Ranolf and Amohia A dream of two lives. By Alfred Domett. New edition, revised |
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 | Ranolf and Amohia |  |
VI.
And then their legends—once again
Recastings from the ancient mould;
Gods, demigods and heroes old
Of giant bulk and dwarfish brain.
Greek, Gothic, Polynesian—all
Primeval races on a train
Of like ideas, conceptions, fall;
Their supernatural Beings still
Are but themselves in ways and will;
And still the Superhuman race
Keeps with the human steady pace;
What Man would be—what Man has been,
Through magnifying medium seen
Still makes his God or Gods that grow
With his Soul's growth—its reflex show
By grand Imagination's glass
Dilated; its best thoughts—the mass
Of noblest feelings that exist—
Projected with expanding rays
Upon Eternity's dim haze,
Like Brocken Shadows on the mist.
Recastings from the ancient mould;
Gods, demigods and heroes old
Of giant bulk and dwarfish brain.
Greek, Gothic, Polynesian—all
Primeval races on a train
Of like ideas, conceptions, fall;
Their supernatural Beings still
Are but themselves in ways and will;
165
Keeps with the human steady pace;
What Man would be—what Man has been,
Through magnifying medium seen
Still makes his God or Gods that grow
With his Soul's growth—its reflex show
By grand Imagination's glass
Dilated; its best thoughts—the mass
Of noblest feelings that exist—
Projected with expanding rays
Upon Eternity's dim haze,
Like Brocken Shadows on the mist.
And was it not so planned to give
Mankind a fit provocative,
At every stage from birth to age,
The best devised to speed the Soul
Towards Adoration's utmost goal?
To guide his infancy and youth,
Too weak to see the summits fair,
Up an ascending mountain-stair
To highest hidden peaks of Truth?
And so Religion's self endow
With that continuous life and glow
Discovery lends, though painful, slow;
That interest ever fresh and warm
Which Science boasts her greatest charm?
Though slow indeed Religion's rise
Even to a glimpse of purer skies;
Though foul and stagnant if you will
The fens and swamps that clog her still.
Mankind a fit provocative,
At every stage from birth to age,
The best devised to speed the Soul
Towards Adoration's utmost goal?
To guide his infancy and youth,
Too weak to see the summits fair,
Up an ascending mountain-stair
To highest hidden peaks of Truth?
And so Religion's self endow
With that continuous life and glow
Discovery lends, though painful, slow;
That interest ever fresh and warm
Which Science boasts her greatest charm?
Though slow indeed Religion's rise
Even to a glimpse of purer skies;
Though foul and stagnant if you will
The fens and swamps that clog her still.
| Ranolf and Amohia | |