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Think of the foresight proved in that small fact—
Next century's oak within an acorn packed!
But ‘Mummy-corn’! O greater wonder hid
Than from the summit of its Pyramid
Those famous ‘Forty Ages’ saw or did!
Rome rose—toiled through long glories—slow decay;
Still, seeming dead, that grain's-germ ready lay
To shoot, a blade—a beautiful green birth
Soon as it touched ev'n England's warm moist earth!
Truly this Life-in-death with new life fired,
Some ‘knowledge of affinities’ required—
Some lasting holdfast to an end desired!
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What sense in sense-less tissue there can be!
Mark—in a tiny mote you scarce can see
‘The movement to achieve an end precedes
And makes the organ for the end it needs.’
A floating jelly-speck in filmy skin—
Protean globule changing form at will—
Borne on by currents that revolve within,
Wraps itself round the mite of food it meets
And turns into a stomach! Feat of feats!
How do such prescient impulses begin?—
Mark other jellied sea-motes simpler still,
Where neither limb nor organ you espy,
Nor any structure Science can detect,
Expanding into spider-webs, erect
Shell-marvels of minutest masonry
That for ingenious geometric skill
With mightiest Angelo's or Wren's may vie;—
How do such impulses such ends fulfil?
‘Fancy the antenatal human Ear!’
(Says one consummate Master of Thought severe)
‘In secret framed—of microscopic size—
That grand Piano of three thousand strings,
Each to distinct vibrations fitly tuned
Of the outer air with which it ne'er communed,
Anticipates all Music's melodies.’
What! had the Cause from which this marvel springs
No mental power to regulate—review
All the relations of these complex things—
Purposely make them each to each so true?
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But say, through Æons film by film 'twas spun,
With power to breed it passed from Sire to Son;—
By greater prescience then the end was won.
O wise dorr-beetle! you make fit supply
For eggs you lay the moment ere you die;
Look forward to results with foresight keen—
From want beforehand will an offspring screen
You and your ancestors have never seen;
With means most apt unconsciously achieve
Ends you know nothing of, nor could conceive!
Is there no Power to which your wants were known?
No guidance here—or sense beyond your own?
See working Bees, from whom their Queen has flown,
A sexless grub with ‘royal jelly’ feed,
And make it ‘grow a Queen’ new swarms to breed!
Could all the Reason, Science, Skill of Man,
Working their utmost since the World began,
Work towards an End upon a subtler plan
Or surer, than these brainless Insects can?
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