University of Virginia Library

VII.

“Well, then, methinks, that surging sea
Of resonant shrill melody
Rings out a thoughtless answer free,
Whence one may frame a thoughtful plea:
‘O human Insect! sad Truth-seeker—
Which of us two is wiser—weaker?
Your senses—those deep reasoning powers
You will within their bounds compress,
May take a wider range than ours,
How vastly wider! none the less
They both are dwarfed, unspeakably
Fall short of and are distanced by
The infinite Reality:
And all beyond their feeble reach
Will doubtless seem and be for each
A blank—a void—mere nothingness!
O grand indeed the gains you boast,
The ever deepening, widening host
Of wonders Science as she presses
Into the Mystery's first recesses,
Works out, worms into, proves or guesses!—
—Creation, like a firework splendid
Ever exploding, unexpended;
As endlessly it whirls and flies
Still breaking into brilliancies
Of stranger gleam and lovelier guise:—
—Organic Nature, in its flow
By inorganic guided, so
Divinely from its hidden fount;
Germs, gemmules, cells; upstrivings shy;
And those consummate craftsmen—Chance!
Environment or Circumstance—
With aims so clear in harmony
Combining to evolve and mould
Such plastic structures manifold:
Their agents, climate, fire, and frost,
Food, famine, skilled to crush—uphold,
Choose what had best survive or perish,
The lower to check, the higher to cherish,
Make progress sure at any cost!
So force in falling stones, and heat
And cold, can make and mar and mount
From starred frost-flowers to crystalled rock,
Tree, insect, bird, beast, Man complete!
Though still outstands that stumbling-block
Of Science—Life! her pride to shock
And Matter's despot-sway to mock!—
Well—as so brilliantly the blank
Beyond our powers perceptive teems
For you with wonders that would rank
With us as visionary dreams;
So surely is there something still
The blank beyond your own to fill;
Something unsoundable by Man,
If finite reason never can
The Infinite comprise or span;
Yet what (a point to raise no strife)
Within that blank so likely rife
As mightier facts of Spirit-Life?—
Dreams?—aye, but all you pray for—prize,
Within that realm of vague surmise
May well to loftier beings be
Demonstrable reality!—
O human Insect! wiser—weaker—
O suicidal secret-seeker,
What if you left your “proofs” alone
And joined our reckless rapturous Pæan
Of clear confiding trustfulness,
That once so charmed the jovial Teian,
Whose loves and lyre and brimming beaker
Were all o'erthrown by one grape-stone
That choked his life out, just as you
Your life of life by laying stress
On doubts perhaps as trivial too;
Wresting despair with so much pain
Out of a scheme not your poor brain
Nor ours can compass or contain,
Exhaust, unravel, or explain!’”—