Ranolf and Amohia A dream of two lives. By Alfred Domett. New edition, revised |
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 | Ranolf and Amohia |  |
III.
And what did this Machine, this Logic-Mill
Grinding of mere necessity, not will,
Turn out as flour the hungry Soul to fill?
What drops of Truth did this Retort distil?
Grinding of mere necessity, not will,
Turn out as flour the hungry Soul to fill?
What drops of Truth did this Retort distil?
“Atoms! you build the Universe, with Gravity and Motion!
All Force is Force Mechanical; in Earth or Air or Ocean
Or depths of Space, of Spirit-Force we have no need or notion!
From Ether springs in Vortex-rings your being—your beginning;
By knot or clot therein begot, you spirally go spinning!
You clash, vibrate and generate Heat—your elastic quiver;
For Light—you smite through Ether's night a billion-league-long shiver!
You shrink and swell, attract—repel; heap single kinds in gases;
Or in proportions rare—exact, combine your varied classes
In molecules that join compact in elemental masses.
But restless Chance forced some of you, now mutually repelling,
In Æons past to mix and make one Molecule excelling
Whose myriads formed a tissue fine with plastic powers indwelling—
That ‘Protoplasm’ Light and Heat from their Sun-hidden sluices
Streamed on and stung into self-multiplying cells and juices—
Coaxed into creatures organised for simplest wants and uses.
These Molecules, impelled at first by just that Force mechanic
Which lifelike works in falling stones and crystals inorganic
We christen ‘Plastidules’—such plastic vivid stuff providing;—”
All Force is Force Mechanical; in Earth or Air or Ocean
Or depths of Space, of Spirit-Force we have no need or notion!
From Ether springs in Vortex-rings your being—your beginning;
By knot or clot therein begot, you spirally go spinning!
You clash, vibrate and generate Heat—your elastic quiver;
For Light—you smite through Ether's night a billion-league-long shiver!
You shrink and swell, attract—repel; heap single kinds in gases;
Or in proportions rare—exact, combine your varied classes
In molecules that join compact in elemental masses.
But restless Chance forced some of you, now mutually repelling,
In Æons past to mix and make one Molecule excelling
Whose myriads formed a tissue fine with plastic powers indwelling—
54
Streamed on and stung into self-multiplying cells and juices—
Coaxed into creatures organised for simplest wants and uses.
These Molecules, impelled at first by just that Force mechanic
Which lifelike works in falling stones and crystals inorganic
We christen ‘Plastidules’—such plastic vivid stuff providing;—”
“O nothing like hard names in Greek, their weaker points for hiding
When to foregone conclusions Wits o'er cracking ice are gliding!
Here, crept in somehow while fine words our senses were beguiling,
See Life, mysterious Stranger, stands beside us blandly smiling!”—
A hint from Ranolf's Tutor this—his lecture-notes compiling.
When to foregone conclusions Wits o'er cracking ice are gliding!
Here, crept in somehow while fine words our senses were beguiling,
See Life, mysterious Stranger, stands beside us blandly smiling!”—
A hint from Ranolf's Tutor this—his lecture-notes compiling.
“Then Chance and outward Nature's force compelled slow variation
In organs dowered with inward power of happy adaptation;
And creatures owning these endured; the rest died out neglected;
Defects from Sire to Son increased, or organs new perfected;
Thus for survival in the end the fittest were selected;
And Being's glorious cycle thus through all its grades unfolded,
The lower still advanced to higher,—lured, fostered, fed and moulded,
Or checked—killed off, as things around might well or badly suit them,
And favouring Chance or frowning chose to ruin or recruit them,
Till Monads grew to Man!—And whence his mighty Soul's resources?
Sunclear!—Each Atom has a Soul—the sum of all its forces—
Immutable—immortal—One—through all its myriad courses:
Each kind through chance-alliances, vicissitudes, convulsions,
Still true to its peculiar powers, attractions and repulsions.
And Plastidules have Souls as well—each Soul an aggregation
Of Souls of all the Atoms that it holds in combination;
But fickle, complex, varied, ever changeable and changing;
Through tangled files and piles on piles of finest fibre ranging,—
Till Man's great Soul at last their whole complexities embraces!
For Motion and Sensation are of all Soul-Life the bases;
(Touch a mimosa-leaf—it shrinks, a crab—it slinks off sideways;
To move—to feel, with Will—without, how close are their allied ways!)
Brain-molecules of course have both; and when, like church-bells ringing,
When stimulants, with nerves of sense for bell-ropes, set them swinging
Up in the belfry-brain, their subtle shiftings and vibrations
Are Consciousness and Thought, with all their endless commutations;—”
In organs dowered with inward power of happy adaptation;
And creatures owning these endured; the rest died out neglected;
Defects from Sire to Son increased, or organs new perfected;
Thus for survival in the end the fittest were selected;
And Being's glorious cycle thus through all its grades unfolded,
The lower still advanced to higher,—lured, fostered, fed and moulded,
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And favouring Chance or frowning chose to ruin or recruit them,
Till Monads grew to Man!—And whence his mighty Soul's resources?
Sunclear!—Each Atom has a Soul—the sum of all its forces—
Immutable—immortal—One—through all its myriad courses:
Each kind through chance-alliances, vicissitudes, convulsions,
Still true to its peculiar powers, attractions and repulsions.
And Plastidules have Souls as well—each Soul an aggregation
Of Souls of all the Atoms that it holds in combination;
But fickle, complex, varied, ever changeable and changing;
Through tangled files and piles on piles of finest fibre ranging,—
Till Man's great Soul at last their whole complexities embraces!
For Motion and Sensation are of all Soul-Life the bases;
(Touch a mimosa-leaf—it shrinks, a crab—it slinks off sideways;
To move—to feel, with Will—without, how close are their allied ways!)
Brain-molecules of course have both; and when, like church-bells ringing,
When stimulants, with nerves of sense for bell-ropes, set them swinging
Up in the belfry-brain, their subtle shiftings and vibrations
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“Hoho! but here methinks the Ice with thundering cracks is starry!”—
“Down motor-nerves to muscles then, those tremors run nor tarry,
But Thought to Voluntary Act by reflex working carry.
And what are Likes—Dislikes?—Why, mere repulsions or attractions
Nerve-atoms keep—the source of all emotions—passions—actions.
As rose organic Life, the new accretions—complications
Roused in responsive brain by new external needs—relations,
Inherited, gave Instincts born with after generations:
Till, say, the White Ant's wondrous care for ‘tribal welfare’—rising
To moral worth that weal required—the brain still aggrandizing,
In Man to ‘Conscience’ soared at last, and ‘Duty’ self-despising!—
Yes! 'tis brain-atom-groups upbuild your stormy rage, you Tyrant!
Their countless links of forces forge your hopes, O heaven-aspirant!
While passion-atoms in your brain, pale Lover, 'tis, that pester
That blooming pile of Molecules (whose powers as such attest her,
Repelling while attracting too) your lovely peace-molester!”
But Thought to Voluntary Act by reflex working carry.
And what are Likes—Dislikes?—Why, mere repulsions or attractions
Nerve-atoms keep—the source of all emotions—passions—actions.
As rose organic Life, the new accretions—complications
Roused in responsive brain by new external needs—relations,
Inherited, gave Instincts born with after generations:
Till, say, the White Ant's wondrous care for ‘tribal welfare’—rising
To moral worth that weal required—the brain still aggrandizing,
In Man to ‘Conscience’ soared at last, and ‘Duty’ self-despising!—
Yes! 'tis brain-atom-groups upbuild your stormy rage, you Tyrant!
Their countless links of forces forge your hopes, O heaven-aspirant!
While passion-atoms in your brain, pale Lover, 'tis, that pester
That blooming pile of Molecules (whose powers as such attest her,
Repelling while attracting too) your lovely peace-molester!”
| Ranolf and Amohia | |