Chapter III: Part 3

The conflict of the mental powers defeats
Your inquiries. You cannot reconcile
The unruled circumstance, with Man’s free-will
You deem the motive free, and Man its slave;
As if the motive, unintelligent,
Could have a freedom, or a slavery!
You make the motive to exist within the mind,
When it, perforce, must be without. You get
The unruled motive from the circumstance,
When this itself must act upon the mind,
And if _free_ motives rise within the mind,
They are a _part_, and therefore _mind_ is free.
And what you deemed a motive to the mind,
Was mental action, and its modes of thought.
The motive is confined to circumstance,
And mind the circumstance can oft control,
And even when it cannot, acts at will.

The mind may to a kingdom be compared,
Where Reason occupies the throne. Beneath
Its scepter bow, in perfect vassalage,
The faculties, desires, and appetites.
These then are acted on by motive powers,
And straight report the action to their king,
Who does impartially decide for each.
The unruled motive is without the mind,
And forms no part of it, although the parts,
Receiving motive action, so are called.
Thus when you hunger, the desire of food,
Confined to mind, is not a motive power;
But urged by motive bodily demand,
It tells the need to Reason, who decides.
Thus when you pare your peach, the tempting fruit
And fleshly need, move on the appetite,
Who begs the Reason for consent to eat;
Your friend’s opinion of your self-control,
Is motive to Desire of esteem,
Who begs the Reason to refuse consent.
The Reason, then, like righteous judge, decrees
In favor of that one, more strongly shown;
And feels a perfect freedom in its choice.

’Tis most unfair to wait the action’s end,
Then cry, the mind was forced to choose this act;
But choice is Reason’s free decree. Sometimes
The Reason errs, and evil then ensues;
But Reason, now more conscious that ’tis free,
Regrets it had not acted otherwise.
By knowing what your reason deems the best,
You judge how other men will act. You learn,
By intercourse, what they permit to change
The Reason’s sentence. So, while with a friend,
You show your wealth, because you know he’s free,
And can, and will, resist impulse to crime.
Were he not free, you’d dare not go alone
With him, for, any moment, might arise
A motive irresistible, and he
Would kill and rob, because that motive’s slave.
Were he not free, you were no more secure,
In pleasant parlance, than on desert isle.

The laws are made for man, alone, as free.
For, otherwise, the motives they present
Were blind attempts so coincide with Fate.
They would complete the gross absurdity,
Of Man collective governing himself,
And therefore free, while individuals
Are helpless slaves of motives they but aid
To furnish.
Fate, as held in fullest form,
Yourself has proved the theory of fools;
For were it true, a blind passivity
Were Man’s perfection on the Earth. Compare
The two; Free-will as held, whate’er their faith,
By every one, in daily practices;
A world of harmony, for very wars
Yield good; a mechanism complicate,
That even Angels, wondering at, admire;
A world, whose wondrous progress is maintained
By practical belief in liberty.
And on the other hand, behold a world
Of universal inactivity!
Its millions starving for delinquent Fate;--
I doubt your faith would last till dinner-time,
A morning’s lapse would change a hungry globe
To firm belief in free-will work for food.

With many, God’s foreknowledge binds free-will;
He knows the future, how each man will act,
And man can never change from what God knows.
They reason thus, that prescience is decree,
And what God knows will happen, must take place.
That God may know the future of _free_-will
I prove by this. Suppose two worlds alike,
And governed by two Gods. Each one can see,
And foresee all transpires in both the worlds,
Yet each o’er th’ other’s world exerts no power.
A man in one does wrong; the other God
May have foreseen the action for an age,
Yet had not slightest power to cause or stop.
Does his foreknowledge qualify the act?
If thus you can suppose, why not believe,
When errors flow from opposite belief?
God in the future stands, and waits for man,
Who works the present, only gift of Time.
There is no future save in God’s own mind.
Man’s future means continued present time;
God’s future is but present time to Him,
In which He lives, not will live when it comes.
Man’s acts He sees as done, not to be done.
And God compels not more than Man does Man,
Who sees his fellow’s deeds, not causes them.
Man only knows Man’s present acts; but God
The future sees, as present to His mind.

To end with perfect proof, you know you’re free.
This all the world attests, and each believes.
How subtle soe’er may his reasoning be,
He contradicts it throughout all his life;
And all his plans, and all the right and wrong
Of self and friends he bases on free-will.
If disbelief no inconvenience prove,
Few men believe what is not understood;
And yet the most familiar things of life
Are far beyond their comprehensions’ power.
Who understands the turning of the food
To sinew, muscle, blood, and bone? yet who
Will starve because he knows not how ’tis done?
Who understands the mystery of birth,
And when and where the soul originates?
And yet a million mothers bend, to-day,
O’er tender babes, and know that they exist;
A billion people know they once were born.
Who understands the mystery of death,
And how the soul is severed from its clay?
Yet who has not wept o’er departed ones,
Received the dying clasp, the dying look,
And known, full well, Death’s bitter, bitter truth?
None comprehends the movement of a limb,
Yet many boast the powers of their’s might.
Then why doubt freedom of the will, when life,
In every phase, but proves its certain truth?
The edifice of shallow theorists
Before the sweeping blade of practice falls.

Your dive into the heart yields folly’s fruit;
The selfish theory, carried to its end,
Makes wrong of right, and overturns the world.
And strong it is in seeming; for the self,
In human conduct, plays important part.
But ’tis not action’s only source, nor dims
The quality of every action’s worth.
’Tis true that Man exists in self alone,
And in himself feels pain or pleasure. True,
An instinct teaches to avoid the one,
And seek the other; true, that every act,
How small soe’er, gives pleasure or gives pain.
Yet thousand deeds are done without regard
To one or other, or effect on Self.
Howe’er an action may affect the Self,
If he that acts has not a thought of it,
The action is not selfish. You appeal
To Man, and so will I appeal to you.
You find a helpless brute, with broken limb,
Upon the roadside, moaning out its pain.
Now, though to aid will surely pleasure give,
And to neglect will cause remorseful pain,
Is there a single thought of this, when you,
With kindest hand, bind up the swollen bruise,
And hold the grateful water to its mouth?
Is not each thought to ease the sufferer’s pain?
Is not the Self first found, when on your way
You go, with lighter heart, for kindness done?
And while you think with pleasure on the deed,
Would you not feel despised in your own eyes,
If consciousness revealed ’twas done for Self?
But should you say that Self was thus concealed,
And still evoked the deed, the argument
The same; if Self was out of thought, the deed
Had other source.
In all, you thus mistake
The deed’s effect, unthought of, for its source.
God, in His wisdom, hath affixed to good
Performed, a pleasure, and to evil, pain.
But selfish actions are not good, you’ve said,
And therefore cannot slightest pleasure yield.
Here, then, your system contradicts itself;
All actions emanate from love of Self,
To find the highest pleasure for that Self;
And yet the pleasure’s lost by very search;
What good soe’er apparently is sought,
The consciousness of selfish aims destroys.
And here is wisdom manifest. When Self
Would seek the good, for pleasure to the Self,
The pleasure is not found; but when it seeks
The good alone, true pleasure is conferred.
I mean the Self of soul, not Self of flesh;
For pleasure to the sense, to be attained
Is sought; these two are mingled intricate
(And hard to separate), in thousand ways.
But when Man’s higher Self would seek its good,
It must forget the Self. In every case
You instanced, Self of soul must be unthought,
For pleasure will not come at call of Self.
Your gambler none will doubt has selfish ends;
Not so the preacher, for his pleasure sought,
Would ne’er be found; it must be out of thought.
His burning eloquence, his pastoral care,
Can not proceed from any love of Self,
For Self would suffer, when it knew their source;
But as he acts from love of good as good,
The Self is happy. When he ascertains
That some have died in sin through his neglect,
The Self is grieved, not that it was uncared,
For care of Self would not allay the pain,
But that a duty had not been performed;
That good had been neglected, as a good.
The gambler’s object may be highest good
For Self, according to his estimate;
The preacher seeks a good, but not for Self;
When Self appears, the good to evil turns.
Nor is the mystic selfish in his cave,
Save that he buries talents in himself,
That might avail for good to other men;
But all his mind is bent on pleasing God,
His only thought of Self is for its pain;
And this he deems acceptable to Heaven.
You can not judge by your analysis,
But by what passes in the actor’s mind.
One surely then could not be selfish termed,
Who only lived to mortify the Self,
Howe’er mistaken may his conduct be.
Nor is the man, who gives his wealth away,
If from right principles he gives. ’Tis true,
He finds a pleasure in the deed when done,
But if to gain that pleasure he has given,
It turns to gall and wormwood in his grasp.
If two men matches light, and know full well,
If one is dropped, a house will be consumed,
He is the most guilty that allows its fall.
The miser, then, who knows he does a wrong,
Is by that knowledge rendered criminal.
“The quality of actions must be judged”
From their intents, that often differ wide;
The man who shoots his friend by accident
Has no intent, and therefore does no wrong;
But he who murders does a score of wrongs,--
A score of basest motives prompt the deed,
All centred in the Self. The Christian’s work
Must, from its very nature, have no Self,
Or it becomes unchristian. Man can judge,
Not from effect, but motives ascertained
By inference, and experience. The law
Is formed hereon, and modified by years.
Time teaches men that punishment will stop,
And only punishment, the spread of crime.
Instinct and Nature’s order teaches you
That pain must follow wrong. A man commits
A crime; if left unpunished, he repeats;
And others, seeing his security,
Will do as he has done. So all mankind
Would hasten on to lawlessness and ruin.
But law, for real wrong inflicts a wrong,
Which would be just did it no farther go;
But it is proved expedient, inasmuch
As it prevents continued crime. Then death
By law can not be murder termed, since good
In aim and end, without malicious thought.
Thus good to many flows from wrong to one
(If that may wrong be termed that takes the rights
By conduct forfeited), who should receive,
Though none reaped benefit. For many’s good,
The law is made, yet never does a wrong
To individuals, unless deserved.

Throughout your reas’ning, like all Earthly minds,
When dataless, essaying hidden truths,
You wander blindly in conjecture’s field,
And if you find the truth, it is a chance.
You fain would raise a stone of skepticism,
By granting souls immortal unto beasts;
You prove your pointer must possess a soul,
And by your argument, the trees have souls;
For when an oak has fallen, every twig
May still be there, and something, life, be gone.
A chair, a table, anything you see,
Possesses something, not of any parts,
But that to which the parts are said, belong,
Then, one by one, take all the parts away,
The something called the table must exist,
For ’twas not in a part, nor is removed.

The mind of beasts exists but through their flesh,
And is developed subject to its laws,
And flesh is the condition of their life.
When flesh dissolves, the mind disintegrates,
And ceases to exist. Man feels within,
The consciousness of soul, that would survive
Though flesh were torn to shreds upon the wheel.
The parts of soul that live alone through flesh,
Must perish with it in the hour of death.

But having postulated Self, as source
Of human conduct, you compel the acts
To fit your theory. You change effect
For cause. Where’er a moral pleasure’s found,
You judge that for its gain the deed was done;
As if the pleasure could be gained by search!
That Self does enter largely into inner life
Is very plain, for everything affects,
In some way, Self; but does the mind regard
Effect, or is its object something else?
The appetites, affections, and desires,
You make of selfish origin, yet know
That is not selfish, which alone affects;
But acting with a reference to effect.
The appetites are instincts; as you breathe,
You hunger, thirst, in helplessness. Not Self,
But food or drink, the object of your thought.
And even while the taste is in your mouth,
The mind dwells on the taste, not on the Self.
Desires are partly selfish in their mode;
Desire of knowledge, seeking honor’s meed,
Is selfish; led by curiosity,
’Tis not more selfish than an appetite.
Desire of power, esteem, and wide-spread fame,
Is selfish, when the thought of their effect
On Self shapes out the conduct; when desired
For their own sake, unselfish.
On the list
Affections terminate, you falsely rail
The mother, and the lover; both sincere,
And both without a thought of selfish aim.
’Tis no reproach to say the mother’s love,
In fervid instinct, and development,
Is like the cow’s, that God in wisdom gives.
No love so pure as that which moves the cow
To hover round her young, to bear the blows
Impatient hunger deals the udder drained,
To smooth with loving tongue the tender coat,
Or meet the playful forehead with her own;
With threatening horn, to guard approach of harm;
And watch, with ceaseless care, the charge in sleep.
Her careful love continues, till the calf
Has grown beyond her need, and ceases then.
A mother loves because it is her child:
This is the surest reason you could give.
Th’ affection is spontaneous in her breast,
But fed and strengthened by his life, if good.
The opposites to love you named, affect
Her love, by not an injury done to Self,
But by their evil, which her soul abhors.
Her son’s antagonism’s not to her,
But to the good she loves. Her heart withdraws
Its twining tendrils from unworthiness.
As usual, you select supposed effects,
And then assume their causes. Could you see
The mother’s heart, you’d find the loss of love
Caused not by wrong to her, but wrong abstract
Developed in the concrete deeds of crime.
Her love is governed by a moral sense,
Or idea of the good; the people’s thought
About herself comes in as after-part.
Bad treatment to herself, although it pain,
Deals not a fatal blow to love, except
As showing lack of principle in him.
And so your lover is not hurt in Self,
But moral sense. The loved one’s perfidy,
And not her ridicule, beheads your love;
Her stunning words were playful pleasantry,
Did they not show the baseness of the heart.
Indeed, to turn your reasoning on yourself,
Her manner even towards you has not changed,
And were you present, she would still seem yours;
Her eaves-dropped words do not affect the Self,
Save as they show her falsity of heart.
And tossing on your pillow, through the night,
The crushing thought of wrecked integrity
Gives deeper pain than all her ridicule.
And Self, though pained at thought of being duped,
Enjoys relief in thought of its escape.
To show that Love is built on higher grounds
Than paltry good for Self; that it must have,
As corner-stone, a percept of the good,
Existing in the object loved, suppose
You’re on the topmost height of wildest love,
Your arm around her, and your lingering kiss
Upon her lips; and Self is king of love.
She, nestling on your shoulder, finds ’tis wrong,
That love, however true, may grow too warm;
That every kiss, however pure, abstracts
Some little part from maiden modesty,
And steals a pebble from her honor’s wall
And rising with the firm resolve, says, “Cease,
Unwind your arm, restrain your fervid lips;
It may be wrong, and right is surely safe!”
Now though the Self is bitterly denied,
The rapturous clasp and tender kiss forbid,
Is not your love increased a thousand-fold?
Do not you feel intensely gratified
At this assurance of her moral worth?
And would you, for the world, breath aught to cause
Her pain, or least regret for her resolve?
How firm your trust, how sweet your confidence!
You know ’twas not capricious prudery,
For your caresses had been oft received;
Nor was it sly hypocrisy to win
Your heart, for that was long since hers. No thought,
But spotless purity, inspired the act;
And you are happy, though the Self’s denied.

The little things of life, that men account
Without a moral value, may be done
With reference to Self; but oftenest,
The mind regards the act, not its effect
Upon the Self. The code of Etiquette,
The small amenities of social life,
The converse, and the articles of dress,
May all belong to Self; but moral acts,
Those known as right or wrong, have higher source
Than Self in any mode.
Within Man’s breast
There’s something, apprehending good and bad,
Called conscience, or the moral sense; it views,
Impartially, each act of his, decides
Its quality by rule of right and wrong;
All trust its judgments most implicitly.--
The good is found, yields greatest happiness;
Yet seek it for the sake of happiness,
And good is evil, with its misery!
The good must be pursued, because a good,
The evil shunned, because an evil. Thus,
The moral sense discerns these qualities
In others, and directs our love.
A blow
The deadliest to our love, would be a blow
Aimed at the principle of good. A love,
Existing through the injuries done to Self,
May meet the public’s praise, and feel its own;
But love would merit self-contempt, that loved
Whate’er opposed the good. The son may treat
The mother with unkindness, yet her love
Be undiminished; if he lie, or steal,
Her love is less; she cannot love his deed,
And cannot love the heart from which they flow
So with the youth who gives his chair to Age,
He does not so resent that Self’s denied
Its meed of thanks, as that ingratitude
Should thus be manifest, in little things.
A comrade, served the same, would anger cause.

But him who would give up the highest Self,
The soul, for others’ good, you deem a fool;
And ask why sacrifice ne’er claimed a soul?
Because the soul cannot be sacrificed;
No harm to that can others benefit.
But if it could, how truly grand the man
Who’d take eternal woe for fellow-men!
But God, who makes the soul the care of life,
Makes every soul stand for itself alone,
And in His wisdom hath ordained this law:
The greater good man gets for his own soul,
The greater good on others’ he confers,
While evil to himself, an evil gives.

Then comes the question of this abstract good,
That moral sense declares the end of life.
What is its nature? whence does it arise?
And whence does man derive the half-formed thought?
You have compared the systems that define,
Each in its way, the hidden theory.
None satisfy, though each some element
Sets forth in clear distinctness. Take them all,
Select the true of each, as Cousin does,
And will eclecticism satisfy?
And does the soul not cry for something more?
For something that it feels ’twill never reach,
The good, as known to minds unclogged with flesh?
Man takes the dim outlines of abstract thought,
And seeking to evolve their perfect form,
The very outlines grow more indistinct;
As gazing at a star will make it fade.
Man’s only forms of good are blent with flesh,
And when he seeks to take the flesh away,
And leave the abstract, he is thus confused,
As if he should withdraw the wick and oil,
And seek to find the flame still in the lamp.

To learn the source of ideas of the Good,
Trace Man collective, to his babyhood;
For ’mid the prejudice of full-grown thought,
The truth would be effectually concealed.
Through every people scattered o’er the globe,
There does prevail some idea of a God;
Though rude and barbarous this idea be,
It still, in some form, does exist. The good,
With all, bears reference to this thought;
And what this Deity approves is good,
And what He disapproves is bad. Men learn
What He approves, and what He disapproves,
By revelation, inference, and instinct.
God’s sanction then is origin of Good,
Though afterwards men learn the sweet effects,
And practise it for its own sake; and call
Their little effort, grandest abstract truth.
Developing in intellectual strength,
They plaster up this good in various forms,
Until, refined beyond all subtilty,
It seems to them a self-existent good.

The good is then a certain quality,
In actions, or existence, that assures
Divine approval. This vast idea, God,
Creation sows in every human heart;
All Nature’s grand designs demand a God,
A God intelligent. The same instinct
That tells His being, teaches what He loves;
And what He loves with every people’s good.
But different nations entertain ideas
Diverse in reference to a Deity,
And different notions of what pleases Him.
One deems the care of God’s child-gift her good;
Another tears the heart-strings from her babe,
And feeds, for good, the sacred crocodile.

The good lies in the thought of pleasing God:
The consciousness that God is pleased with us,
A pleasure yields, and good might there be sought
For pleasure’s sake, and prove a selfish aim;
But moral selfishness a pain imparts,
And good, for pleasure sought, defeats the search.

The good is sought, because it pleases God,
Not with the doer, but with what is done.
Good has its origin in th’ idea God,
And what He loves; but to continue good
It must retain approval in the act,
And not transfer it to the agent’s self.
The consciousness that God approves a deed,
Makes Man approve, and thus his mind is brought
In correlation with the Mind Divine.
The man who does an alms, if done to gain
God’s favor for himself, feels selfish pain;
But if because the act, not he, will please,
He finds the pleasure. Man, as time rolls on,
Finds general laws that please or displease God,
And ranging, under these, subordinates
Amenable to them and not to God,
The moral quality of lesser deeds
He reckons by these laws, nor does ascend
To God, that gives their moral quality.
Jouffroy, in Order, placed the Abstract Good,
And paused a step below the real truth,
The idea God, whence Order emanates.

Thus Man, progressing, good withdraws from God
And seems an independent entity,
And man denominates it, Abstract Good.
He can attain the Abstract but in part;
When mind is freed from flesh, he may attain
To its full grandeur. Here, at most, he grasps
A faint outline, and fits it on concrete.
No concept occupies one act of mind,
But opening the lettered label, he
May count the attributes, and by an act
Complex, of memory and cognition, gain
Some idea of his Abstract. Thus of “Man,”
One act can only cognize M-A-N,
But opening, he finds the attributes,
As “mammal,” “biped,” “vertebrate.” This act
Is complex, and he cannot unitize,
Save by the bundle of a word. You’ve said
It answers all the purposes of life,
Then why seek more? lest speculation vain
Point out dim realms, where Man can never tread,
These baffling thoughts are given, as peacocks’ feet,
To Man’s fond pride. The simplest avenue
Of thought, pursued, will reach absurdity,
To comprehension finite.
Even the truth
Of numbers you presume to doubt. Two balls,
You claim, can ne’er be two unless alike.
You mingle quantity and number, foolishly,
As if a ball the size of Earth, and one,
A tiny mustard-seed, would not be two!
You deem all Mathematics wide at fault,
Because Man’s powers to illustrate are weak.
Earth has oft seen a pure right angle drawn,
Because Man’s sight could not detect a flaw;
And if to his discernment perfect made,
He must admit its perfect form. If life,
In every intricate demand, finds truth,
Why seek to overturn by sophistry?
You see and know Achilles far beyond
The tortoise, yet the super-wise must prove
That he can never pass the creeping thing,
Although his speed a hundred times as swift!
When Man commences, he may find a doubt
In everything; his life, his neighbor’s life,
The outside world, may all be but a myth;
Then let him so believe, but let him act
Consistently; but does the skeptic so?
He crams all Nature in his little mind,
Yet how he cringes to her slightest law!
He flees the rain, and wards the cold, or fears
The lightning’s glittering blow. He doubts his frame
Can work by mechanism so absurd,
Yet will not for a day refrain from food!

When Man compares his body and his mind,
And tries the power of each, he magnifies
The mind to Deity, and yet how small
Compared with what it has to learn! The more
Man knows, the more he finds he does not know;
And as a traveller toiling up the hill,
Each upward step reveals a wider view
Of fields of thought sublime he dares not hope
To ever reach in life; and wearily he sits
Him down upon the mountain-side, so far
Beneath its untrod top, and recklessly
Doubts everything, because beyond his grasp.

All skeptic reasoning ends, as did your own,
No fruit but blind bewilderment of thought!
And none but fools will e’er believe sincere
The faith that doubts alone by theory,
And yet approves by practice. Such is yours;
The stern necessities of life demand
A practical belief, and such is given;
And still, forsooth, because your narrow mind
Cannot contain the Truth in perfect form,
You dare deny it does exist. But few
Of skeptic minds are let to live on Earth,
And even these made instruments of good,
In calling forth defenders of the Truth,
Who add their strength to its Eternal Walls.
Then here behold God’s wisdom manifest!
Amid the care of countless greater orbs,
He watches Earth, and knows its smallest thing.
While Man, as individual, is free,
Collective Man is being surely led
Towards an end, but when it will be reached,
God knows alone. Then Man will be removed
Into a higher or a lower sphere,
As he has worthy proved. With Man ’twill be
A great event; his awful Judgment-day!
When from those far-off realms, the Son shall come
With Angel retinue, and through the worlds,
Shall lead their solemn flight, to where we stand;
And as the trump shall peal its clarion tones,
And beat away Earth’s gauze of atmosphere,
The millions living, and the billions dead,
Will leave the sod, and “caught up in the air,”
Shall stand before the Throne, to hear their doom.
Then, faces pale with fear, and trembling limbs,
Will be on every side, as on the air
They rest, with nothing solid ’neath their feet;
And see dismantled Earth burst into flames,
And reel along its track, a globe of fire,
The volumed smoke, a dusky envelope;
Its revolutions wrapping pliant flames,
In scarlet girdles, round its bulging waist,
And hurling streams of centrifugal sparks,
In broad red tangents, from the burning orb.
Upon the conflagration Man will gaze,
With shuddering horror; ’tis his only home,
The scene of all his fame, the source of wealth,
For which he toiled so wearily. All gone!
He would not touch a mountain of pure gold,
For ’twould be useless now! Poor, pauper Man,
Without his money, chiefest aim of life,
Stands homeless ’mid a Universe, to learn
If God will be his Father, or his Foe!
And from the blackness underneath, the swarms
Of Evil ones are thronged, their hideous forms
Half shown in lurid light, as here and there
They flit, like sharks, expectant of their prey.
Then comes the closing scene. The sentence passed,
The righteous breaking forth to joyous praise,
Shall thread Creation’s wondrous maze of life,
And with their Leader, sweep towards yon Heaven;
While down the black abyss, with cries of woe
That make the darkness tremble, the condemned
Are dragged, into its gloom,--and all is o’er--
Earth’s ashes float in scattered clouds through space--
To Man the grandest era of all Time,
To God, completion of Salvation’s scheme!

But Man deems Judgment too far off for thought,
Nor will prepare for such a distant fate;
Yet there is something, far more sure than aught
Uncertain life can offer; its decision, too,
Is just as final as the Judgment doom;
And still ’tis oftenest farthest from the thought.
’Tis Death, the welcome or unwelcome guest
Of every man, and yet how few prepare
For its approach! They give all else a care;
Wealth, honor, fame, get all their time,
While certain Death’s forgotten, till disease
Gives warning; then with hasty penitence,
The knees are worn, the heart’s thick rubbish cleared;
But oft too late; the heart will not be cleared,
The stubborn knees will not consent to bend,
The house is set in order, while the guest,
In sable robes, stands at the throbbing door.

And now to close thy lesson, look through this!
He gave to me a strangely fashioned glass,
Through which, when I had looked to Earth, I saw
A long black wall, that towered immensely high,
So none might see beyond. Before its length,
Mankind were ranged, all weaving busily;
The young and old, the maiden and the man;
The infant hands unconscious plied the thread,
The aged with a feeble, listless move.
They wove the warp of Life, and drew its thread
From o’er the wall; none knew how far its end
Was off, nor when ’twould reach the busy hand,
Nor did they care, in aught by action shown,
But bending o’er their work, without a glance
Towards the thread, that still so smoothly ran,
They threw the shuttle back and forth again,
Till suddenly the ravelled end appeared,
Fell from the wall, and to the shuttle crept;
And then the weaver laid his work aside,
With folded hands, was wrapped within his warp,
To wait the Master’s sentence on his task.
I saw the thread, in passing through their hands,
Received the various colors, from their touch,
And tinged the different patterns that they wove.
And oh! how different in design! Some wove
A spotless fabric, whose pure simple plan
Was always ready for the ending thread;
Come when it would, no part was incomplete;
But what was done, could bear th’ Inspector’s eye.
And others wove a dark and dingy rag,
That bore no pattern, save its filthiness;
Fit garment for the fool who weaves for flames!
Some wove the great red woof of war,
With clashing swords, and crossing bayonets,
With ghastly bones, and famished widows’ homes,
With all the grim machinery of Death,
To gain a paltry crown, or curule chair;
Perchance, before the crown or chair is reached,
The thread gives out, the work is incomplete,
And in the gory cloak his hands have wrought,
With all its stains unwashed, the hero sleeps.
Some shuttles shape the gilded temple, Fame,
And count on thread to weave its topmost dome;
But ere the lowest pinnacle is touched,
The brittle filament is snapped. Some weave
The bema, with its loud applause; and some
The gaudy chaplet of the bacchanal,
And others sweated bays of honest toil.
But all the fabrics bear the yellow stain
Of gold, o’er which the sinner and the saint
Unseemly strive, and he seems happiest
Whose work is yellowest.
Along the wall,
“A fountain filled with blood,” plays constantly,
Where man may cleanse the fabric as he weaves;
Yet few avail themselves; the waters flow,
While Man works on, without regard to stains,
Till thread worn thin arouses him to fear,
Or breaks before the damning dyes are cleansed.

And down the line I ran my anxious eyes,
To find a weaver I might recognize,
And saw, at last, a form by mirrors known.
Oh! ’twas a shameful texture that I wove,
So dark its hue, so little saving white,
Such seldom bathing in the fountain stream,
I could not look, but bowed my blushing face,
And like the publican of old, cried out,
“Be merciful to me a sinner!”
“Rise!”
The Angel said, “And worship God alone,
Return to Earth, enjoy an humble faith,
Whose simple trust shall make thee happier
Than all the grandeur of philosophy.
Should doubts arise, remember, God’s designs
Above a finite comprehension stand,
And finite doubts, about the Infinite,
Assume absurdity’s intensest form.
Man, from the stand-point of the Present, looks,
And disappointed, bitterly complains
Of what would move his deepest gratitude,
Could he the issue of the morrow know.
God sees the future, and in kindness deals
To every man his complement of good.
Remember then the weakness of thy mind,
Nor doubt because thou canst not understand.
To gather scattered jewels thou must kneel;
So on thy knees seek truth, and thou shalt find;
The nearer Earth thy face, the nearer Heaven
Thy heart. And now farewell!”
I sprang to clasp
His hand in gratitude, but with a wave
Of parting benediction, he was gone!
Then in an instant, like an aerolite,
With naught to bear me up, I fell to Earth,
Swifter and swifter, with increasing speed!
Now bursting through a sunlit bank of cloud,
And clutching, vainly, at the yielding mist,
Or through a cradling storm, with thunder charged,
Down through the open air, whose parted breath
Hissed death into my ears, while all below
Seemed rushing up to meet and mangle me.
I shrieked aloud, “Oh save me!”--
And awoke.
The day was o’er, and night had drawn her shades;
The twinkling eyes of Heaven shone through the leaves,
And lit the tiny rain-globes on the grass;
The cloud had passed, and on th’ horizon’s verge,
A monster firefly, with shimmering flash,
It slowly crawled behind the curve of death.
And evening’s silence deeper seemed than noon’s,
For not a sound disturbed the hush of night,
Save katydids, with quavering monotones,
Returning contradictions from the trees.
All drenched and chilled, with trembling limbs I rose,
And homeward bent my steps; and pondering
Upon my dream, this moral from it drew:
Man cannot judge the Eternal Mind by his,
But must accept the mysteries of Life,
As purposes Divine, with perfect ends.
And in our darkest clouds, God’s Angels stand,
To work Man’s present and eternal good.

THE VILLAGE ON THE TAR

DEDICATED TO PETTIGREW COUNCIL NO 1. F. OF T.

A drunkard in a distant town lay dying on his bed,
There was lack of woman’s gentle touch about his fevered head,
But a comrade stood beside him, and wiped the foam away,
That bubbled through his frothy lips, to hear what he might say.
The poor inebriate faltered, as he caught that comrade’s eye,
And he said, “’Tis hard, far, far from home ’mid strangers thus to die.
Take a message and a token to my friends away so far,
For Louisburg’s my native place, the village on the Tar.

“Tell my brothers and companions, should they ever wish to know
The story of the fallen, ah! the fallen one so low,
That we drank the whole night deeply, and when at last ’twas o’er,
Full many a form lay beastly drunk along the barroom floor.
And there were ’mid those wretches some who had long served sin,
Their bloated features telling well what faithful slaves they’d been;
And some were young and had not on the Hell-path entered far--
And one was from the village, the village on the Tar.

“Tell my mother that her other sons may still some comfort prove,
But I, in even childhood, would scorn that mother’s love;
And when she called the children to lift up the evening prayer,
One form was always missing, there was e’er one vacant chair,
For my father was a drunkard, and even as a child
He taught my little feet to tread the road to ruin wild;
And when he died and left us to dispute about his will,
I let them take whate’er they would, but kept my father’s ‘still,’
And with sottish love I used it till its venomed ‘worm’ did gnaw
My soul, my mind, my very life, in the village on the Taw.[A]

“Tell my sister oft to weep for me with sad and drooping head,
When she sees the wine flow freely, that poison ruby red,
And to turn her back upon it, with deep and burning shame,
For her brother fell before it and disgraced the fam’ly name.
And if a drunkard seeks her love, oh! tell her, for my sake,
To shun the loathsome creature, as she would a deadly snake,
And have the old ‘still’ torn away, its fragments scattered far,
For the honor of the village, the village on the Tar.

“There’s another, not a sister; in the merry days of old,
You’d have known her by the dark blue eye, and hair of wavy gold;
Too gentle e’er to chide me, too devoted e’er to hate,
She loved me, though oft warned by all to shun the dreaded fate.
Tell her the last night of my life--for ere the morning dawn,
My body will be tenantless, my clay-chained spirit gone--
I dreamed I stood beside her, and in those lovely blue depths saw
The merry light that cheered me, in the village on the Taw.[A]

“I saw the old Tar hurrying on its bubbles to the sea,
As men on life’s waves e’er are swept towards eternity;
And the rippling waters mingled with the warbling of the birds,
Returned soft silvery echoes to my deep impassioned words;
And in those listening ears I poured the sweet tho’ time-worn story,
While swimming were those love-lit eyes, in all their tear-pearled glory;
And her little hand was closely pressed in mine so brown and braw,
Ah! I no more shall meet her, in the village on the Taw.”[A]

He ceased to speak, and through his frame there ran a shiver slight,
His blood-shot eyes rolled inward and revealed their ghastly white,
His swollen tongue protruded, o’er his face a pallor spread,
His comrade touched his pulse--’twas still--and he was with the dead.
The moon from her pavilion, in the blue-draped fleecy cloud,
Through the window o’er the corpse had thrown her pale but ghostly shroud,
The same moon that gazing upon that couch of straw.
Was bathing in a silver flood the village on the Taw.[A]

[A] The Indian name of this river was _Taw_.--PUBLISHER.

REQUIESCAM

Oh! give me a grave in a lone, gloomy dell,
By the side of a deep, swift creek,
Where the ripples run like a tinkling bell,
Through the grassy nooks, where love so well
The minnows to play hide and seek!

Where in summer the thick twining foliage weaves
A green, arching roof upon high,
And the rain-drops fall from the dripping eaves,
Like tears of grief from the weeping leaves
On the face upturned to the sky!

Where the silence frightens the birds away,
And all is still, dreary and weird,
Except, perchance at the close of day,
The bittern’s boom or the crane’s hoarse bray,
Floating over the swamp, is heard.

Where the dusky wolf and the antlered deer
Ever shun the dark, haunted ground;
Where the crouching panther ventures near,
His tawny coat all bristling with fear,
At the sight of the low, red mound.

Where at twilight gray, the lone whippoorwill
May perch on the stake at my head,
And with its unearthly, tremulous trill
The dreary gloom of the whole place fill
With a requiem over the dead.

Where the greater the ruin in earth’s damp mold,
The greater the contrast will prove,
When the weary wings of my spirit I fold,
In heaven, and swell with a bright harp of gold,
The grand pealing anthem of love.

_February 9th, 1867_

LINES TO AN ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY

KNOWN TO THE STUDENTS AS “MISS ANNIE”

WRITTEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1866

At “Elysium” chum and I were sitting,
Across our vision memories flitting,
Talking, smoking, often spitting
On the hearth, not on the floor;
When suddenly we heard a spluttering,
As of book leaves madly flutt’ring,
Some one there seemed slowly mutt’ring,
At the bookcase, not the door.

Wildly springing to my feet
(Chum with fright seemed tied t’ his seat),
Dreading, fearing I should meet
What so like a ghost had spoken--
Fellow members, if you’re able
To believe what seemed a fable,
I saw “Miss Annie” on the table,
With rage and anger almost choking.

Then without a bow or bend,
Sitting up upon one end,
Without preface thus began--
While we both in wonder stared:
“O ye worthless lazy scamps!
Talk about your midnight lamps,
While I’m in the bookcase crampt,
To what can such Sophs be compared?

“Here you’ll sit and smoke and talk,
To-morrow morn to black-board walk,
Seize your ‘ruler’ and your chalk,
Then I hope get badly ‘rushed.’
Oh! the present generation,
Such neglect to education,
Blood and scissors! thunderation!”
She was so mad the tears forth gushed.

Chum and I had heard enough
To put us both in quite a huff,
So just to stop her noisome stuff
I sprang and seized her by the collar.
George jumped up and grabbed the poker,
Shouted, “Edwin, try to choke her!
We’ll stop her mouth, a darned old croaker,
Squeeze her tight and make her ‘holloa.’”

To the fire we held her near,
Still she showed no signs of fear.
“Shall the red coals be your bier?”
She shook her leaves and fluttered, “No.”
Now my face with anger flushes,
Covered first with scarlet blushes,
I cried, “Will you again e’er ‘rush’ us?”
Quoth Miss Annie, “Evermore.”

“Book or fiend,” I cried, up starting,
“Be that word our sign of parting.”
Then I, in my vengeance darting,
Hurled her in the embers red.
She slightly quivered, slowly burned;
From the sickening sight I turned,
Yet from her this lesson learned,
Prepare before you go to bed.

LINES TO COUSINS C. AND E.

ON THE BIRTH OF THEIR LITTLE DAUGHTER

The marriage over, from the train
Of watching seraphs, one long strain
Of gratulation broke.
And then were still the rustling wings,
And fingers hushed the throbbing strings,
While thus an angel spoke:

“Who’ll go to earth to bless this pair
With angel child, beneath their care
Be trained for bliss or woe?”
He ceased, and from the throng sprang three,
Faith, Love, and spotless Purity.
These knelt, and said “We’ll go.”

Dear cousins, to you these are sent,
Three spirits in one being blent.
It is a jewel rare.
Oh! keep her pure as when first given,
Guide her faith from Earth to Heaven,
Guard her love with care.

_May, 1867._

THE DEVIL OUTDONE;

OR,

THE GUARD OF THE SULPHUR LAKE

To her who sent me the Valentine with the cutting irony, “Don’t I look pretty in church?” these lines are respectfully inscribed. Not knowing her name, I will call her “Taters,” as she drew her elegant and tasty simile from that vegetable.

The Devil was sitting one morning below,
And he seemed much perplexed as to what he must do,
For his dark brows would knit, and he’d stamp on the ground,
And flap his great wings till floating around
Were the ashes and feathers.
At last with an air
Of resolve he threw himself back in his chair,
Lit a brimstone cigar, and touched a small bell.
An imp appeared, bowed, and on his face fell.
“Cloven-foot,” said the D----, “what’s the news from the fire?”
“My liege, the great ape has ceased to inspire
The victims with terror; they fear him no more,
And continually crawl from the flames to the shore.”
“Well, Cloven-foot, I had most certainly thought
When from Africa’s wilds that baboon you brought,
He’d prove such a guard for the great Sulphur Lake
The wretches would ne’er cease before him to quake.
Now go up to earth, and search till you find
Something uglier far, then quick seize and bind
And bring it to me; and if it beats the baboon
I’ll reward you. Be sure to return just as soon
As ’tis possible, and above all things to choose
An object whose countenance never will lose
Its hideous novelty.” The imp bowed and withdrew,
And swiftly to earth on his errand he flew;
But in vain did he search where the gorillas roam,
Or the jungles of Bengal, the fierce tiger’s home.
In vain throughout Europe he searched every place;
Nowhere could he find the requisite face.
Frustrated and weary, with deep despair frantic,
He was skimming the waves of the tossing Atlantic.
A few pinion strokes, and he stood on the shore
Of the New World, and through it began to explore.
But all was in vain, till he chanced to alight
In a sweet little village, one smiling morn bright.
Disguising himself, he attended the church,
Not hoping to find the object of search,
But just for the fun.
As he stood with the throng
That were watching the College girls marching along,
He caught a slight glimpse of Miss “Tater’s” sweet face;
He sprang to her side, clasped her in embrace,
And as he plunged downward he said to himself,
“Here’s one will compete with the African elf.”
He soon furled his wing on the Plutonian shore,
And to his dark ruler his fair burden bore.
As the Valentine sender came into sight
The Devil himself started back with affright.
“Whew! whew!” whistled he, “she’ll do, I declare!
Go bring the baboon, and let them compare.”
The imp disappeared, then returned with the ape,
A creature most frightful in feature and shape.
His head was oblong and perfectly bald,
Running back from his eyes--no forehead at all;
His eyeballs were white, their sockets deep red;
His long, glistening teeth strung with human-flesh shred,
The gore of his victims from his fingers’ ends flowed;
And round his lank limbs candescent chains glowed,
In front of Miss “Taters” this creature was led;
He gave a look, yelled, and fainted stone dead.
“By my tongs,” quoth the Devil, “she’s rather too hard
For the old fellow; she’ll make a capital guard.
Take her down to the fire.” The imp led the way
And far down they went from the clear light of day,
Down, down, till the air was all smoky and red,
Till the tumult of hell seemed bursting her head;
Down, down, till the piteous wails and the moans
Of the tortured but echoed the jeers and the groans
Of the fiends. Down, down, till they came to the lake
That scorches and scalds, but never will slake
The thirst of its victims. Far out on its breast
It would heave them anon on the red foaming crest
Of a billow, then plunge them far deeper beneath
Its boiling bosom, in torture to seethe.
Along the hot shore the poor creatures would crawl,
To pant and to rest from their terrible thrall.
From their bodies all smoking the lava would stream,
While the shriveled flesh peeled from each quiv’ring limb,
And their heart-piercing shrieks rose higher and higher,
As the tongue of each wave licked them back in the fire.
But as soon as Miss “Taters” had come where they were
Every noise was hushed, not a sound could you hear.
’Twas a wonder indeed, and the wonder increased,
When the billows of crimson their torture surge ceased.
When the imp had examined more closely, he found
The victims had fainted, the fire gone down.
He hurried her back to his master and said,
“The fires are out, and the wretches are dead.”
“What, the fires extinguished! those fires of old!
Take her back! I begin e’en myself to feel cold!
She’ll ruin us all with her terrible face;
She’s rather hard-favored for even this place.”

_April, 1867._

THE SUNFLOWER

LINES SUGGESTED BY OBSERVING GEN. PETTIGREW’S NAME OMITTED IN MRS.
DOWNING’S “MEMORIAL FLOWERS” AND IN THE “SOUTHERN BOUQUET”

When poets cull memorial flowers,
With which our martyrs’ graves to strew,
They choose no one in Nature’s bowers
For Pettigrew.

Yet there is one, and only one,
Which truly represents his name;
A flower that revels in the sun,
And drinks his flame.

A flower that opens when, all red,
The sun hath kissed the eastern skies;
But westward turned, it droops its head
And proudly dies.

Thus when the sun of victory sheared
Its gory way o’er clouds of war,
This flower’s tow’ring crest appeared
A beacon star.

And in its gorgeous, glorious rays,
This flower basked, and only bowed
When coming conquest’s bloody haze
That sun did shroud.

Crushed flower, with thy broken stem,
I’ll keep thee near to typify
The fallen form; the hero’s fame
Can never die.

_June 19th, 1867._

AN ELEGY

WRITTEN ON THE ROTUNDA STEPS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 1868

The bell the knell of evening lecture tolls,
The thronging students pour from every door;
The tutor gathers up his notes and rolls,
And homeward wends his weary way once more.

The noisy crowd is gone, there is a pause,
And hushed is all the busy hum and whirl,
Save where from yonder room breaks loud applause
That welcomes some professor’s parting “curl.”

Save that from yonder plain, the lower lawn,
Some base-ball novice makes harsh rhyms to _psalm_,
Because a veteran, with his hands of horn,
Has “pitched” too “hot” a ball for his soft palm.

Beneath those balconies, along those rows,
Where sinks the wall in many a jail-like cell,
Each wrapped in silence now and in repose,
The minstrels of the “Calathump” do dwell.

The whispered call of evil-masking night,
The signal whistle of the well-known crew,
The bumping bang of “blowers” beat with might,
Will often rouse the “Nippers of Peru.”

For them in vain for hours their hearts will burn,
While busy housewives tremble at their noise,
And frightened children to their fathers turn,
Too badly scared to think of play or toys.

Oft has th’ rotunda echoed to their songs,
In dulcet strains that on the still air broke;
Oft has the lawn resounded with their gongs,
That roared and rattled ’neath their sturdy stroke.

Let not their victims mock th’ infernal din,
Coal-scuttle drums, and clarion paper trump;
But let them hear with a sardonic “grin,”
The hideous clamor of a “Calathump.”

The boast of Mozart, or Beethoven’s pride,
The sweetest notes Von Weber ever gave,
Alike would prove harsh dissonance beside
The gushing concord of one college stave.

To-night upon their pillows will be laid
Heads that are pregnant with some secret plan;
Hands that a “poker” often may have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy an old tin pan.

In vain grave study holds before their gaze
Her ample page and honor’s glittering roll;
The fire of “frolic” in their bosom plays,
And warms the devilish current of their soul.

Full many a mind that might have nations hurled
About as toys, has hid its talents rare;
And many a voice that might have moved a world,
Has cracked in shoutings on the midnight air.

Some village Hampden here by night may bawl,
Some unknown Milton, but by no means mute;
Some David that may soothe a savage Saul,
As yet entirely guiltless of a lute.

The applause of gaping urchins to command,
The darkies’ laughter at their quaint disguise,
A few short words from some one to the band,
This is their sole reward, their hard-earned prize.

But who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
Would start to nip with dry and husky throttle?
Whene’er they march along the Devil’s way,
They take his own peculiar seal, the bottle.

Amid the madding crowd that gathers thick,
A moving pandemonium they stray,
And down those much frequented walks of brick
They hold the noisy tenor of their way.

THE EPIGRAM