infinite domains of thought.Yet Man in flesh, the casket of the mind,Whose wondrous power I’ve told, is ever chained,A grovelling worm, to Earth, and never leavesThe sod where he must lie. No time is hisBut present; not a mem’ry of the past.His very food, while in his mouth, alone,Tastes good. He stands a dummy in the world,That only acts when acted on. How greatThe mystery of union ’tween the two!A feather touches not the body, but the mindPerceives it; yet the mind may live through scenesThe body never knew, nor can. Yet notWith vivid life—the sense is lacking there.The memory of a banquet may be plain,So that the daintest dish could be described,As well as if the eye and tongue were there;The eye and tongue, alone the present know,And find no good in anything that’s past.All thought is folly, every path is dark;Truth gleaming fairly in the distant haze,On near approach becomes the blackest lie.Man and his soul may go, nor will I fretTo learn their mystic bonds. A worm I am,And worm I must remain, till Death shall burstThe chrysalis, and free the web-wound wings.Yet, oh! ’twere grand to spurn the clogging EarthAnd cleave the air towards yonder looming cloud;To stand upon its red-bound crest and dareThe storm-king’s wildest wrath.My thoughtsGrew dull, my eyelids slowly closed, the sceneBecame confused and melted into sleep.And far up in the blue, as yet untouchedBy clouds, I saw a white descending speck.Methought ’twas but a feather from the breastOf some migrating swan, that Earthward fell,And watched to see it caught upon the wind,And sail a tiny kite to fairy land.But circling down, the speck became a dove,A heron, then a swan, and larger still,Till I could mark a pair of great white wings,Between which hung its wondrous form. Still downIt swept, till scarce above the trees it stood,Resting on quivering wings, as if it soughtA place to ’light. I saw then what it was,A steed of matchless beauty, agile grace,Combined with muscled strength; but ere I drewThe first long breath, that follows such surpriseIt gently downward swooped, and at my feet,With dainty hoof, the turf impatient pawed.Enrapt, I gazed upon its beauteous form,Its sculptured head, and countenance benign,The soft sad eyes, the arrow-pointed ears,The scarlet nostrils opening like two flowers,The sinewed neck, curved like a swimming swan’s,The splendid mane, a cataract of milk,That poured its foaming torrents half to Earth,The tap’ring limbs, tipped with pink-hued hoofs,That touched our soil with a proud disdain;The dazzling satin coat, and netting veins,And last the glorious wings, whose feathers lappedLike scales of creamy gold. What seemed a clothOf woven snow, with richest silver fringe,Draped with its gorgeous folds the shining flanks.It was perfection’s type, the absolute,Not one defect; the tiniest hair was smooth,The smallest feather’s edge unfrayed. The eyesWithout the slightest bloodshot fleck, or mote.No fault the microscope could have revealed,Though magnifying many million times.So great my wonder, that I could not move,But lay entranced, while he stood waiting there;Till wearied with my long delay, he raisedHis wings half-way, and eager trembled them,As bluebirds do when near their mate; a neighOf trumpet tone aroused me. Then I sprangUpon his back, and wildly shouted “On!”A spring with gathered feet, a clash of wings,That made me cling in terror, and we sweptFrom Earth into the air. Woods, plains, and streamsFlashed by beneath, as, up and on, we chargedStraight to the frowning cloud.My very brainReeled with our lightning speed, and dizzy height,And oh! how silent was the air. No sound,Except the steady beat of fanning wings,That hurled us on a rod at every stroke.The bellowing winds were loosed and fiercely metOur flight. They tossed the broad white mane acrossMy shrinking shoulders, like a scarf of silk;They blew the strong-quilled feathers all awry,And like a banner beat the silvered cloth;But swerving not to right or left, we pressedStraight onward to the goal.At last I reinedMy steed upon the shaggy ridge of clouds,And caracoled along the beetling cliffs,Up to the very summit. Then I paused.Behind me lay the world with all its humOf life, the distant city’s veil of smoke,The village gleaming white amid the trees;The very orchard I had left, now seemedA downy nest of green, and far awayI caught the shimmer of the sea, where sails,With glidings, glittered like the snowy gulls.Behind all was serene, before me seethedThe caldron of the tempest’s wrath.Thick clouds,Thrice tenfold blacker than the black outsideWe see, deep in the crackling fire-crypts writhed,And boiling rose and fell. A deafening blastRoaring its thunder voice above the scene,As if the fiends of Hell concocted thereThe scalding beverage of the damned.My horseHad snuffed the fumes, and rearing on the brink,That fearful brink, an instant pawed the air,And then sprang off. A suffocating plunge,Through heat and blinding smoke, while to his neckConvulsively I clung! Down through the cloud,Until I gasped for breath, and felt my brainWas bursting with the fervid weight.He stoppedBefore a large pavilion, round whose walls,As faithful guard, a whirlwind fierce revolved,And at whose folded door, with dazzling blade,The lightning stood a sentinel. My steedWas passport, and I passed within, but stoppedUpon the threshold, dumb with awe. The wallsSeemed blazing mirrors, whose bright polished sides“Threw back in flaming lineaments” the formOf every object there,—a trembling wretch,With pallid countenance, shown ghastly red,Upon a horse of War’s own direful hue,I saw reflected there. The floor seemed madeOf tesselated froth, whose bubbles burst,With constant hissing, into rainbow sparks;While like the sulph’rous canopy, that drapes,At evening’s close, a gory battle-field,The roof of crimson vapor drooped and rose,With every breath and every slightest sound.And in the center of the glowing room,Upon a sapphire throne an Angel sat,Upon whose brow Rebuke and Wisdom met.He gazed upon me with such pitying look,And yet withal so stern, that all my prideWas gone, and humble as a conquered child,I ran with trembling haste and near the throneKneeled down.“Vain man,” he said, “and hast thou daredTo doubt the providence of God; Behold!”And, lo! one side of the pavilion rose,And out before me lay Immensity.The frothy floor, now crumbling from the edge,Dissolved away close to my very feet,The walls contracted their three sides in one,And I, beside a throne I dared not grasp,Stood on a narrow ledge of fragile foam,That clicked its thousand little globes of air,With every motion of my feet.Far downBelow, the black abyss of chaos yawned,So vast, I gasped while gazing, and so deep,The Sun’s swift arrowy rays flash down for years,And scarcely reach the dark confines, or fadeAmid the impenetrable gloom. Methought’Twas Hell’s wide jaws, that opened underneathThe Universe, to catch as crumbs the worldsCondemned, and shaken from their orbit’s track.And long I looked into the vast black throat,To trace the murky glow of hidden fire,Or catch the distant roar. But all was still;No murmur broke the silence of its gloom,No faintest glimmer told of lurking light,No smoky volumes curdled in its depths;As dark as Egypt’s plague, serenely calm,Defying light, the empty hall of Space,Where twinkled not a star nor blazed a sun.—A grand eternal night!I shuddering turned,With freezing blood to think of falling there,And stretched a palsied hand to touch the throne.The Angel’s eye was sterner, as he wavedTowards my steed, who seemed of marble carved.The wings unfolded, and he leaped in air,Beating from off the ledge the flakes of foamThat sank, with airy spirals, out of sight.With slanting flight across the gulf he sheared;The moveless wings were not extended straight,But stood, at graceful angle, o’er his back,As, swifter than a swooping kite, he flashedAdown the gloom. His flowing mane broad borneOut level, like another wing; his feetWith slow ellipses moving alternate,As if he trod an unseen path. ’Twas grandTo see his graceful form, more snowy whiteAgainst the black relief, sublimely floatAcross the dark profound, and down its depths,Pass from my view. As when an Eagle soarsBeyond our vision in the azure sky,We wonder what he sees, or whither flies,So I stood wondering if he would return,And what his destination down th’ abyss.Above, around, all was infinitudeOf light and harmony. The worlds moved on,In mazy multitude, without a jar,Star circling planet, planet sun, and sunsIn systems, farther yet and farther still,Till multiplying millions mingled formedA sheet of milky hue. And far beyondThe last pale star, appeared a dazzling spot,That flamed with brightness so ineffableThe eye shrank ’neath its gleam. And from its light,Athwart the endless realms of space, there streamedA radiance that illumed the Universe,And down across the chasm of Chaos flungA wavering band of purple and of gold.And in that distant spot my ’wildered eyesTraced out the figure of a Great White Throne,Round which, in grand and solemn majesty,Slow swept Creation’s boundless macrocosm.—I felt too insignificant to pray,But mutely waited for the Angel’s words.He spoke not, but the curtains closer drew,And left a narrow opening in front.Then with a speed the lightning ne’er attained,Our cloud pavilion swiftly whirled through space.A seed that would have slain me with its haste,Had not the Angel been so near.As on the cars,We dash through towns, and mark the hurrying lights,Or shudder at an engine rattling by;So through our door, I marked the countless worlds,In clustering systems, chained by gravity,Flash by an endless course. A second’s timeSufficed to pass our little group of stars,That waltz about our Sun, as if it litThe very Universe. Then systems came,Round which our system moves, and theseRound others, till the series grew so vastI shrank from looking. Great Alcyone,Our telescopic giantess, a babeAmid the monsters of the starry tribe,The last familiar face in Heaven’s throng,Blazed by the door; an instant, out of sight!And after all that we have known or namedOn Earth were far behind, the millions cameIn endless multitude; and on we swept,Till worlds became a dull monotony,And all the wonders of the Heavens were shown.A planet wheels its huge proportions past,Its pimpled face with red volcanoes thick,That, with our speed, seem girdling bands of light;A Sun, whose flame would fade our yellow spark,Roars out a moment at our narrow doorAs through its blaze we fly, then dies away,Casting a weird and momentary gleamOver the Angel’s unrelenting face;A meteor tears its whizzing way along,All showering off the scintillating sparksThat mark its trail. Far off, a comet runsIts bended course, the mighty fan-like tailLit with a myriad globes of dancing fire,That seemed like Argus’ eyes on Juno’s bird.And on we sped, till one last Sun appeared,A monstrous hemisphere of concave shape,And brilliancy intense; it seemed to standOn great Creation’s bounds, a lense of light.Close by its vast red rim we shaved, and passedBeyond, to empty space unoccupied.No world, no sun, no object passed the door;The steady blue, tinged with a brightening gold,Alone was seen. Still on and on we flew,Until a score of ages seemed elapsed,And I had near forgotten Earth and home.And yet the air grew brighter, till I fearedThat we approached a sun, so infiniteIn light, that I should sink in dazzled death.We came to rest, the curtains fell away,And lo! I stood within the light of Heaven.And oh! its glorious light! No angry red,Nor blinding white, nor sickly yellow glare,But one vast golden flood, sublime, serene,No object near, on which it could reflect,It formed the very atmosphere itself,An air in which the soul could bathe and breathe,And ever live without its fleshly food.No object near, for on the farthest boundsOf space immense as mortal can conceive,Creation hung, a group of clustering motes,Where only suns were seen as tiny specks,And Earth and smaller stars were out of sight.No object near, for farther than the motes,The walls of Heaven, in glorious grandeur loomed,Yet near as flesh and blood could bear.How grand!From infinite to infinite extentThe glittering battlements were spread, the heightAbove conception, built of purest gold,Yet gold transparent, for I could discernThough indistinctly, domes and spires beyond,And all the wondrous workmanship divine,That blazed with jewels, flashing varied huesIn perfect union; and bright happy fields,That bloomed with flowers immortal, in whose midstThe crystal river ran. And through the scenesThronged million forms, that each sought happiness,From million varied, purified desires.Each face serenely bright as Evening’s star,And some I thought I knew, were dear to me;But as I gazed, they ever disappeared.Along the walls, twelve gates of pearl were seen,So great their breadth, and high their jewelled arch,That Earth could almost trundle in untouched,And in each arch was fixed a giant bellOf silver, with a golden tongue that hung,A pendant sun. So wide the silver lips,That Chimularee plucked up by the roots,And as a clapper swung within its circ,Would tinkle, like a pebble, noiselesslyAgainst the rigid side. And as the savedWere brought in teeming host, by Angel bands,Before the gates, the bells began their swing;And to and fro the ponderous tongue was hurled,Till through the portals marched the shouting throng,And then it fell against the bounding side.And loud and long their booming thunderRends the golden air asunder,While the ransomed, passing under,Fall in praise beneath the bells,Whose mighty throbbing welcome tells;And the Angels hush their harps in wonder—Bells of Heaven, glory booming bells!Gentler now, the silver’s shiverPurls the rippling waves that quiverThrough the ether’s tide forever,Mellow as they left the bells,Whose softening vibrate welcome tells;And the quavers play adown the river—Bells of Heaven, softly sobbing bells!Then the dreamy cadence dying,Sings as soft as zephyrs sighing;Faintest echoes cease replyingTo the murmur of the bells,Whose stilling tremor welcome tells,Faintly as the snow-flakes falling, lying—Bells of Heaven, dreamy murmuring bells!And in and out those Gates of Pearl, there streamedA ceaseless throng of Angels, errand bound.From one came forth a band of choristers,With shining harps, and sweeping out through space,Their long white lines bent gracefully, they sang.Although so far away, that purest airBrought every note exquisite to my ear.’Twas richly worth life’s toil, to catch one barOf Heavenly melody. Oh! I would giveMy pitiful existence, once againTo hear the strains that floated to me then,So full, so deep, so ravishingly sweet;Now gentle as a mother’s lullaby,They almost died away, then louder rose,And rolled their volumes through the boundless realms,That trembled with the diapason grand;Until eternal echoes caught the strain,And glory in the highest swelled sublime.Entranced, I lay with ’wildered half-closed eyes,Till from another gate, another hostMarched forth, the armies of the living God.Beneath their thunder-tread all Heaven shook,And at their head the tall Archangel strode.How grandly terrible his mien! His faceLit with a soul that only kneels to Three;The lofty brows drawn slightly to a frownThe eyes that beam with vast intelligence,The depths of distance piercing with their glance;The chiselled lips, compressed with stern resolve,Yet marked with lines and curves of tender love,That ever with a sigh Wrath’s vial brokeUpon the doomed. His splendid form so tall,That as he paused a moment in the gateHis dazzling crest just grazed the silver bell.He wore no arms nor armor, save a swordWithout a sheath, that blazed as broad and brightAs sunset bars that shear the zenith’s blue—A sword, that falling flatly on the hostOf Xerxes, would have crushed them as we crushA swarm of ants. An edge-stroke on the EarthWould gash the rocky shell to caverned fire.Unfolding wings would shake a continent,He floated down the depths. Behind him cameA million foll’wers, counterparts in all,Save presence of command.I wondered notThat one should breathe upon the Syrian might,And still the sleeping hearts, four thousand score.And from Creation’s little corner cameThe Guardian Angels, bearing in their armsTheir charges during life. As laden bees,They flew to Heaven’s hive; and some passed bySo closely I their burdens could discern;And though they came from far-off, unseen Earth,The stiffened forms were borne all tenderly.Some bore the dimpled babe, with soft-closed eyes,As if upon its mother’s breast; its hands,Unhardened yet by toil of life, its faceUnfurrowed yet by care’s sharp plough; and someThe age-bent form, with ghostly silvered hair,And features gaunt in death, that would have seemedA hideous sight, in any light but Heaven’s;Some bore the rich, who made of Mammon friends,Who wore the purple with a stainless soul;Some bore the poor, who mastered poverty,And broke the ashen crust beneath God’s smile;Their work-worn hands now folded peacefully,And passing towards the harp, the weary feet,So often blistered in life’s bitter dust,To tread with kings the golden streets of Heaven;And some the maiden form bore lovingly,So fair, they seemed twin sisters.And I saw,That, passing through the amber air, they caughtIts glowing dust upon them, and were changed,The livid to the radiant. Then as theyApproached the City, all the walls were thronged,And all the harps were throbbing to be swept.And mid the throng there moved a dazzling Form,The jewels of whose crown were shaped like thorns.He stood to welcome, and the gates unclosed,And passing through them, all the death sealed eyesWere opened, and they lived!And then I knewWhat happiness could mean. To leave the Earth,With all its torturing pains and ills of flesh;The lingering, long disease, the wasted frame,And, e’en in health, the constant dread of death,That like the sword of Damocles impends,And none may tell its fall.And worse than flesh,The tortures of the mind in fetters bound;Its chafings at its puling impotence,Its longing after things beyond its reach,Its craving after knowledge never given,Its constant discontent with present time,Its looking towards a future, that but breaksTo light alone in distance, never near;Its maddening retrospect o’er wasted life,And loss of golden opportunities;Its consciousness of merit none admit,Its sense of gross injustice from the world;The forced reflections on the sway of self,And consequent contempt for all mankind,Or shameful servitude to their regard;The poisoned thorns, that skirt the “Narrow Way”;The sneering laugh, the tongue of calumny,The envious spites and hates ’tween man and man,The doubts that swarm with thought about our soul,That whispers all our labor here is vain,That death is but extinction, Heaven a myth!
You grasp the iron railing for support,And, faint and dizzy with the agonyOf love’s departure, cling till all has fled;Then stagger home without a trace of love.Yet only Self is touched; her beauty’s there,Her sparkling wit, and her intelligence,Her manner even, towards you, has not changed,And, were you with her, she would be the same.Love’s every motive disappeared with Self,No pride of conquest, no romance of thought;You meet no sympathy, but ridicule!A mother’s love may last through injury,Because it reaps the self’s reward of praiseFor constancy, through wrong. The lover’s flame.Unless supplied with fuel-self, dies out,For, burning, ’twould deserve supreme contempt.The less affairs of life are traced to Self.The code of Etiquette, that ChesterfieldDefines “Benevolence in little things,”Is but a scheme to give Self consciousnessOf excellence in breeding, and to keep“Our Circle” sep’rate by its shibboleth.The stately bow, the graceful sip of wine,The useless little finger’s dainty crookIn lifting up the fragile Sevres cup,The holding of the hat in morning calls,The touch of it when passing through the streets,The drawing of a glove, the use of cane—Our every act is coupled with the thoughtHow well Self does all this.Our very wordsAre used to gratify the self. Men talkBy preference, for they judge their wordsWill gain them more applause than listening.But if attention yields more fruit to Self,How patiently they hear the longest tale,And laugh in glee at its insipid close!If with superiors, we attend, becauseAttention pleases more with them than words;But if inferiors, we must talk the most,Since their attention flatters us so much.The cause of converse, Self, is oftenest food.How few the talks that are not spiced with “I,”What “I” can do, or did or will!Sometimes,The Self is held, on purpose, up for jest;As when men tell a joke upon themselves.But here the shame of conduct or mishapIs more than balanced by the hearty laugh,Which gives its pleasant witness to our wit.We never tell what will present ourselvesIn such an aspect laughter cannot heal;Although it compliments our telling powers.Attentions to the fair, but seek for SelfTheir smiles of favor. Little deeds of loveTo those around us, look for their reward.The youth polite, who gives his chair to Age,“Without a thought of Self,” is yet provoked,If Age do not evince, by nod or smile,His obligation to that unthought Self.The very qualities we call innate,Arise and rule through Self. Our reverence,Or tendency to worship, is to gainA good. Religion grows this tendencyInto the various Churches, all whose endsAre to secure eternal good for Self.And those who preach that man does sacrificeHimself for fellow-men, I ask, why noneWill give his soul for others’? Many giveThe paltry life on Earth for others’ good;The very stones would cry “O! fool!” to himWho’d yield his soul; for that is highest Self,And nothing e’er can compensate its loss.In all these things, Self stands behind the scenes,And men see not the force that moves them on.But in the boudoir, ’tis enthroned supreme,And does not care to hide the cloven foot.In every home, the marble and the log,In mammoth trunks, and chests of simple pine,In rosewood cases, and the pasteboard box,Are crammed the slaves of Self, to poor and rich,The clothes that, fine or common, feed its pride.The velvets, satins, silkenrobes de flamme,The worsted, calico, and homespun stripe;The Guipure, Valenciennes, and Appliqué,The gimp, galloon, and shallow bias frill;The Talmas, Arabs, basques and paletots,The coarse plaid shawl, the hood, and woollen scarf;The chignons, chatelaines, and plaited braids,The beaded net, and tight-screwed knot of hair;The dazzling jewels, ranged in season sets,The pinchbeck, gilt, and waxen trinketry;The tinted boots, half-way the silken hose,The shoes that tie o’er cotton blue-and-white;The corset laced to hasten ready Death,The leather belt, that cuts the broad, thick waist;The bosom heaving only waves of wire,The bosom, cotton stuffed, beyond all shape;The belladonna sparkling in the eye,The finger tip, and water without soap;The rouge and carmine for the city cheeks,The berries’ ruddy juice for rural ones;The pearly powder, with its poisoned dust,The cup of flour to ghastlify the face;—All these, and thousand fixtures none can count,Man’s vanity, and woman’s love of show,Appropriate for Self.And such is Man!The puzzle of the Universe! Within,A giant to himself; without, a babe.A giant that we cannot but despise,A babe we must admire for his power.His mind, Promethean spark divine, can pierceThe shadowy Past, and gaze in rapturous aweUpon the birth of worlds, that from the MindEternal spring to blazing entities,And whirl their radiant orbs through cooling space;Or place the earth beneath its curious ken,And with an “Open Sesame!” descendInto its rocky chambers, there unfoldThe stone archives, and read their graven truths—Earth’s history written by itself therein—How age by age, a globe of liquid fire,It dimmer grew, and dark and stiff,And drying, took a rough, uneven face;Above the wave, the mountain’s smoking topAppeared, beneath it gaped the valley’s gorge;But smoking still, it stood a gloomy globe,Naked and without life. And how the treesAnd herbs their robes of foliage brought; their formAnd life adapted to their heated bed.And how a stream of animation pouredUpon its face, when ready to sustain;Great beasts who trod the cindered soil unscathed,And tramped the fervid plains with unscorched soles.Great fish whose hardened fins hot waters churnedThat steamed at every stroke. How periods passedAnd fields and forests teemed with gentler life,The waters wound in rivers to the sea,Then spread their vap’ry wings and fled to land.The oceans tossed in bondage patiently;Volcanic mountains closed their festering mouths,And Earth made ready for her master, Man.It traces Man, expelled from Paradise,Along the winding track of centuries.It marks his slow development, from two,To families, and tribes, and nations vast.It gazes on the wondrous scenes of war,And peace, and battle plain, and civic game;And lives through each, with all of real life,Except the body’s presence there. It turnsFrom man to beasts and birds, and careless strokesThe lion’s mane, the humbird’s scarlet throat.It tracks the mammoth to his jungle home,Or creeps within the infusoria’s cell.It measures Earth from pole to pole, or weighsThe bit of brass, that lights the battery spark.Is Earth too small, it plumes its flight through space;From world to world, as bird from twig to twig,It flies, and furls its wing upon their discs,To tell their weight, and giant size, or breatheTheir very air to find its gaseous parts.Now bathing in pale Saturn’s misty rings,Or chasing all the moons of JupiterBehind his darkened cone. The glorious sun,With dazzling vapor robe, and seas of fire,Whose cyclones dart the forkèd flames far out,To lap so hungrily amid the stars,Is but its playhouse, where it rides the storms,That sweep vast trenches through the surging fire,In which the little Earth could roll unseen;Or bolder still, beyond our system’s bounds,It soars amid the wilderness of worlds;Finds one condemned to meet a doom of fire,And makes its very flames inscribe their names,In dusky lines, upon the spectroscope.With shuddering thought to see a world consumed,The fate prepared for ours, it lingers thereUntil the lurid conflagration dies.And then seeks Earth, and leaves the laggard,Light,To plod its journey vast.The smallest moteOf dust that settles on an insect’s wing,It can dissect to atoms ultimate.With these, too small for sight, may Fancy deal,And revel in her Lilliputian realm.These atoms forming all, by BoscovitchAre proved, in everything, to be alike;And ultimate, since indivisible.Each in its place maintained by innate forceAnd relatively far from each, as EarthFrom Sun.Suppose, then, each to be a world,Peopled with busy life, a human flood,As earnest in their little plans as we,As grand in their opinion of themselves!Oh! what a depth of contrast for the mind!The finest grain of sand, upon the beach,Has in its form a million perfect worlds!Or take the other scale, suppose the Earth,Our great and glorious Earth, to only formThe millionth atom of some grain of sand,That shines unnoticed on an ocean’s shore,Whose waves wash o’er our whirling stars and sunToo insignificant to feel their surge.Another step on either side, and mind,In flesh, shrinks from the giant grasp.Yet noble are its pinions, strong their flight;Thrice, only, do they droop their baffled strength,Before the Future, Infinite, Abstract!The first is locked, the second out of reach,The third a maze that none can penetrate.The first, alone to inspiration opes;The second dashed to Earth her boldest wing,Spinoza’s, who essayed the idea God,And grappling bravely with the grand concept,So far above the utmost strength of Man,Placed God’s existence in extent and thought;And filled all space with God. The Universe,A bud or bloom of the Eternal Mind,That opens like a flower into this form,And may retract Creation in Itself!Alas! that effort so sublime should endIn mystery and doubt.A Universe,How vast so ever, has its bounds somewhere,But Space possesses none, and God in Space,Would be so far beyond Creation’s speck,He scarce would know it did exist. That partOf Mind, expressed in matter, would be lostAmid the Infinite domains of thought.Yet Man in flesh, the casket of the mind,Whose wondrous power I’ve told, is ever chained,A grovelling worm, to Earth, and never leavesThe sod where he must lie. No time is hisBut present; not a mem’ry of the past.His very food, while in his mouth, alone,Tastes good. He stands a dummy in the world,That only acts when acted on. How greatThe mystery of union ’tween the two!A feather touches not the body, but the mindPerceives it; yet the mind may live through scenesThe body never knew, nor can. Yet notWith vivid life—the sense is lacking there.The memory of a banquet may be plain,So that the daintest dish could be described,As well as if the eye and tongue were there;The eye and tongue, alone the present know,And find no good in anything that’s past.All thought is folly, every path is dark;Truth gleaming fairly in the distant haze,On near approach becomes the blackest lie.Man and his soul may go, nor will I fretTo learn their mystic bonds. A worm I am,And worm I must remain, till Death shall burstThe chrysalis, and free the web-wound wings.Yet, oh! ’twere grand to spurn the clogging EarthAnd cleave the air towards yonder looming cloud;To stand upon its red-bound crest and dareThe storm-king’s wildest wrath.My thoughtsGrew dull, my eyelids slowly closed, the sceneBecame confused and melted into sleep.And far up in the blue, as yet untouchedBy clouds, I saw a white descending speck.Methought ’twas but a feather from the breastOf some migrating swan, that Earthward fell,And watched to see it caught upon the wind,And sail a tiny kite to fairy land.But circling down, the speck became a dove,A heron, then a swan, and larger still,Till I could mark a pair of great white wings,Between which hung its wondrous form. Still downIt swept, till scarce above the trees it stood,Resting on quivering wings, as if it soughtA place to ’light. I saw then what it was,A steed of matchless beauty, agile grace,Combined with muscled strength; but ere I drewThe first long breath, that follows such surpriseIt gently downward swooped, and at my feet,With dainty hoof, the turf impatient pawed.Enrapt, I gazed upon its beauteous form,Its sculptured head, and countenance benign,The soft sad eyes, the arrow-pointed ears,The scarlet nostrils opening like two flowers,The sinewed neck, curved like a swimming swan’s,The splendid mane, a cataract of milk,That poured its foaming torrents half to Earth,The tap’ring limbs, tipped with pink-hued hoofs,That touched our soil with a proud disdain;The dazzling satin coat, and netting veins,And last the glorious wings, whose feathers lappedLike scales of creamy gold. What seemed a clothOf woven snow, with richest silver fringe,Draped with its gorgeous folds the shining flanks.It was perfection’s type, the absolute,Not one defect; the tiniest hair was smooth,The smallest feather’s edge unfrayed. The eyesWithout the slightest bloodshot fleck, or mote.No fault the microscope could have revealed,Though magnifying many million times.So great my wonder, that I could not move,But lay entranced, while he stood waiting there;Till wearied with my long delay, he raisedHis wings half-way, and eager trembled them,As bluebirds do when near their mate; a neighOf trumpet tone aroused me. Then I sprangUpon his back, and wildly shouted “On!”A spring with gathered feet, a clash of wings,That made me cling in terror, and we sweptFrom Earth into the air. Woods, plains, and streamsFlashed by beneath, as, up and on, we chargedStraight to the frowning cloud.My very brainReeled with our lightning speed, and dizzy height,And oh! how silent was the air. No sound,Except the steady beat of fanning wings,That hurled us on a rod at every stroke.The bellowing winds were loosed and fiercely metOur flight. They tossed the broad white mane acrossMy shrinking shoulders, like a scarf of silk;They blew the strong-quilled feathers all awry,And like a banner beat the silvered cloth;But swerving not to right or left, we pressedStraight onward to the goal.At last I reinedMy steed upon the shaggy ridge of clouds,And caracoled along the beetling cliffs,Up to the very summit. Then I paused.Behind me lay the world with all its humOf life, the distant city’s veil of smoke,The village gleaming white amid the trees;The very orchard I had left, now seemedA downy nest of green, and far awayI caught the shimmer of the sea, where sails,With glidings, glittered like the snowy gulls.Behind all was serene, before me seethedThe caldron of the tempest’s wrath.Thick clouds,Thrice tenfold blacker than the black outsideWe see, deep in the crackling fire-crypts writhed,And boiling rose and fell. A deafening blastRoaring its thunder voice above the scene,As if the fiends of Hell concocted thereThe scalding beverage of the damned.My horseHad snuffed the fumes, and rearing on the brink,That fearful brink, an instant pawed the air,And then sprang off. A suffocating plunge,Through heat and blinding smoke, while to his neckConvulsively I clung! Down through the cloud,Until I gasped for breath, and felt my brainWas bursting with the fervid weight.He stoppedBefore a large pavilion, round whose walls,As faithful guard, a whirlwind fierce revolved,And at whose folded door, with dazzling blade,The lightning stood a sentinel. My steedWas passport, and I passed within, but stoppedUpon the threshold, dumb with awe. The wallsSeemed blazing mirrors, whose bright polished sides“Threw back in flaming lineaments” the formOf every object there,—a trembling wretch,With pallid countenance, shown ghastly red,Upon a horse of War’s own direful hue,I saw reflected there. The floor seemed madeOf tesselated froth, whose bubbles burst,With constant hissing, into rainbow sparks;While like the sulph’rous canopy, that drapes,At evening’s close, a gory battle-field,The roof of crimson vapor drooped and rose,With every breath and every slightest sound.And in the center of the glowing room,Upon a sapphire throne an Angel sat,Upon whose brow Rebuke and Wisdom met.He gazed upon me with such pitying look,And yet withal so stern, that all my prideWas gone, and humble as a conquered child,I ran with trembling haste and near the throneKneeled down.“Vain man,” he said, “and hast thou daredTo doubt the providence of God; Behold!”And, lo! one side of the pavilion rose,And out before me lay Immensity.The frothy floor, now crumbling from the edge,Dissolved away close to my very feet,The walls contracted their three sides in one,And I, beside a throne I dared not grasp,Stood on a narrow ledge of fragile foam,That clicked its thousand little globes of air,With every motion of my feet.Far downBelow, the black abyss of chaos yawned,So vast, I gasped while gazing, and so deep,The Sun’s swift arrowy rays flash down for years,And scarcely reach the dark confines, or fadeAmid the impenetrable gloom. Methought’Twas Hell’s wide jaws, that opened underneathThe Universe, to catch as crumbs the worldsCondemned, and shaken from their orbit’s track.And long I looked into the vast black throat,To trace the murky glow of hidden fire,Or catch the distant roar. But all was still;No murmur broke the silence of its gloom,No faintest glimmer told of lurking light,No smoky volumes curdled in its depths;As dark as Egypt’s plague, serenely calm,Defying light, the empty hall of Space,Where twinkled not a star nor blazed a sun.—A grand eternal night!I shuddering turned,With freezing blood to think of falling there,And stretched a palsied hand to touch the throne.The Angel’s eye was sterner, as he wavedTowards my steed, who seemed of marble carved.The wings unfolded, and he leaped in air,Beating from off the ledge the flakes of foamThat sank, with airy spirals, out of sight.With slanting flight across the gulf he sheared;The moveless wings were not extended straight,But stood, at graceful angle, o’er his back,As, swifter than a swooping kite, he flashedAdown the gloom. His flowing mane broad borneOut level, like another wing; his feetWith slow ellipses moving alternate,As if he trod an unseen path. ’Twas grandTo see his graceful form, more snowy whiteAgainst the black relief, sublimely floatAcross the dark profound, and down its depths,Pass from my view. As when an Eagle soarsBeyond our vision in the azure sky,We wonder what he sees, or whither flies,So I stood wondering if he would return,And what his destination down th’ abyss.Above, around, all was infinitudeOf light and harmony. The worlds moved on,In mazy multitude, without a jar,Star circling planet, planet sun, and sunsIn systems, farther yet and farther still,Till multiplying millions mingled formedA sheet of milky hue. And far beyondThe last pale star, appeared a dazzling spot,That flamed with brightness so ineffableThe eye shrank ’neath its gleam. And from its light,Athwart the endless realms of space, there streamedA radiance that illumed the Universe,And down across the chasm of Chaos flungA wavering band of purple and of gold.And in that distant spot my ’wildered eyesTraced out the figure of a Great White Throne,Round which, in grand and solemn majesty,Slow swept Creation’s boundless macrocosm.—I felt too insignificant to pray,But mutely waited for the Angel’s words.He spoke not, but the curtains closer drew,And left a narrow opening in front.Then with a speed the lightning ne’er attained,Our cloud pavilion swiftly whirled through space.A seed that would have slain me with its haste,Had not the Angel been so near.As on the cars,We dash through towns, and mark the hurrying lights,Or shudder at an engine rattling by;So through our door, I marked the countless worlds,In clustering systems, chained by gravity,Flash by an endless course. A second’s timeSufficed to pass our little group of stars,That waltz about our Sun, as if it litThe very Universe. Then systems came,Round which our system moves, and theseRound others, till the series grew so vastI shrank from looking. Great Alcyone,Our telescopic giantess, a babeAmid the monsters of the starry tribe,The last familiar face in Heaven’s throng,Blazed by the door; an instant, out of sight!And after all that we have known or namedOn Earth were far behind, the millions cameIn endless multitude; and on we swept,Till worlds became a dull monotony,And all the wonders of the Heavens were shown.A planet wheels its huge proportions past,Its pimpled face with red volcanoes thick,That, with our speed, seem girdling bands of light;A Sun, whose flame would fade our yellow spark,Roars out a moment at our narrow doorAs through its blaze we fly, then dies away,Casting a weird and momentary gleamOver the Angel’s unrelenting face;A meteor tears its whizzing way along,All showering off the scintillating sparksThat mark its trail. Far off, a comet runsIts bended course, the mighty fan-like tailLit with a myriad globes of dancing fire,That seemed like Argus’ eyes on Juno’s bird.And on we sped, till one last Sun appeared,A monstrous hemisphere of concave shape,And brilliancy intense; it seemed to standOn great Creation’s bounds, a lense of light.Close by its vast red rim we shaved, and passedBeyond, to empty space unoccupied.No world, no sun, no object passed the door;The steady blue, tinged with a brightening gold,Alone was seen. Still on and on we flew,Until a score of ages seemed elapsed,And I had near forgotten Earth and home.And yet the air grew brighter, till I fearedThat we approached a sun, so infiniteIn light, that I should sink in dazzled death.We came to rest, the curtains fell away,And lo! I stood within the light of Heaven.And oh! its glorious light! No angry red,Nor blinding white, nor sickly yellow glare,But one vast golden flood, sublime, serene,No object near, on which it could reflect,It formed the very atmosphere itself,An air in which the soul could bathe and breathe,And ever live without its fleshly food.No object near, for on the farthest boundsOf space immense as mortal can conceive,Creation hung, a group of clustering motes,Where only suns were seen as tiny specks,And Earth and smaller stars were out of sight.No object near, for farther than the motes,The walls of Heaven, in glorious grandeur loomed,Yet near as flesh and blood could bear.How grand!From infinite to infinite extentThe glittering battlements were spread, the heightAbove conception, built of purest gold,Yet gold transparent, for I could discernThough indistinctly, domes and spires beyond,And all the wondrous workmanship divine,That blazed with jewels, flashing varied huesIn perfect union; and bright happy fields,That bloomed with flowers immortal, in whose midstThe crystal river ran. And through the scenesThronged million forms, that each sought happiness,From million varied, purified desires.Each face serenely bright as Evening’s star,And some I thought I knew, were dear to me;But as I gazed, they ever disappeared.Along the walls, twelve gates of pearl were seen,So great their breadth, and high their jewelled arch,That Earth could almost trundle in untouched,And in each arch was fixed a giant bellOf silver, with a golden tongue that hung,A pendant sun. So wide the silver lips,That Chimularee plucked up by the roots,And as a clapper swung within its circ,Would tinkle, like a pebble, noiselesslyAgainst the rigid side. And as the savedWere brought in teeming host, by Angel bands,Before the gates, the bells began their swing;And to and fro the ponderous tongue was hurled,Till through the portals marched the shouting throng,And then it fell against the bounding side.And loud and long their booming thunderRends the golden air asunder,While the ransomed, passing under,Fall in praise beneath the bells,Whose mighty throbbing welcome tells;And the Angels hush their harps in wonder—Bells of Heaven, glory booming bells!Gentler now, the silver’s shiverPurls the rippling waves that quiverThrough the ether’s tide forever,Mellow as they left the bells,Whose softening vibrate welcome tells;And the quavers play adown the river—Bells of Heaven, softly sobbing bells!Then the dreamy cadence dying,Sings as soft as zephyrs sighing;Faintest echoes cease replyingTo the murmur of the bells,Whose stilling tremor welcome tells,Faintly as the snow-flakes falling, lying—Bells of Heaven, dreamy murmuring bells!And in and out those Gates of Pearl, there streamedA ceaseless throng of Angels, errand bound.From one came forth a band of choristers,With shining harps, and sweeping out through space,Their long white lines bent gracefully, they sang.Although so far away, that purest airBrought every note exquisite to my ear.’Twas richly worth life’s toil, to catch one barOf Heavenly melody. Oh! I would giveMy pitiful existence, once againTo hear the strains that floated to me then,So full, so deep, so ravishingly sweet;Now gentle as a mother’s lullaby,They almost died away, then louder rose,And rolled their volumes through the boundless realms,That trembled with the diapason grand;Until eternal echoes caught the strain,And glory in the highest swelled sublime.Entranced, I lay with ’wildered half-closed eyes,Till from another gate, another hostMarched forth, the armies of the living God.Beneath their thunder-tread all Heaven shook,And at their head the tall Archangel strode.How grandly terrible his mien! His faceLit with a soul that only kneels to Three;The lofty brows drawn slightly to a frownThe eyes that beam with vast intelligence,The depths of distance piercing with their glance;The chiselled lips, compressed with stern resolve,Yet marked with lines and curves of tender love,That ever with a sigh Wrath’s vial brokeUpon the doomed. His splendid form so tall,That as he paused a moment in the gateHis dazzling crest just grazed the silver bell.He wore no arms nor armor, save a swordWithout a sheath, that blazed as broad and brightAs sunset bars that shear the zenith’s blue—A sword, that falling flatly on the hostOf Xerxes, would have crushed them as we crushA swarm of ants. An edge-stroke on the EarthWould gash the rocky shell to caverned fire.Unfolding wings would shake a continent,He floated down the depths. Behind him cameA million foll’wers, counterparts in all,Save presence of command.I wondered notThat one should breathe upon the Syrian might,And still the sleeping hearts, four thousand score.And from Creation’s little corner cameThe Guardian Angels, bearing in their armsTheir charges during life. As laden bees,They flew to Heaven’s hive; and some passed bySo closely I their burdens could discern;And though they came from far-off, unseen Earth,The stiffened forms were borne all tenderly.Some bore the dimpled babe, with soft-closed eyes,As if upon its mother’s breast; its hands,Unhardened yet by toil of life, its faceUnfurrowed yet by care’s sharp plough; and someThe age-bent form, with ghostly silvered hair,And features gaunt in death, that would have seemedA hideous sight, in any light but Heaven’s;Some bore the rich, who made of Mammon friends,Who wore the purple with a stainless soul;Some bore the poor, who mastered poverty,And broke the ashen crust beneath God’s smile;Their work-worn hands now folded peacefully,And passing towards the harp, the weary feet,So often blistered in life’s bitter dust,To tread with kings the golden streets of Heaven;And some the maiden form bore lovingly,So fair, they seemed twin sisters.And I saw,That, passing through the amber air, they caughtIts glowing dust upon them, and were changed,The livid to the radiant. Then as theyApproached the City, all the walls were thronged,And all the harps were throbbing to be swept.And mid the throng there moved a dazzling Form,The jewels of whose crown were shaped like thorns.He stood to welcome, and the gates unclosed,And passing through them, all the death sealed eyesWere opened, and they lived!And then I knewWhat happiness could mean. To leave the Earth,With all its torturing pains and ills of flesh;The lingering, long disease, the wasted frame,And, e’en in health, the constant dread of death,That like the sword of Damocles impends,And none may tell its fall.And worse than flesh,The tortures of the mind in fetters bound;Its chafings at its puling impotence,Its longing after things beyond its reach,Its craving after knowledge never given,Its constant discontent with present time,Its looking towards a future, that but breaksTo light alone in distance, never near;Its maddening retrospect o’er wasted life,And loss of golden opportunities;Its consciousness of merit none admit,Its sense of gross injustice from the world;The forced reflections on the sway of self,And consequent contempt for all mankind,Or shameful servitude to their regard;The poisoned thorns, that skirt the “Narrow Way”;The sneering laugh, the tongue of calumny,The envious spites and hates ’tween man and man,The doubts that swarm with thought about our soul,That whispers all our labor here is vain,That death is but extinction, Heaven a myth!
You grasp the iron railing for support,And, faint and dizzy with the agonyOf love’s departure, cling till all has fled;Then stagger home without a trace of love.Yet only Self is touched; her beauty’s there,Her sparkling wit, and her intelligence,Her manner even, towards you, has not changed,And, were you with her, she would be the same.Love’s every motive disappeared with Self,No pride of conquest, no romance of thought;You meet no sympathy, but ridicule!
A mother’s love may last through injury,Because it reaps the self’s reward of praiseFor constancy, through wrong. The lover’s flame.Unless supplied with fuel-self, dies out,For, burning, ’twould deserve supreme contempt.
The less affairs of life are traced to Self.The code of Etiquette, that ChesterfieldDefines “Benevolence in little things,”Is but a scheme to give Self consciousnessOf excellence in breeding, and to keep“Our Circle” sep’rate by its shibboleth.The stately bow, the graceful sip of wine,The useless little finger’s dainty crookIn lifting up the fragile Sevres cup,The holding of the hat in morning calls,The touch of it when passing through the streets,The drawing of a glove, the use of cane—Our every act is coupled with the thoughtHow well Self does all this.
Our very wordsAre used to gratify the self. Men talkBy preference, for they judge their wordsWill gain them more applause than listening.But if attention yields more fruit to Self,How patiently they hear the longest tale,And laugh in glee at its insipid close!If with superiors, we attend, becauseAttention pleases more with them than words;But if inferiors, we must talk the most,Since their attention flatters us so much.The cause of converse, Self, is oftenest food.How few the talks that are not spiced with “I,”What “I” can do, or did or will!
Sometimes,The Self is held, on purpose, up for jest;As when men tell a joke upon themselves.But here the shame of conduct or mishapIs more than balanced by the hearty laugh,Which gives its pleasant witness to our wit.We never tell what will present ourselvesIn such an aspect laughter cannot heal;Although it compliments our telling powers.
Attentions to the fair, but seek for SelfTheir smiles of favor. Little deeds of loveTo those around us, look for their reward.The youth polite, who gives his chair to Age,“Without a thought of Self,” is yet provoked,If Age do not evince, by nod or smile,His obligation to that unthought Self.
The very qualities we call innate,Arise and rule through Self. Our reverence,Or tendency to worship, is to gainA good. Religion grows this tendencyInto the various Churches, all whose endsAre to secure eternal good for Self.And those who preach that man does sacrificeHimself for fellow-men, I ask, why noneWill give his soul for others’? Many giveThe paltry life on Earth for others’ good;The very stones would cry “O! fool!” to himWho’d yield his soul; for that is highest Self,And nothing e’er can compensate its loss.
In all these things, Self stands behind the scenes,And men see not the force that moves them on.But in the boudoir, ’tis enthroned supreme,And does not care to hide the cloven foot.In every home, the marble and the log,In mammoth trunks, and chests of simple pine,In rosewood cases, and the pasteboard box,Are crammed the slaves of Self, to poor and rich,The clothes that, fine or common, feed its pride.The velvets, satins, silkenrobes de flamme,The worsted, calico, and homespun stripe;The Guipure, Valenciennes, and Appliqué,The gimp, galloon, and shallow bias frill;The Talmas, Arabs, basques and paletots,The coarse plaid shawl, the hood, and woollen scarf;The chignons, chatelaines, and plaited braids,The beaded net, and tight-screwed knot of hair;The dazzling jewels, ranged in season sets,The pinchbeck, gilt, and waxen trinketry;The tinted boots, half-way the silken hose,The shoes that tie o’er cotton blue-and-white;The corset laced to hasten ready Death,The leather belt, that cuts the broad, thick waist;The bosom heaving only waves of wire,The bosom, cotton stuffed, beyond all shape;The belladonna sparkling in the eye,The finger tip, and water without soap;The rouge and carmine for the city cheeks,The berries’ ruddy juice for rural ones;The pearly powder, with its poisoned dust,The cup of flour to ghastlify the face;—All these, and thousand fixtures none can count,Man’s vanity, and woman’s love of show,Appropriate for Self.And such is Man!The puzzle of the Universe! Within,A giant to himself; without, a babe.A giant that we cannot but despise,A babe we must admire for his power.His mind, Promethean spark divine, can pierceThe shadowy Past, and gaze in rapturous aweUpon the birth of worlds, that from the MindEternal spring to blazing entities,And whirl their radiant orbs through cooling space;Or place the earth beneath its curious ken,And with an “Open Sesame!” descendInto its rocky chambers, there unfoldThe stone archives, and read their graven truths—Earth’s history written by itself therein—How age by age, a globe of liquid fire,It dimmer grew, and dark and stiff,And drying, took a rough, uneven face;Above the wave, the mountain’s smoking topAppeared, beneath it gaped the valley’s gorge;But smoking still, it stood a gloomy globe,Naked and without life. And how the treesAnd herbs their robes of foliage brought; their formAnd life adapted to their heated bed.And how a stream of animation pouredUpon its face, when ready to sustain;Great beasts who trod the cindered soil unscathed,And tramped the fervid plains with unscorched soles.Great fish whose hardened fins hot waters churnedThat steamed at every stroke. How periods passedAnd fields and forests teemed with gentler life,The waters wound in rivers to the sea,Then spread their vap’ry wings and fled to land.The oceans tossed in bondage patiently;Volcanic mountains closed their festering mouths,And Earth made ready for her master, Man.
It traces Man, expelled from Paradise,Along the winding track of centuries.It marks his slow development, from two,To families, and tribes, and nations vast.It gazes on the wondrous scenes of war,And peace, and battle plain, and civic game;And lives through each, with all of real life,Except the body’s presence there. It turnsFrom man to beasts and birds, and careless strokesThe lion’s mane, the humbird’s scarlet throat.It tracks the mammoth to his jungle home,Or creeps within the infusoria’s cell.It measures Earth from pole to pole, or weighsThe bit of brass, that lights the battery spark.Is Earth too small, it plumes its flight through space;From world to world, as bird from twig to twig,It flies, and furls its wing upon their discs,To tell their weight, and giant size, or breatheTheir very air to find its gaseous parts.Now bathing in pale Saturn’s misty rings,Or chasing all the moons of JupiterBehind his darkened cone. The glorious sun,With dazzling vapor robe, and seas of fire,Whose cyclones dart the forkèd flames far out,To lap so hungrily amid the stars,Is but its playhouse, where it rides the storms,That sweep vast trenches through the surging fire,In which the little Earth could roll unseen;Or bolder still, beyond our system’s bounds,It soars amid the wilderness of worlds;Finds one condemned to meet a doom of fire,And makes its very flames inscribe their names,In dusky lines, upon the spectroscope.With shuddering thought to see a world consumed,The fate prepared for ours, it lingers thereUntil the lurid conflagration dies.And then seeks Earth, and leaves the laggard,Light,To plod its journey vast.The smallest moteOf dust that settles on an insect’s wing,It can dissect to atoms ultimate.With these, too small for sight, may Fancy deal,And revel in her Lilliputian realm.These atoms forming all, by BoscovitchAre proved, in everything, to be alike;And ultimate, since indivisible.Each in its place maintained by innate forceAnd relatively far from each, as EarthFrom Sun.Suppose, then, each to be a world,Peopled with busy life, a human flood,As earnest in their little plans as we,As grand in their opinion of themselves!Oh! what a depth of contrast for the mind!The finest grain of sand, upon the beach,Has in its form a million perfect worlds!Or take the other scale, suppose the Earth,Our great and glorious Earth, to only formThe millionth atom of some grain of sand,That shines unnoticed on an ocean’s shore,Whose waves wash o’er our whirling stars and sunToo insignificant to feel their surge.Another step on either side, and mind,In flesh, shrinks from the giant grasp.Yet noble are its pinions, strong their flight;Thrice, only, do they droop their baffled strength,Before the Future, Infinite, Abstract!The first is locked, the second out of reach,The third a maze that none can penetrate.The first, alone to inspiration opes;The second dashed to Earth her boldest wing,Spinoza’s, who essayed the idea God,And grappling bravely with the grand concept,So far above the utmost strength of Man,Placed God’s existence in extent and thought;And filled all space with God. The Universe,A bud or bloom of the Eternal Mind,That opens like a flower into this form,And may retract Creation in Itself!Alas! that effort so sublime should endIn mystery and doubt.A Universe,How vast so ever, has its bounds somewhere,But Space possesses none, and God in Space,Would be so far beyond Creation’s speck,He scarce would know it did exist. That partOf Mind, expressed in matter, would be lostAmid the Infinite domains of thought.
Yet Man in flesh, the casket of the mind,Whose wondrous power I’ve told, is ever chained,A grovelling worm, to Earth, and never leavesThe sod where he must lie. No time is hisBut present; not a mem’ry of the past.His very food, while in his mouth, alone,Tastes good. He stands a dummy in the world,That only acts when acted on. How greatThe mystery of union ’tween the two!A feather touches not the body, but the mindPerceives it; yet the mind may live through scenesThe body never knew, nor can. Yet notWith vivid life—the sense is lacking there.The memory of a banquet may be plain,So that the daintest dish could be described,As well as if the eye and tongue were there;The eye and tongue, alone the present know,And find no good in anything that’s past.All thought is folly, every path is dark;Truth gleaming fairly in the distant haze,On near approach becomes the blackest lie.Man and his soul may go, nor will I fretTo learn their mystic bonds. A worm I am,And worm I must remain, till Death shall burstThe chrysalis, and free the web-wound wings.Yet, oh! ’twere grand to spurn the clogging EarthAnd cleave the air towards yonder looming cloud;To stand upon its red-bound crest and dareThe storm-king’s wildest wrath.
My thoughtsGrew dull, my eyelids slowly closed, the sceneBecame confused and melted into sleep.And far up in the blue, as yet untouchedBy clouds, I saw a white descending speck.Methought ’twas but a feather from the breastOf some migrating swan, that Earthward fell,And watched to see it caught upon the wind,And sail a tiny kite to fairy land.But circling down, the speck became a dove,A heron, then a swan, and larger still,Till I could mark a pair of great white wings,Between which hung its wondrous form. Still downIt swept, till scarce above the trees it stood,Resting on quivering wings, as if it soughtA place to ’light. I saw then what it was,A steed of matchless beauty, agile grace,Combined with muscled strength; but ere I drewThe first long breath, that follows such surpriseIt gently downward swooped, and at my feet,With dainty hoof, the turf impatient pawed.Enrapt, I gazed upon its beauteous form,Its sculptured head, and countenance benign,The soft sad eyes, the arrow-pointed ears,The scarlet nostrils opening like two flowers,The sinewed neck, curved like a swimming swan’s,The splendid mane, a cataract of milk,That poured its foaming torrents half to Earth,The tap’ring limbs, tipped with pink-hued hoofs,That touched our soil with a proud disdain;The dazzling satin coat, and netting veins,And last the glorious wings, whose feathers lappedLike scales of creamy gold. What seemed a clothOf woven snow, with richest silver fringe,Draped with its gorgeous folds the shining flanks.
It was perfection’s type, the absolute,Not one defect; the tiniest hair was smooth,The smallest feather’s edge unfrayed. The eyesWithout the slightest bloodshot fleck, or mote.No fault the microscope could have revealed,Though magnifying many million times.So great my wonder, that I could not move,But lay entranced, while he stood waiting there;Till wearied with my long delay, he raisedHis wings half-way, and eager trembled them,As bluebirds do when near their mate; a neighOf trumpet tone aroused me. Then I sprangUpon his back, and wildly shouted “On!”A spring with gathered feet, a clash of wings,That made me cling in terror, and we sweptFrom Earth into the air. Woods, plains, and streamsFlashed by beneath, as, up and on, we chargedStraight to the frowning cloud.My very brainReeled with our lightning speed, and dizzy height,And oh! how silent was the air. No sound,Except the steady beat of fanning wings,That hurled us on a rod at every stroke.The bellowing winds were loosed and fiercely metOur flight. They tossed the broad white mane acrossMy shrinking shoulders, like a scarf of silk;They blew the strong-quilled feathers all awry,And like a banner beat the silvered cloth;But swerving not to right or left, we pressedStraight onward to the goal.At last I reinedMy steed upon the shaggy ridge of clouds,And caracoled along the beetling cliffs,Up to the very summit. Then I paused.Behind me lay the world with all its humOf life, the distant city’s veil of smoke,The village gleaming white amid the trees;The very orchard I had left, now seemedA downy nest of green, and far awayI caught the shimmer of the sea, where sails,With glidings, glittered like the snowy gulls.Behind all was serene, before me seethedThe caldron of the tempest’s wrath.Thick clouds,Thrice tenfold blacker than the black outsideWe see, deep in the crackling fire-crypts writhed,And boiling rose and fell. A deafening blastRoaring its thunder voice above the scene,As if the fiends of Hell concocted thereThe scalding beverage of the damned.My horseHad snuffed the fumes, and rearing on the brink,That fearful brink, an instant pawed the air,And then sprang off. A suffocating plunge,Through heat and blinding smoke, while to his neckConvulsively I clung! Down through the cloud,Until I gasped for breath, and felt my brainWas bursting with the fervid weight.He stoppedBefore a large pavilion, round whose walls,As faithful guard, a whirlwind fierce revolved,And at whose folded door, with dazzling blade,The lightning stood a sentinel. My steedWas passport, and I passed within, but stoppedUpon the threshold, dumb with awe. The wallsSeemed blazing mirrors, whose bright polished sides“Threw back in flaming lineaments” the formOf every object there,—a trembling wretch,With pallid countenance, shown ghastly red,Upon a horse of War’s own direful hue,I saw reflected there. The floor seemed madeOf tesselated froth, whose bubbles burst,With constant hissing, into rainbow sparks;While like the sulph’rous canopy, that drapes,At evening’s close, a gory battle-field,The roof of crimson vapor drooped and rose,With every breath and every slightest sound.And in the center of the glowing room,Upon a sapphire throne an Angel sat,Upon whose brow Rebuke and Wisdom met.He gazed upon me with such pitying look,And yet withal so stern, that all my prideWas gone, and humble as a conquered child,I ran with trembling haste and near the throneKneeled down.“Vain man,” he said, “and hast thou daredTo doubt the providence of God; Behold!”And, lo! one side of the pavilion rose,And out before me lay Immensity.The frothy floor, now crumbling from the edge,Dissolved away close to my very feet,The walls contracted their three sides in one,And I, beside a throne I dared not grasp,Stood on a narrow ledge of fragile foam,That clicked its thousand little globes of air,With every motion of my feet.Far downBelow, the black abyss of chaos yawned,So vast, I gasped while gazing, and so deep,The Sun’s swift arrowy rays flash down for years,And scarcely reach the dark confines, or fadeAmid the impenetrable gloom. Methought’Twas Hell’s wide jaws, that opened underneathThe Universe, to catch as crumbs the worldsCondemned, and shaken from their orbit’s track.And long I looked into the vast black throat,To trace the murky glow of hidden fire,Or catch the distant roar. But all was still;No murmur broke the silence of its gloom,No faintest glimmer told of lurking light,No smoky volumes curdled in its depths;As dark as Egypt’s plague, serenely calm,Defying light, the empty hall of Space,Where twinkled not a star nor blazed a sun.—A grand eternal night!I shuddering turned,With freezing blood to think of falling there,And stretched a palsied hand to touch the throne.The Angel’s eye was sterner, as he wavedTowards my steed, who seemed of marble carved.The wings unfolded, and he leaped in air,Beating from off the ledge the flakes of foamThat sank, with airy spirals, out of sight.With slanting flight across the gulf he sheared;The moveless wings were not extended straight,But stood, at graceful angle, o’er his back,As, swifter than a swooping kite, he flashedAdown the gloom. His flowing mane broad borneOut level, like another wing; his feetWith slow ellipses moving alternate,As if he trod an unseen path. ’Twas grandTo see his graceful form, more snowy whiteAgainst the black relief, sublimely floatAcross the dark profound, and down its depths,Pass from my view. As when an Eagle soarsBeyond our vision in the azure sky,We wonder what he sees, or whither flies,So I stood wondering if he would return,And what his destination down th’ abyss.
Above, around, all was infinitudeOf light and harmony. The worlds moved on,In mazy multitude, without a jar,Star circling planet, planet sun, and sunsIn systems, farther yet and farther still,Till multiplying millions mingled formedA sheet of milky hue. And far beyondThe last pale star, appeared a dazzling spot,That flamed with brightness so ineffableThe eye shrank ’neath its gleam. And from its light,Athwart the endless realms of space, there streamedA radiance that illumed the Universe,And down across the chasm of Chaos flungA wavering band of purple and of gold.And in that distant spot my ’wildered eyesTraced out the figure of a Great White Throne,Round which, in grand and solemn majesty,Slow swept Creation’s boundless macrocosm.—I felt too insignificant to pray,But mutely waited for the Angel’s words.He spoke not, but the curtains closer drew,And left a narrow opening in front.Then with a speed the lightning ne’er attained,Our cloud pavilion swiftly whirled through space.A seed that would have slain me with its haste,Had not the Angel been so near.As on the cars,We dash through towns, and mark the hurrying lights,Or shudder at an engine rattling by;So through our door, I marked the countless worlds,In clustering systems, chained by gravity,Flash by an endless course. A second’s timeSufficed to pass our little group of stars,That waltz about our Sun, as if it litThe very Universe. Then systems came,Round which our system moves, and theseRound others, till the series grew so vastI shrank from looking. Great Alcyone,Our telescopic giantess, a babeAmid the monsters of the starry tribe,The last familiar face in Heaven’s throng,Blazed by the door; an instant, out of sight!And after all that we have known or namedOn Earth were far behind, the millions cameIn endless multitude; and on we swept,Till worlds became a dull monotony,And all the wonders of the Heavens were shown.A planet wheels its huge proportions past,Its pimpled face with red volcanoes thick,That, with our speed, seem girdling bands of light;A Sun, whose flame would fade our yellow spark,Roars out a moment at our narrow doorAs through its blaze we fly, then dies away,Casting a weird and momentary gleamOver the Angel’s unrelenting face;A meteor tears its whizzing way along,All showering off the scintillating sparksThat mark its trail. Far off, a comet runsIts bended course, the mighty fan-like tailLit with a myriad globes of dancing fire,That seemed like Argus’ eyes on Juno’s bird.And on we sped, till one last Sun appeared,A monstrous hemisphere of concave shape,And brilliancy intense; it seemed to standOn great Creation’s bounds, a lense of light.Close by its vast red rim we shaved, and passedBeyond, to empty space unoccupied.No world, no sun, no object passed the door;The steady blue, tinged with a brightening gold,Alone was seen. Still on and on we flew,Until a score of ages seemed elapsed,And I had near forgotten Earth and home.
And yet the air grew brighter, till I fearedThat we approached a sun, so infiniteIn light, that I should sink in dazzled death.
We came to rest, the curtains fell away,And lo! I stood within the light of Heaven.And oh! its glorious light! No angry red,Nor blinding white, nor sickly yellow glare,But one vast golden flood, sublime, serene,No object near, on which it could reflect,It formed the very atmosphere itself,An air in which the soul could bathe and breathe,And ever live without its fleshly food.
No object near, for on the farthest boundsOf space immense as mortal can conceive,Creation hung, a group of clustering motes,Where only suns were seen as tiny specks,And Earth and smaller stars were out of sight.No object near, for farther than the motes,The walls of Heaven, in glorious grandeur loomed,Yet near as flesh and blood could bear.How grand!From infinite to infinite extentThe glittering battlements were spread, the heightAbove conception, built of purest gold,Yet gold transparent, for I could discernThough indistinctly, domes and spires beyond,And all the wondrous workmanship divine,That blazed with jewels, flashing varied huesIn perfect union; and bright happy fields,That bloomed with flowers immortal, in whose midstThe crystal river ran. And through the scenesThronged million forms, that each sought happiness,From million varied, purified desires.Each face serenely bright as Evening’s star,And some I thought I knew, were dear to me;But as I gazed, they ever disappeared.
Along the walls, twelve gates of pearl were seen,So great their breadth, and high their jewelled arch,That Earth could almost trundle in untouched,And in each arch was fixed a giant bellOf silver, with a golden tongue that hung,A pendant sun. So wide the silver lips,That Chimularee plucked up by the roots,And as a clapper swung within its circ,Would tinkle, like a pebble, noiselesslyAgainst the rigid side. And as the savedWere brought in teeming host, by Angel bands,Before the gates, the bells began their swing;And to and fro the ponderous tongue was hurled,Till through the portals marched the shouting throng,And then it fell against the bounding side.And loud and long their booming thunderRends the golden air asunder,While the ransomed, passing under,Fall in praise beneath the bells,Whose mighty throbbing welcome tells;And the Angels hush their harps in wonder—Bells of Heaven, glory booming bells!
Gentler now, the silver’s shiverPurls the rippling waves that quiverThrough the ether’s tide forever,Mellow as they left the bells,Whose softening vibrate welcome tells;And the quavers play adown the river—Bells of Heaven, softly sobbing bells!
Then the dreamy cadence dying,Sings as soft as zephyrs sighing;Faintest echoes cease replyingTo the murmur of the bells,Whose stilling tremor welcome tells,Faintly as the snow-flakes falling, lying—Bells of Heaven, dreamy murmuring bells!
And in and out those Gates of Pearl, there streamedA ceaseless throng of Angels, errand bound.From one came forth a band of choristers,With shining harps, and sweeping out through space,Their long white lines bent gracefully, they sang.Although so far away, that purest airBrought every note exquisite to my ear.’Twas richly worth life’s toil, to catch one barOf Heavenly melody. Oh! I would giveMy pitiful existence, once againTo hear the strains that floated to me then,So full, so deep, so ravishingly sweet;Now gentle as a mother’s lullaby,They almost died away, then louder rose,And rolled their volumes through the boundless realms,That trembled with the diapason grand;Until eternal echoes caught the strain,And glory in the highest swelled sublime.
Entranced, I lay with ’wildered half-closed eyes,Till from another gate, another hostMarched forth, the armies of the living God.Beneath their thunder-tread all Heaven shook,And at their head the tall Archangel strode.How grandly terrible his mien! His faceLit with a soul that only kneels to Three;The lofty brows drawn slightly to a frownThe eyes that beam with vast intelligence,The depths of distance piercing with their glance;The chiselled lips, compressed with stern resolve,Yet marked with lines and curves of tender love,That ever with a sigh Wrath’s vial brokeUpon the doomed. His splendid form so tall,That as he paused a moment in the gateHis dazzling crest just grazed the silver bell.He wore no arms nor armor, save a swordWithout a sheath, that blazed as broad and brightAs sunset bars that shear the zenith’s blue—A sword, that falling flatly on the hostOf Xerxes, would have crushed them as we crushA swarm of ants. An edge-stroke on the EarthWould gash the rocky shell to caverned fire.Unfolding wings would shake a continent,He floated down the depths. Behind him cameA million foll’wers, counterparts in all,Save presence of command.I wondered notThat one should breathe upon the Syrian might,And still the sleeping hearts, four thousand score.
And from Creation’s little corner cameThe Guardian Angels, bearing in their armsTheir charges during life. As laden bees,They flew to Heaven’s hive; and some passed bySo closely I their burdens could discern;And though they came from far-off, unseen Earth,The stiffened forms were borne all tenderly.Some bore the dimpled babe, with soft-closed eyes,As if upon its mother’s breast; its hands,Unhardened yet by toil of life, its faceUnfurrowed yet by care’s sharp plough; and someThe age-bent form, with ghostly silvered hair,And features gaunt in death, that would have seemedA hideous sight, in any light but Heaven’s;Some bore the rich, who made of Mammon friends,Who wore the purple with a stainless soul;Some bore the poor, who mastered poverty,And broke the ashen crust beneath God’s smile;Their work-worn hands now folded peacefully,And passing towards the harp, the weary feet,So often blistered in life’s bitter dust,To tread with kings the golden streets of Heaven;And some the maiden form bore lovingly,So fair, they seemed twin sisters.And I saw,That, passing through the amber air, they caughtIts glowing dust upon them, and were changed,The livid to the radiant. Then as theyApproached the City, all the walls were thronged,And all the harps were throbbing to be swept.And mid the throng there moved a dazzling Form,The jewels of whose crown were shaped like thorns.He stood to welcome, and the gates unclosed,And passing through them, all the death sealed eyesWere opened, and they lived!And then I knewWhat happiness could mean. To leave the Earth,With all its torturing pains and ills of flesh;The lingering, long disease, the wasted frame,And, e’en in health, the constant dread of death,That like the sword of Damocles impends,And none may tell its fall.And worse than flesh,The tortures of the mind in fetters bound;Its chafings at its puling impotence,Its longing after things beyond its reach,Its craving after knowledge never given,Its constant discontent with present time,Its looking towards a future, that but breaksTo light alone in distance, never near;Its maddening retrospect o’er wasted life,And loss of golden opportunities;Its consciousness of merit none admit,Its sense of gross injustice from the world;The forced reflections on the sway of self,And consequent contempt for all mankind,Or shameful servitude to their regard;The poisoned thorns, that skirt the “Narrow Way”;The sneering laugh, the tongue of calumny,The envious spites and hates ’tween man and man,The doubts that swarm with thought about our soul,That whispers all our labor here is vain,That death is but extinction, Heaven a myth!