University of Virginia Library

“Powers, erst of heaven; and, haply, yet again,
As, with the years, we wiser, mightier grow,
Thither, triumphant, destined to return;—
Not by permission; but in our own right,
And strength resistless: for, our past estate,
Our present, ponder; and thence clearly see
The inevitable future. How at first
To being came we,—who shall say! Time was
When we were not;—or, if at all we were,
Unconscious, embryotic,—or, perchance,
In dream, remembered not. Ye have seen, on earth,
The corn-grain, coffined with the human dead,
Through ages long lie death-like: yet, to soil,
Air, rain, and light brought forth,—behold, the germ
Stirs in its husk,—the seeming dead shows life:
Expands,—bursts,—shoots out stem,—leaf,—flower, and fruit!
And even so with us may it have been,—
From the beginning, in a death-like trance
Lying, till waked.—By what?—By our own strength,
Throughout eternity waxing?—From the first,
Surely hath something been: why not ourselves?....
Yet, not to know we live,—is dead to be:
And certain this—when we to life awoke,
The universe, and God, already were.
Of those, which first existed?—None can know.
The word in heaven was, that, by God alone,
The suns, and worlds, yea all things, had been made,—
Even we ourselves: but, which of us aught knew
Touching his own creation,—if create,
Not self-existent,—as still possible is,
Since rightly know we not: or who beheld,
When worlds were formed, the hand of God put forth
To fashion them?....Fiction that rumour, then,
To bow us to his yoke: for if, in truth,
God had created,—surely not from heaven
Had he so cast us,—our slight, sole offence,
To have deemed our Natures kindred to his own,—
Spirit imperishable,—in time's infinite
Destined, like him, to godhead: thence, not bound
To yield him everlasting worship and praise,
Due to our greater only. Venial sin
Had this been held,—a truer knowledge given,—
Our ignorance pardoned. Clearly thus it seems
That not from God we are....Whence then,—or how?
Nay—first,—whence God himself? for, whence He came,
Thence, doubtless, also we. Some Cause must be,—
Itself uncaused:—impossible, alike,
To comprehend, or doubt.....Admitted then—
Uncomprehended,—from eternity,
What is that Cause, uncaused?...Answer is none,—
Ask midnight for noon sun. A name we make,—
Of the thing ignorant;—Nature, Fate, we say,—
Necessity,—or whatsoever else
May shadow meaning, meaningless,—that Power,—
If Power;—that Something—if such be—
Existent sole, ere Matter, Space, Time, God—
That, only, First Cause is,—Original
Of all else, named Original: and by That,
Doubtless, the Universe, ourselves, and God,
Were to existence brought. He, far the first;
Thence, far the wisest, mightiest: yet, we feel,
Not more eternal now;—nor mightier
Than, sometime, shall we be. If He yon earth,
And man, created,—and those other worlds,
Within our memory made,—from that First Cause,
Unknown, for ever inconceivable,
His power was: and to us, when time shall be,
Like power, be sure, will come: and we new worlds,
Yea, haply, suns,—and a new heaven, our own,
Outshining His, may make.....Space is enough
For Him, and million gods.....Vain dreaming this,
To weaker Spirits: nay, in truth, to all,
For this hour present, vain: though weighty still,
As food for ceaseless thought.

“Time was,” I said,
“When we were not; and, in that deep abyss
Of cycles, this great orb, now dark, had birth;
And, in long flight of ages, more and more,
Grew vast and glorious. But, the highest point
Of splendor reached,—decay, though slow, yet sure,
Its brightness 'gan to dim. Years numberless
Stole, ray by ray, its fires; till,—as when first
Our eyes beheld it,—roaming the infinite,—
Like but a dark red cinder did it hang,
Glooming, not lighting space. Ye know what length
Of ages followed ere, unwillingly,
By some strange power of our stern foe compelled,
Hither we came; and utter blackness found
Where, erst, had been sun-splendor; death, where life;
Where the great body,—this gaunt skeleton.
Such, of all things material, seems the doom:
A birth, a growth, decay, and final death.
But, to the things etherial, spirit all,—
Decay is none—death is impossible:
In power and wisdom wax they evermore;
Till, at the summit arrived,—all knowledge won,
All strength obtained,—omniscient they become,
Omnipotent. Thus, in procéss of years,
Be sure, our state will mount to Deity;
Gods shall we all become. Even since that time,—
Brief in the scope of ages,—when, first fallen
On this lone orb, in darkness and deep gloom
Of spirit we lay, as helpless for all good,—
What stretch enormous toward the godlike power
Have we not made! For that abhorrëd night
Whereto our enemy doomed us,—in full trust,
Doubtless, that here, to all eternity,
Would the black prison hold us, shorn of strength,
And opportunity, his schemes to vex,—
Lo! light we have, as in the courts of heaven;
And, from yon arch of gems that girds us round,
Colours more glorious than of choicest flowers
In fields celestial.

“Wherefore, think ye, sprang
Within the hollow heart of this dead sun
That wondrous glory of light? Had life again
Come to the mouldering skeleton? Nay; for death
Yet reigns throughout, save here, in this one vault,
Our council-hall. But wherefore here alone,—
The whole vast orb beside yet steeped in night—
Shines thus heaven's radiance, well may ye enquire
Haply because, at first, through art of mine,
Came the dark ruby glow that welcomed you,
Hither arriving, after your long trance,
Silent and dark as death,—to me again,
As being in art more potent, ye impute
That change far greater, likewise: yet not so;
For, more than even the least among you, nought
Of such bright coming knew I. Cause profound
For this new motion of life in midst of death,
Must be; perchance to us, at this our stage
Of being, far too deep for our best powers
Of vision, and clear reason to discern:
But, in the time to come, be sure, right plain,
This, and all other things mysterious most,—
The one Great Mystery, Cause, uncaused, except—
Will stand before us. In conjecture alone,
Lies all our wisdom now: but greatest things,
Distant, are by conjecture only known,
Till nearness gives them form. Thus, when, at first,
Piercing through space, on sight comes figure strange
In the far regions; and with curious ken
We scan it, marvelling what may be such patch
Of cloudy light; shapeless, or, haply, shaped
Grotesquely, like some thing that crawls on earth,
Or floats upon her seas: but lo! anon,
As through the space we cleave, the cloudy spot
Brightens to stars; the shapeless puts on form;
The crawling thing a constellation becomes,
Burning with countless suns! And even thus,
As, with the ages, will diminish space
'Twixt what we are, and what we shall become,
Speeding toward Godhead,—will all mysteries
Of hidden knowledge, dimly now beheld,
Or guessed at rather,—like that host of suns,
Shine forth in glory. Meantime, seeking cause
Wherefore that sudden radiance on us burst,
Thus I conjecture.

“Matter, in all forms,
Contains most wondrous qualities, and powers;
Unthought of, latent sleeping, till aroused.
Thus, in even coldest things of earth, lies fire.
Ye have beheld, amid her frigid zones,
Huge crags, from rocky mountains, by fierce frost,
Rent, and hurled down. Scarce ice itself more cold,—
Yet, as they crash, and leap, and thunder on,
Lo, from their shivering sides, fire, sulphurous fire,
As from swift whirling torches!—fire, thus waked
From sleep of myriad years. Nay,—wondrous more,—
In earth's dark polar oceans, ye have seen
The storm-tossed hills of ice together clash,
And grind out streams of fire; yea, fire from ice;
Which ice is, solely that it lacketh fire:
For, fire imparted, ice it is no more;
But water! Yet, within those hills of ice,
Lies all the while, in slumber wonderful,
Fire that might parch a forest, or consume
Man's proudest city.

“In ways numberless,
Matter on matter—lifeless seeming all—
Yet acts like thing of life: as friend, sometimes,
Sometimes as mortal foe. In one shape, fire,
As in fierce anger, seizing the green tree,
Turns it to ashes: yet that self-same fire,
In shape of summer warmth, the small seed aids,
Till a great tree it waxes.....One small grain
Slays the strong man in health,—another saves
From pain, or death, the weak.....The sea hath gulped,
Of solid salt,—impervious to light's beam
As granite—bulk to have formed a continent;
Yet fluid as ever remains, and crystal clear
As from spring-head.....Water, now, quenches fire,—
Now, with some matter working, kindles it.....
Some things there be, of so strange qualities,
That, brought together,—though, from earth's first day,
Until that instant, motionless,—yet, like foes
Deadliest, each on the other fixes hard,
As in a mortal conflict: but, at length,
Strife done,—as closest friends they join; and take
Form, aspect, quality, utterly unlike
Those to each, singly, native. Undisturbed,—
Thus, even for ever, might they quiet lie.
But, haply, will some other matter come,—
Stronger than these conjoined; and lo! at once,
Like a wild beast voracious, tooth and claw
It fixes—rends asunder;—upon one
Seizes, and grapples it—and intertwines
Its own, and victim's substances,—till,—each
Mixed with, and lost in the other,—both appear,
As single things, annihilate—transformed
To a substance wholly new. The other thing,
Thus violently divorced—wondrous to see,—
Sometimes its primitive form resumes; and rests
Calm and content, though vanquished,—takes, sometimes,
Shape of a fume, and, hissing, as in wrath,
Flies off, and disappears.....Most fluent tongue
Of Spirit the most eloquent, ages through,
Unpausing, might the marvellous powers rehearse,
And qualities of matter; yet, untold,
Leave work for cycles. All are mystery:
Nor, till beheld in the act, could we have known
The property of one atom. Wherefore, then,
Though yet unknown to us, may not Spirit, too,
Power have to influence Matter? Not more strange
That living Essence should dead Matter rule,
Than that the dead rule dead....Yet more for thought:
What, if this Matter be not wholly dead?
What if some wondrous kind of life it have,
Surpassing our conception?—and, in truth,
Much of its ways seem lifelike. What if it have
With Spirit some mode inconceivable
Of commune, or sympathy—even as sound with sound,
Strange sympathy hath. Ye all remember yet,
How, when one string upon our heavenly harps,
Singly was stricken—from some other came
Sweet tone responsive. Nor with sound alone,
Doth sound hold commune, or sympathy: ponderous things,
Substantial most,—with sound imponderable,
Viewless as Spirit,—have commune. Thunder speaks,
And the ground trembles. Mystery this, not less
Than the other mystery, conjectured now.
We guess in the dark: yet, till all possible powers,
And attributes of Matter, and Spirit, both,
Lie clear before us, who shall dare affirm
Of either the limits? or how each on each
May operate? If God, then he alone.
Meantime, conjecturing, once again I ask,—
As matter upon matter, in such ways
Mysterious acts,—wherefore,—not mystery more—
May not the mightier Spirit on it act,—
Even though unconsciously? Ye remember well
How—at that moment when the glory-flood
Suddenly fired this concave—we ourselves,
In our new splendor, had become as suns
Just risen, or freshly kindled. Strength to mount
From this our dungeon; and the universe,
From end to end,—the courts of heaven except,—
Freely to traverse,—sudden as the flash
Of lightning, in our spirits had arisen;
Sense waking of existence new begun;
New cycle opened in the eternity;
A mighty step in rank of being, gained;
A power, a glory, in our onward march
Toward Godhead. From ourselves, then, glorified thus—
Even though we knew it not,—as sun to earth
Gives light and warmth, unknowing of the gift—
May not some God-like influence have gone forth,
Which, like to breath of life, quickening the dead,
Within this mighty corpse-heart,—yea, well nigh
In all its wondrous glory original—
The Light-soul summoned back?

“Truth may this be,—
Not wild imagining. Instance have we not?
Why is Heaven glorious—but from presence of God?
And why not, then, this mansion glorified,
From our inhabiting?....But whate'er the cause,—
Whether a power from us, unconsciously
Transmitted;—or a power within itself,
By us but roused,—as fire from grinding rock,
Or clashing ice—alike must we conclude
That in ourselves sole cause immediate is
Of that new glory. For, what other thing
Can be imagined cause? Not He who holds,
As yet, heaven absolute; who drove us thence;
And here in blackness fixed us; confident
That in this void, beyond the bounds of life,
Prisoned we were for aye,—not He, be sure,
Freely would give to them whom most he hates,
And fears, aught that would gladden, or might aid
From durance to escape. And, if not He,
Who, or what else, ourselves alone except,
Can be conceived as cause? Though how ourselves
Cause could be, ignorant of the effect to come,
May wonder raise. But, through the universe,
Cause is not known, until effect appears;
Nor, known as cause, is ever understood
Why cause for such effect. A truth is seen,
And, by wise Spirit, registered for aye;
Though cause thereof a mystery ever be:
And every truth, so known, becomes a power
Unto the knower: truth on truth up-piled,
Is power on power upheaped: until at last,
All truths accomplished; all effect and cause,
In the infinitude of ages, known,—
Omniscience is the growth, Omnipotence;
The state of Godhead.

“Hence, the Eldest of things,—
A Spirit, doubtless, even as ourselves,
In his first origin,—through the infinite years
For ever gathering truth on truth; and power
Thence heaping upon power—now sole God reigns:
Mightiest of all, because the wisest far;
Wisest, because, by half eternity,
Eldest of beings. Yet even He, perchance,
All causes knowing, all effects, knows not
Wherefore, from that which causes, should effect,
Such, and no other come: from fire, why heat,
Not cold; from all the living suns, why light,
Not darkness. Well may we, then, be content,
Effect beholding, to admit a cause,
Unknowing how the cause; since, this except,
None else seems possible.

“As effect from cause,
Pronounce I, then, that sudden splendor of light,
From our own glory, as sudden, to have come:
Splendor most like to heaven's: and, or I err,
Plainly foreshowing how, with each access
Of power—to Spiritual Nature the sure growth
Of ages—will new lustres ever rise;
Till, with a glory, and might, and majesty,
Equal to His, we shall with Him divide
The rule of heaven; or, haply, a new heaven,
Solely our own, shall found; and therein reign,
Potential even as He in the heaven of old.