 | The Burdens of Belief and Other Poems |  |
A MOTE
On one fair autumn morn the sunbeams smote
Through creviced inlets on my darkened room,
And in their rays the sudden-silvered mote
Flashed out, and quickly lost itself in gloom:
Through creviced inlets on my darkened room,
And in their rays the sudden-silvered mote
Flashed out, and quickly lost itself in gloom:
Fit emblem this of all our human path;
From dark it passeth into dark again;
Such fleeting course it is our spirit hath,
So pass between two darks the lives of men.
From dark it passeth into dark again;
Such fleeting course it is our spirit hath,
So pass between two darks the lives of men.
Yet as the mote, unseen, floats ever on,
And yieldeth not its substance into nought,
So of our mind, when outward form is gone
It loseth not the essence which it brought.
And yieldeth not its substance into nought,
So of our mind, when outward form is gone
It loseth not the essence which it brought.
45
If that which we call matter never dies,
Enduring ever though transfused in forms,
Can this great thing that so self-conscious lies
Melt more to nothing than the dust of storms?
Enduring ever though transfused in forms,
Can this great thing that so self-conscious lies
Melt more to nothing than the dust of storms?
No thing so self-existent as a mind,
So single, or so rounded as a whole,
The thinking power that is in human kind,
The power, within, we know of as the soul.
So single, or so rounded as a whole,
The thinking power that is in human kind,
The power, within, we know of as the soul.
And as the mote that floats in viewless ways
Shines with a brilliance that is not its own,
So does our living soul reflect the rays
Of one great Life that is to us unknown.
Shines with a brilliance that is not its own,
So does our living soul reflect the rays
Of one great Life that is to us unknown.
Yet something is there in our inner grain
Which feels the light that on itself is thrown,
Feels it as light, nor feels it all in vain,
For it can gaze, and love, till more is shown.
Which feels the light that on itself is thrown,
Feels it as light, nor feels it all in vain,
For it can gaze, and love, till more is shown.
And more must come when souls recross the Dark,
And wake again in splendours whence they came;
When life no longer, here, a slender spark,
But there—unquenched, beholds the central Flame
And wake again in splendours whence they came;
When life no longer, here, a slender spark,
But there—unquenched, beholds the central Flame
46
From whence have come all longings for the Truth,
And all desires for fuller life of love
For life unbroken—some undying youth,—
That sees—and needs not to believe, or prove.
And all desires for fuller life of love
For life unbroken—some undying youth,—
That sees—and needs not to believe, or prove.
| The Burdens of Belief and Other Poems | |