University of Virginia Library

III.

To mystic depths and mistier. Hegel shrouds
Himself and Truth in denselier-rolling clouds,
Like Arab genie sore opprest in fight;
His splendour flashes through redoubled night.
Thoughts are the same as Things; and what is true
Of one must be so of the other too.
No base but Thought the Mind's conceptions claim,
And your ‘external Objects’ have the same;
In Thought what proves consistent, rational, sound,
Must then in Things be Real and Actual found.
But Reason says: Your Absolute enfolds
All Actuals; cannot be at all, or holds
Good—Evil—utter contraries in one—
Mutual destructives in Its union.
Therein encounter, coexist, embrace,
Flat contradictions which whene'er you trace
The bounds of Being, stare you in the face!
Nay, Being's self therein, a balance lies
Of yoked yet suicidal contraries:
For Non-Existence, as a Thought, must be
Like pure Existence, a Reality:
While of pure abstract Being, uncombined
With qualities of any form or kind,
Nought can we know or predicate aright:
So Being falls into Non-Being's plight;
Each dies—revives—becomes its opposite.—
The positive and negative descried
In all things are such discords so allied.
For each Idea or Object (which you please,
Both are the same) evolves itself like these;
But these destroy and shut each other out;
A negative is all they bring about;
Still as the Idea is there and must remain,
That negative must be denied again.
As Abstract Space, for instance, cannot be
Conceived as bounded or as boundless either;
Yet must be one to be at all, you see,
Then cannot be at all, because 'tis neither;
A negative which meets denial clear,
For Space is something after all—and here.
That last negation, then, the Idea revives,
And subtler complex Being to it gives
In the ‘Conditioned’ where alone it lives.
Those magnet-poles, the two extremes, are gone,
And in the central point survive alone;
Object and Subject, Universe and Soul,
Are in that centre, one and real, and whole;
Each in itself a nothing we may call,
But their relation to each other—all.
Like alkali and acid, they attract
Each other, meet, and perish in the act—
The effervescence rests the only fact.
So the ‘Becoming’—the immediate spring
From Nought to Somewhat, is the vital thing;—
“Well, well!” broke out our student here, “at least
It cannot be denied this great High Priest
Of metaphysic Mysteries, has the wit,
The ant-lion boasts who scoops his cone-shaped pit
In subtlest sand, and there securely hides;
And when into the trap the victim slides,
And strives in vain to climb the slipping sides,
Down, deeper down, the crafty digger goes,
And o'er his prey such blinding dust-showers throws,
He triumphs quickly, and the intruder draws
Bewildered into those remorseless jaws.”
But when unflinching Hegel flatly laid
The axiom down he would not have gainsaid,
Disdaining compromise—dispute—or flout
(Settling so coolly Hamlet's staggering doubt)
“To Be is Not-to-be—and Not-to-be
To Be—agree to that, or disagree,
'Tis Logic's first great axiom, and most true!”
What could a youth with risible organs do,
At this, Philosophy's last grand exploit,
But ‘ding the book the distance of a quoit’
Away—and with a shout of laughter loud,
Light a cigar, and blow—as clear a cloud?—