Ambition, hath it any goal indeed? is not all fruition disappointment?
A step upon the ladder, and another, and another-we start from every Look to the eras of mortality; babe, student, man,
Lend: The husband, the father, the death-bed of a saint-and is it then an end? The common climax, Death, shall it lead to nothing?
How strong a root of causes, flowering a consequence of vapour!
That solid chain of facts, is it snapped for ever?
How stout a show of figures, weakly summing to nonenity!
OR haply Death, in the doublings of thy thought, shall seem continuous A dull, eternal slumber, not an end abrupt.
O most futile chrysalis, wherefore dost thou sleep?
Dreamless, unconscious, never to awake-what object in such slumber?
If thou art still to live, it may as well be wakefully as sleeping:
How grovelling must that spirit be, to need eternal sleep!
Or was indeed the toil of life so heavy and so long,
That never more can rest refresh thine overburdened soul?
Sleep is a recreance to body, but when was mind asleep?
Even in a swoon it dreameth, though all be forgotten afterward;
The muscles seek relaxing, and the irritable nerves ask peace;
But life is a constant force, spirit an unquietable impetus:
The eye may wear out as a telescope, and the brain work slow as a machine,
But soul, unwearied, and for ever, is capable of effort unimpaired.
I LIVE, move, am conscious: what shall bar my being?
Where is the rude hand, to rend this tissue of existence?
Not thine, shadowy Death, what art thou but a phantom?
Not thine, foul Corruption, what art thou but a fear?
For death is merely absent life, as darkness absent light;
Not even a suspension, for the life hath sailed away, steering gladly some-
And corruption, closely noted, is but a dissolving of the parts;
The parts remain, and nothing lost, to build a better whole.
Moreover, mind is unity, however versatile and rapid;
Thou canst not entertain two coincident ideas, although they quickly
And Unity hath no parts, so that there is nothing to dissolve;
And element is still unchanged in every searching solvent.
Who, then, shall bid me be annulled-He that gave me being?
Amen, if God so will; I know that will is love:
But love hath promised life, and therefore I shall live;
So long as He is God, I shall b his Creature!
AND here, shrewd reasoner, so eager to prove that thou must perish,
I note a sneer upon thy lip, and ridicule is haply on thy tongue:
How, said he-creature of a God, and are not all his creatures-
The lion, and the gnat-yea, the mushroom, and the crystal-have all
these a soul?
Thy fancies tend to prove too much, and overshoot the mark:
If I die not with brutes, then brutes must live with me?—
I dare not tell thee that they will, for the word is not in my commission:
But of the twain it is the likelier; continuance is the chance:
Men, dying in their sins, are likened unto beasts that perish;
They are dark, animal, insensate; but have they not a lurking soul?
The spirit of a man goeth upward, reasonable, apprehending God;
The spirit of a beast goeth downward, sensual, doting on the creature:
Who told thee they die at dissolution? boldly think it out—
The multitude of flies, and the multitude of herbs, the world with all its
beings:
Is Infinity too narrow, Omnipotence too weak, and Love so anxious to
Doth Wisdom change its plan, and a Maker cancel his created?
God's will may compass all things, to fashion and to nullify at pleasure:
Yet are there many thoughts of hope, that all which are shall live.
True, there is no conscience in the brute, beyond some educated habit;
They lay them down without a fear, and wake without a hope:
Hunger and pain is of the animal; but when did they reckon or compare;
They live, idealess, in instinct; and while they breathe, they gain:
The master is an idol to his dog, who cannot rise beyond him; [infinity.
And void of capability for God, there would seem small cause for an
Therefore, caviller, my poor thoughts dare not grant they live:
But is it not a great thing to assume their annihilation-and thine own?
Would it be much if a speck on space, this globe with all its millions,
Verily, after its pollution, were suffered to exist in purity?
Or much, if guiltless creatures, that were cruelly entreated upon earth,
Found some commensurate reward in lower joys hereafter?
Or much, if a Creator, prodigal of life, and filled with the profundity of
love,
[kind?
Rejoice in all creatures of his skill, and lead them to perfection in their
O man, there are many marvels; yet life is more a mystery than death
For death may be some stagnant life-but life is present God!
MANY are the lurking-holes of evil; who shall search them out?
Who so skilled to cut away the cancer with its fibres?
For wily minds with sinuous ease escape from lie to lie;
And cowards driven from the trench steal back to hide again.
Vain were the battle, if a warrior, having slain his foes,
Shall turn and find them vital still, unharmed, yea, unashamed:
For Error, dark magician, daily cast out killed,
Quickeneth animate anew beneath the midnight moon:
Once and again, once and again, hath Reason answered wisely;
But not the less with brazen front doth Folly urge her questions.
It were but unprofitable toil, a stand-up fight with unbelief:
When was there candour in a caviller, and who can satisfy the faithless?
Too long, O truant from the fold, have I tracked thy devious paths;
Too long, treacherous deserter, fought thee as a noble foeman:
Haply, my small art, and an arm too weakly for its weapon,
Hath failed to pierce thine iron coat, and reach thy stricken soul:
Haply, the fervour of my speech, and too patient sifting of thy fancies,
Shall tend to make thee prize them more, as worthier and wiser:
Go to be mine the gain: we measure swords no more;
Go-and a word go with thee-Man, thou ART Immortal!
CHILD of light, and student in the truth, too long have I forgotten thee:
Lo, after parley with an alien, let me hold sweet converse with a brother.
Glorious hopes, and ineffable imaginings, crowd our holy theme:
Fear hath been slaughtered on the portal, and Doubt driven back to
darkness:
For Christ hath died, and we in Him: by faith His all is ours-
Cross, and crown, and love, and life; and we shall reign in him!
Yea, there is a fitness and a beauty in ascribing immortality to mind,
That its energies and lofty aspirations may have scope for indefinite
expansion.
[bility,
To learn all things is privilege of reason, and that with a growing capa.
But in this age of toil and time we scarce attain to alphabets:
How hardly in the midst of our hurry, and jostled by the cares of life,
Shall a man turn and stop to consider mighty secrets!
With barely hours and barely powers, to fill up daily duties,
How small the glimpse of knowledge his wandering eye can catch!
And knowledge is a noting of the order wherein God's attributes evolve,
Therefore worthy of the creature, worthy of an angel's seeking;
Yea, and human knowledge, meagre though the harvest, [climate;
Hath its roots, both deep and strong; but the plants are exotic to the
All we seem to know demand a longer learning,
History, and science, and prophecy, and art, are workings all of God:
And there are galaxies of globes, millions of unimagined beings,
Other senses, wondrous sounds, and thoughts of thrilling fire,
Powers of strange might, quickening unknown elements,
And attributes and energies of God, which man may never guess.
Nor in vain, O brother! hath soul the spurs of enterprise,
Nor aimlessly panteth for adventure, waiting at the cave of mystery;
Not in vain the cup of curiosity, sweet and richly spiced, [grance:
Is ruby to the sight, and ambrosia to the taste, and redolent with all fra
Thou shalt drink, and deeply, filling the mind with marvels;
Thou shalt watch no more, lingering, disappointed of thy hope;
Thou shalt roam where road is none, a traveller untrammelled,
Speeding at a wish, emancipate, to where the stars are suns!
COUNT, Count your hopes, heirs of immortality and love:
And hear my kindred faith, and turn again to bless me.
For, lo! my trust is strong to dwell in many worlds,
And cull of many brethren there sweet knowledge ever new:
I yearn for realms where fancy shall be filled, and the ecstasies of freedom shall be felt,
And the soul reign gloriously, risen to its royal destinies:
I look to recognise again, through the beautiful mask of their perfection, The dear, familiar faces I have somewhile loved on earth:
I long to talk with grateful tongue of storms and perils past,
And praise the mighty Pilot that hath steered us through the rapids:
He shall be the focus of it all, the very heart of gladness.
My soul is athirst for God, the God who dwelt in Man!
Prophet, priest, and king, the sacrifice, the substitute, the Saviour, Rapture of the blessed in the hunted one of earth, the pardoner in the How many centuries of joy concentrate in that theme! [victim: How often a Methusalem might count his thousand years, and leave it
And, lo! the heavenly Jerusalem, with all its gates one pearl,
That pearl of countless price, the door by which we entered—
Come, tread the golden streets, and join that glorious throng,
The happy ones of heaven and earth, ten thousand times ten thousand Hark! they sing that song-and cast their crowns before Him;
Their souls alight with Love-Glory, and Praise, and Immortality! Veil thine eyes; no son of time may see that holy vision,
And even the seraph at thy side hath covered his face with wings.
DоTH he not speak parables?-each one goeth on his way,
Ye that hear, and I that counsel, go on our ways forgetful.
For the terrible realities whereto we tend, are hidden from our eyes;
We know, but heed them not, and walk as if the temporal were all things.
Vanities, buzzing on the ear, fill its drowsy chambers,
Slow to dread those coming fears, the thunder and the trumpet;
Motes, streaming on the sight, dim our purblind eyes,
Dark to see the ponderous orb of nearing Immortality:
Hemmed in by hostile foes, the trifler is busied on an epigram;*
The dull ox driven to slaughter careth but for pasture by the way.
Alas! that the precious things of truth, and the everlasting hills,
The mighty hopes we spake of, and the consciousness we feel-
Alas! that all the future, and its adamantine facts,
Clouded by the present with intoxicating fumes-
Should seem even to us, the great expectant heirs,
To us, the responsible and free, fearful sons of reason,
Only as a lovely song, sweet sounds of solemn music,
A pleasant voice, and nothing more-doth he not speak parables?
Look to thy soul, O, man! for none can be surety for his brother; Behold, for heaven-or for hell-thou canst not escape from Immortality!
MIND is like a volatile essence, flitting hither and thither,
A solitary sentinel of the fortress body, to show himself every where by
Mind is indivisible and instant, with neither parts nor organs;
That it doeth, it doth quickly, but the whole mind doth it:
* « Hemmed in by hostile foes, the trifler is busied on an epigram.”] Even in matters temporal, a literal instance of this occurs in the history of Frederick the Great of Prussia, who, during the mortal struggles of the Seven Years' War, frequently occupied the eve before a battle in the studious composition of profane jests and bad poetry.
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