University of Virginia Library

PRÆTERHUMANUS.

I am not wiser better than my kind,
And all the interests that my fellows bind
Are likewise bonds to me, though not the same
In dignity and nature, as in name.
For among men a proper place I fill,
To my own private work apply the skill
I have acquired, bid with them on the mart,
And play no idle or ignoble part
In the affairs of state, join in the strife
For mere existence that is miscalled life,
Contend against them in the headlong race
For vanities of riches, power and place.
Like them I find a sort of cold relief,
In empty fanes they build to Disbelief,
By acts of worship and the pious props
Of forms and rites, while giving conscience sops
With penitential prayer. And in the shade,
I see the dark and devious tricks of trade,
By which men prosper. At worm-eaten ports,
Where prostitution spawned by commerce sports
Its venal hour of misbegotten joy,
I know how soon the sins of sweetness cloy,
How soon the sense is glutted. Every ill
And every good have passed before my will,
Been tried and tested to the very lees,
And paid for in the costliest, bitterest fees,
Even the last farthing, and alike have failed
To hold me captive. Nor has ought availed,
That I should give myself entirely up
To labour's mill or pleasure's poppied cup,
For ever. And when I most wildly err'd,
I somehow felt I was not of the herd,
Though madly with the multitude I went,
Away from honour and its fair intent.
I still was different from the vulgar throng,
Not worse nor better; and I heard a song,
They did not hear, and saw unwonted sights
They could not see; and in the solemn nights,
Strange feelings touched me that they never felt,
And in another world my spirit dwelt;
Even when I most was with my fellow men,
And seemed most bounded by the common ken.
I am a stranger and a pilgrim here,
An exile banished from my proper sphere
Into an alien world, by some sad play
Of nature, that is not unused to stray
At seasons, falling into wanton freaks,
While her wild fancy all its folly wreaks
On new creations—poor mismated things,
Lone in the densest crowd that to them clings.
Yea, while companions make me their's by day,
My heart is fondly roaming far away,
I know not where, in wondrous realms of thought,
In which no mind but this an entrance sought
And found. Not that I ever simply see
The same old system different in degree,
But a new kind—a set of other joys,
And other hope that other powers employs,
While other fears and sins and sorrows shake
The bases of my being, and awake
Strange sentiments in me and stir the soul.
But, as for men, we have no kindred goal
Of inner object, interest, or aim;
No points of union or communion claim
Our undivided homage. When they droop,
No fellow-feeling bids me also stoop,
To seek repose with them; and if I rest,
Then they already have beyond me prest,
And left me standing still. We have no mood
Of common measure, no true brotherhood.
I am a different creature, though the same
To all appearance, yet of other frame,
Cast in the fashion of a foreign mould.
And when constrained by outward cares to hold
Sweet converse with my heart, I speak a tongue
Not even by fabling poets ever sung,
Nor known to human hearing, yet to mine
Most sweet, familiar and a truth divine,
And spiritual food. In lonely nooks,
I read high teachings not in holy books;
And in the shadow of recesses shy,
Still do I trace some subtle memory
Not understood by mortals; and I find
Deep sympathies and social bonds, that bind
My soul to nature in a friendship fair,
Made fast by links of heavenly light and air,
And elemental forces strong as fate,
That shut and open life's mysterious gate.
I claim no sage's insight, nor the gift
Of powers creative, that the world uplift
Above the dull low level of its stage,
The vulgar platform of the vulgar age,
And send it rolling from the dirty ruts
Of common trade that man with meanness gluts,
To nobler ends, and makes the mortal know
That to immortal greatness it may grow.
No bard, self-blinded, prone to dream and err
With grand delusions, no philosopher
Or architect of thoughts that march through Time,
To the deep music of their own sweet chime,
And fringe our path with glorious flowers of truth,
That give the earth again its golden youth,
And make sublime the simplest acts of man,
With the broad sweep of their majestic plan.
Nay, I am none of these—a humble soul,
To whom this life can offer not a goal,
Who knows that he is severed from his mates
By different being and by different states
Of feeling, who is centuries in front,
Of the dim period's paltry use and wont,
Or else behind—a whole wide world removed,
From these cold thoughts his faith has not approved—
A thousand thousand windy leagues of space,
From all the fleeting hopes that men embrace,
Divided—who in faint unheeded signs
Finds daily food, and reads between the lines
Of human books, and gathers goodly sheaves,
From unknown harvests, and beneath the leaves
Of outward forms sees fruit no mortals mark,
And friendly light even in the deepest dark—
Who differing thus from men this comfort draws,
He will be also judged by different laws.
Lo, I appeal from earth and earth's blind courts,
Where pedant lore with love and justice sports,
And loud coarse cunning wrangles down the right,
To that tribunal throned in perfect light,
Where sits the judge of judges, who from far,
At His serene and universal bar,
Weighs men and things in soales that cannot swerve,
And metes to all the measure they deserve.
Yea, I appeal to Truth from folly's rod—
Eternity from time, from man to God.