 | The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith |  |
September, 18—
Surely Winnie is changed; we ne'er had been friends together,
Had she always been ready to sting like a wasp in October weather.
I think there is hardly a name she has not some story about—
Of all that we knew long ago—a story suggesting a doubt.
Each face that I used to remember as beaming with kindly light,
Is smirched with something or other, and no one escapes her spite.
Sneering with scornful laughter, turn wherever she may,
All the glory is dimmed of all that come in her way;
She creeps on the noblest natures stealthily as a cat,
Now with a bite of venom, and now with a wanton pat,
Leaving them not till crushed. And one thing I cannot abide,
The way that she flatters my husband even when I am beside,
Now flopping down on her knees, and staring up in his face,
Clasping her hands, and feigning an ecstasy quite out of place;
Pumping up tears at his pathos, or sighing with heaving breast,
Or giggling and clapping her hands when his humour is wickedest.
He is weak enough to believe her, which makes me colder in praise,
And I care for poetry less than I ever did all my days.
She flatters him daily with words that are silky and soft and sleek,
And no true wife can be pleased when seeing her husband weak.
Had she always been ready to sting like a wasp in October weather.
I think there is hardly a name she has not some story about—
Of all that we knew long ago—a story suggesting a doubt.
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Is smirched with something or other, and no one escapes her spite.
Sneering with scornful laughter, turn wherever she may,
All the glory is dimmed of all that come in her way;
She creeps on the noblest natures stealthily as a cat,
Now with a bite of venom, and now with a wanton pat,
Leaving them not till crushed. And one thing I cannot abide,
The way that she flatters my husband even when I am beside,
Now flopping down on her knees, and staring up in his face,
Clasping her hands, and feigning an ecstasy quite out of place;
Pumping up tears at his pathos, or sighing with heaving breast,
Or giggling and clapping her hands when his humour is wickedest.
He is weak enough to believe her, which makes me colder in praise,
And I care for poetry less than I ever did all my days.
She flatters him daily with words that are silky and soft and sleek,
And no true wife can be pleased when seeing her husband weak.
'Tis growing quite dreadful to hear her now and then, when she speaks
Jauntily of a Faith that needs no God, nor seeks
To trace His work on the earth, or follow His way on high,
Noting His glorious footprints clear in the starry sky;
For Nature has in herself the reason for all that is,
And God is an unscientific, needless hypothesis,
Like witches, ghosts, and miracles—dreams of the slumbrous night
Which the great dawn of reason has driven away with its light!
Jauntily of a Faith that needs no God, nor seeks
To trace His work on the earth, or follow His way on high,
Noting His glorious footprints clear in the starry sky;
For Nature has in herself the reason for all that is,
And God is an unscientific, needless hypothesis,
Like witches, ghosts, and miracles—dreams of the slumbrous night
Which the great dawn of reason has driven away with its light!
Thereto my husband made answer—and oh I was proud and glad;
“Look you, Miss Winnie,” he said, “it's your method of science that's bad;
Good for its own end, of course; but here it is clearly at fault;
God is not found by the tests that detect you an acid or salt.
While you search only for secrets that process of science sets free,
Nothing you'll find in the world, but matter to handle or see.
Here is a book I am reading now; what can your method find there?
Boil it, or burn it, dissect it, let microscope scan it with care;
What does it show you but paper and ink and leather and thread,
All made of chemical simples that, no doubt, you have in your head?
But where is the thought, which is all the end and use of the book,
And which flows on through its pages clear to my mind as a brook,
Rippling and singing sweet music to him that hath ears to hear?
Have you an acid will test it? a glass that will make it all clear?
Or scalpel to cut it? And yet paper and leather and ink
All are but trash, if I find not the thought which the writer can think.
What, now, if Spirit and God are the thought which is written out plain
On the great page of the world, and your method of seeking is vain?”
“Look you, Miss Winnie,” he said, “it's your method of science that's bad;
Good for its own end, of course; but here it is clearly at fault;
God is not found by the tests that detect you an acid or salt.
While you search only for secrets that process of science sets free,
Nothing you'll find in the world, but matter to handle or see.
Here is a book I am reading now; what can your method find there?
Boil it, or burn it, dissect it, let microscope scan it with care;
What does it show you but paper and ink and leather and thread,
All made of chemical simples that, no doubt, you have in your head?
But where is the thought, which is all the end and use of the book,
And which flows on through its pages clear to my mind as a brook,
Rippling and singing sweet music to him that hath ears to hear?
Have you an acid will test it? a glass that will make it all clear?
Or scalpel to cut it? And yet paper and leather and ink
All are but trash, if I find not the thought which the writer can think.
What, now, if Spirit and God are the thought which is written out plain
On the great page of the world, and your method of seeking is vain?”
| The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith | |