University of Virginia Library

Know thyself, said the old Greek. Obey his hest
Invaluable. With hand that swerves no jot,
Lift thou the torch of knowledge and roam on
Through all those devious corridors that branch
Darkly below thy labyrinthine soul.
Leave not one cranny or nook unvisited.
As though, some reverend monk, thy feet should break
The calm of some long-slumbering catacomb,
Peer in this niche whose dusk may hide a skull,
Delve in this pit where vermin broods may nest.
With torch firm-gripped prowl onward, prowl and stare,
Till all thy soul's dread coigns of evil-doing
Are mercilessly envisaged. Search each lair
That peradventure some base tenant shields,
And flash on each, howe'er they toadlike squat,
Serpentlike coil, or batlike cling, or crawl
Wormlike, thy cresset's tyrannous blaze of quest.
So much of this weird edifice, thy soul,
Deep-rooted in creation's mysteries,
Thou shalt have learned. Yet be thou not content
With wanderings through these crypts of grosser build,
This heritage of animalism, so rank
With records of the earlier ape. Ascend
By yonder twilight stair to higher haunts,
Where chamber sweeps toward chamber, luminous
With lamps that dim thy torch, all being the abode
Of intellect, thy soul's first privilege,
A crowd of towers, high-bastioning thy state
Above those lives unspiritual that swarm
In frailty or hardihood earth's million holds.

This new realm shalt thou roam with loftier mood,
Among thine own mind's large palatial bounds.
Reason its hall of sculptural stone waits here;
There Truth its bower of gold; there tapestries
Pictured with history's deeds may Justice gird;
For Wisdom stateliest preparation gleams
From yonder marble sanctuary. All these,
And more—that rare imperialism we name
The Virtues, thy stanch allies, aids and guides,
If so thou choose to accede them—shall attend
Thy summons, and their various vantages
At thy decree, thine only, shall assume.

Know thyself better still. Mount higher, and heed
With what fine delicacy of trellisings,
What loggias, galleries, belfries, balconies,
Thy subterranean yet aspirant soul
Can crown itself. The Emotions harbour here,
In all their mutability and sweet grace.
They front the billowing clouds, the bedouin gales,
The oracular moon, mesmeric stars, dawns pale
With fire of prophecy, and sunsets red
With passion of farewell, and are kinned to these
In splendour, beauty and charm of symbolism.
Such bright aerial summits of thy soul
May rainbow Imagination, Fancy fleet,
Love, Hope, Awe, Pity and Sympathy possess,
If thus thy choice, and Art, which means them all,
Though Love than all hath mightier dominance.
Wild birds of dream, yet quick to obey thy beck,
On palisade and parapet their wings
May scatter at thy command white benisons
Of welcome. Yet pay rich thy fostering care,
Else Love, the loveliest of them, will be first
To fly, should he and every volatile mate
Feed not undaunted from thy lavish hand,
Crouch not elate below thy sheltering heart.
So, having known thyself, abide thou firm
Against the assailant and distracting world.
Adore thine own ideals—not secretly,
Nor timorously, but with proud nakedness.
Each creed thou hast made sure thou reverencest
Grasp at and fight for, though Babelian tongues
May chatter about thine ears dissentience fierce.
Live thou thy life; thou hast but one to live,
And pedestal that upon consistency.
Let not thy just wraths cower for prudence' sake;
Rather unleash them, bloodhounds though they be,
And watch with joy their fangs plough deep in wrong.
Nay, though thou canst not kill wrong, once to have plunged
A dirk of odium past its callous hide
Spurs by this act intrepid myriads
Abominative as thou of its brute reign.
Having once loved the good in thee and spurned
The ill, stay incontestibly thyself.
Slavery has vanished; kindred shames have died;
Others endure. If these thou dost abhor,
Strike at them, even with maimed and bleeding hands.
If thou detestest war, as all men should,
Make monumental thine antipathy;
Intoxicate thyself with loathing of it;
Give policy's least mood of protean guile
No quarter. Sound one note, and vary it not,
While tumults of insidious ‘ifs’ and ‘thoughs,’
Like locust-legions loudening as they swell,
Would buzz and hiss thee mute. Even so with Caste,
With despotisms of Capital, with laws
Perverted and evaded, briberies, pacts
To filch the labourer's loaf—quick dagger-blows
That wealth, turned cut-throat, may creep up to deal
In the back of prostrate poverty. Should harms
Freighted like these with poison, breed thy hate,
Shower out such hate from every duct and sluice
Of thine indignant spirit, shower it out
Unstintedly, torrentially, and cleave
Its onslaught with thy scorn's hot lightnings.

Think:
Thine individual span is but a day;
Posterity is for aeons; help its weal,
If only a mite of betterment shall bide
As earnest of thine effort. Interblend
Thy conscience and conviction till the twain
Are twinned like flower to fragrance. Ocean's waste
Hath not one star in its huge canopy
Whose pilotage is radianter than theirs.