University of Virginia Library

Of all pathetic things the most is this—
A happy bright-eyed Child, some four years old,
Making acquaintance with man's common world.
Joy, wonder, eager questionings; anon
An anxious look, a swift and wide-eyed stare
At his dear Oracle; and merry laughs
And low contented songs made by himself
Are his; and youthful strange imaginings!
And sometimes you may see those innocent eyes
Fix'd in a meditative trance, the while
He strives to see some vaguest vapoury form
Of thought within him.

O this world of ours!

I am your Prophet, Priest, and Oracle,
My little Son; whatever I respond
Is fate. One only answer vexes you—
“I do not know.” You try and try again
For something better, and are ill-content.
But often must you hear those baffling words;
And often must you say them to yourself
When manhood, which you deem omniscient,
Is yours in turn,—is like what we have found.
O guard thee, Prophet, well, not to mislead
Thy neophyte! The dream, the phantasy
Thou puttest in his mind, is truth for him,
Until he finds it untrue. This young soul
Tremulous with wonder, curiosity,
Imagination, (look but in his face)
Drinks in the world through every joyful sense;
Sensation turns to thought and thought revives
Sensation in the memory; thus is built
The body of the mind by slow degrees,
With order'd imagery, with habitudes
Of movement; and the little world it lives in
Is its own making chiefly. All the while,
The great world lives around it, and includes
It with the rest of things. A word of mine,
Be it the emptiest breath, can take firm shape
In my son's world; the herald's animals,
Insert them in his natural-history book,
Were just as credible as any there;
Angel is no whit harder to conceive
Than eagle, and a Heaven above the clouds
(Reach'd by balloon perhaps) much easier
Than suns and planets and space without a bound.
Thou shalt not build a false world, little Son,
If skill of mine can sift the follies out
Men have mix'd up with everything. My care
Is less to teach than save thee from being taught
Half-truths and falsehoods in thy tender time.

Beware, my Son, of words! The Human Race
Hath stored its wisdom there, its errors there,
Mistakes and follies and duplicities.
Of words false gods are made, each doom'd at last
A worn-out idol to the lumber-loft
Or trim museum,—concourse wonderful,
Superb, grotesque, pathetic, and obscene!

Childhood will ask, “Who made all these things?” “God.”
“Where does God live?”—suppose I point and say,
“On that high mountain top”; my child regards
The peak with joyful awe; but one day climbs
And finds a barren frosty crag,—nor heeds
The wide spread glory of things encircling it.
He hears of Heaven above the clouds; his book
At school confutes it: starry heaven goes blank.
Words said to children can be only true,
Or not, in their direct and simple sense.
“At such and such a place, God walked with men;
They saw and heard Him; what he said and did
Is warrant for your duties and your hopes.”
The warm young spirit trustfully accepts,
Lies down, uprises, in a full belief,
From day to day, for many days and years,
Till one day comes the question, “Is this true?”
Nay, teach the plans, ways, character of God,
With Man's relations to Him thence deduced,
In any form of words you will: how fence
The fatal question out—“But is this true?”
The answer “No!” smites all truth to the ground,
The vine and prop together; Truth itself,
Immortal Truth, lies murder'd!

Foolishness,
Dishonesty and cowardice of men,
What bitter pain, what cruel wrongs ye breed!
As if our case were not perplex'd enough,
And troublesome enough, and sad enough,
But we must writhe in self-inflicted pangs!

But in the reign of Science you are born.
Theology, with pomp and riches yet,
Sits mumbling, droning, in his padded chair,
Gouty, asthmatic, ailing every way.
A young audacious voice rings through the land—
“Ask questions, men, where ye may hope reply
By gauge of human faculties, may test
Reply when found. First cause and final cause
In every case being out of reach, henceforth
Fix eye and thought upon the scrutable;
Travel, examine, and subdue throughout
The great domain of Science; step by step,
Link after link, trace, test, confirm and fix
The sequences of natural law; reduce
The complex to the simple; thus control,
So far as man may do so, human life,
The race itself; attain, whate'er it be,
No twilight Land of Dreams, Fool's Paradise,
Hid in a theologic labyrinth
Or metaphysic jungle. How sublime
In its simplicity, one single fact
In pure mechanic formula express'd,
(Shall it be call'd Vibration?—possibly)
And all phenomena its aspects merely!
This we shall find at last.”

And then? what then?
Are we at home henceforward in the world?
All comfortably settled in our minds,
Knowing the immortal truth—Vibration?
Shall we spoonfeed our babes on science-pap,
Till teeth find tougher work? train them to scan
The mechanism of all phenomena,
To measure and set it down in proper form,—
The ne plus ultra this, which cannot baulk?
Again I say, Beware of words, my Son.
Exact and systematic knowledge—good!
But now, of what? Of the true nature of things?
That is abjured. No step found possible
In that direction. Of phenomena?
“Surely.” But I deny it: very close
We peer, and make our atoms very small,
Yet after all 'tis but the coarser part
Of any one phenomenon of nature
Which we can measure and make record of.
Science is measurement, no more, no less,
Whatever sauce we add. Minds wholly fill'd
With Physical Science (and a fond conceit
That they alone know Nature) miss and lose
The natural appearances of things
Beyond all common ignorance. Day and night,
Earth, ocean, sky, the seasons, peopled full
With countless forms of life; a world imbued
With mystic beauty, wonder, awfulness,
Powers inexpressible and infinite,
Whereto man's spirit exquisitely thrills,
Raised, rapt, and soaring on celestial wings,—
Which ecstasy begetteth Art in some,
In every sane soul Worship in some wise,
Voiceful or silent,—shall we see instead
The tall ghost of a pair of compasses
Stalking about a world of diagrams,
And algebraic regiments that march
And countermarch, and wheel?

O learn all this—
If so thou fail not to come back at last,
My son, to nature's own rich symbolism!
Value appearances, and study these
To see them well,—your first relationship,
Your last and truest too, with circumstance;
More excellent by far to apprehend
Than all disclosures of analysis.
Upon the surface earthly Beauty blooms,
Yielding itself to every loving eye,
Known heavenly in its correspondences
When Seer or Poet comes; immortal flow'r,
Belovèd of Man's soul, no trivial thing,
No fleeting thing as flimsy proverbs wail!
Inferior truths are good in their degree,
But the first-met is first, nor ever can
Be weigh'd or measured. That the world is fair
Concerns us more than that the world is round,
(Though this, like every truth, be well to fix);
The rose, the primrose, and the hawthorn-flow'r,
The colours of the dawn or evening air,
Clouds, mountains, rivers, woodlands, grassy meads,
The varying ocean and the starry night,
The countless shapes of animals, and most
The human form, and miracle of face,
Have in their beauty more significance
Than tabulated light-waves which impinge
On optic nerves and yield the brain a sense
Of red, blue, yellow—Science knows not how.
Science can but afford a pitying smile
If you forget that just where warmth begins
Of human interest in a question, there
Science stops short. And let her have the praise
Of keeping in her limit, if she keep,
And lack not limitation's humbleness.

Beware, I say, of words, warm, wide, and loose;
Beware of cold and rigid formulæ
No less; both full of power—they are not things,
Nor even thoughts, but shadowings-forth of thoughts,
Wearing a phantom dignity themselves.
True, that we think by these: most men by words,
The grave mathematician by his signs,
Expressing a mechanic universe,
Yet giving irrepressible Fancy room
To sport in magical curves and deem herself
Almost creative in mechanic wise,
Leaving out life and beauty merely. Words
Have melody and colour, and therewith
The Poet's art can build a lovelier world,
Nay, truer than the common, for the gold
Is smelted from the dross that made it dull.
Be ever thankful of poetic truth,
And hold it fast. Value Appearances,
And let Imagination teach their worth,
Counting this practical. A sane clear mind
To see, and to imagine, is a mind
Of noblest rank: learning will nourish it,
But not to any show of learning: such
Are Seers and Poets. Through appearances
Beheld with keen and sympathetic eyes
Imaginative insight pierces deep
To something secret,—not mechanical
But spiritual, and wholly beyond reach
Of Science, which too often is so vain
As therefore to deny it scornfully;
Spiritual, and not contain'd or circumscribed
In any science ever formulated,
Or any creed that is or will be made,
Or aught that eye can see, or ear can hear;
For subtler, dearer, more delicious beauty
Lives in the soul than in the outer world,
And therefore fact is poor to dreams and hopes,
Child-fancies beggar all the famous things.

Ah, might we trust the Poets all in all!
Too often they divert themselves and us
With gambols in the air. Amorous of words,
Temptable by a rhyme or phrase, they make
Language their end not means; or sometimes stoop
To stroke the public ear and give those jaws
The food they gape for.

Men, in short, my Son,
Speak truth by most imperfect signs at best,
And with it many follies, many lies,
Deceiving or deceived, being only men,
Weak, wavering, limited. Yet men alone
See, note, explore, make record of, would fain,
But cannot ever, comprehend the world,
Life being a mystery, not a mechanism;
Orderly Miracle, where some men see
The Order, some the Wonder, most, and shape
Their diagrams, their phantasies; the Wise,
Wedding experience and imagination—
Both; and lift up their eyes and hands to God.

As to the Future, that is God's affair.
I am not Ruler of the Universe,
Nor in His secrets; but I hold Him good,
His riches boundless, and His will to give.
Also that Man has share, whatever share,
In working out the Universal Plans,
And man's own fate is partly in his power
For each of us; how far we cannot know.
This I do know, immortal thoughts alone,
Eternal things, have interest for my soul—
That which is truly me, my inmost self.

Man can help men, and also hinder them.
Men's evil and folly are to guard against,
Assuming many shapes; not dangerous least
In Books, pretended utterances of thought.
I say it who have loved books all my life.
The tongue may lie, or, self-deceiving, show
Folly as wisdom, may omit or add,
Transpose, misrepresent: more easily
The pen; and lo, by typographic art
What inky robes of grave authority
Do words put on, and in the library
The volume takes its seat among its peers,
Or quasi-peers. Nowhere such solemn shams
As pen and printer's ink can make! Man's tongue
Is flexible, but eye, face, voice, and gesture,
Body and whole demeanour help you well
To check or to corroborate his speech
(Put faith in physiognomy!); a Book
Wears deep disguise; may be a puppet-thing,
And not a man at all. The World of Books
Is full of glamour; evil, good, false, true,
Living and dead; enchanted wilderness
Where many wander, few can find a path,
Or gather what is good for them. My Boy,
I vow, shall not begin to read too soon!
Learning can nourish Wisdom, when good food
Is quietly digested; but, too oft,
Unfit, ill-cook'd, or overloaded meals
Lie crude and swell the belly with wind, or breed
Dull fat, mistook for portliness and strength.
And surely never since the world began
So many Learned Fools as now-a-days,
Or Learned Folly with so loud a voice.
Even the Wiser slip from sanity
At times, and swell the roaring storm of words.

I am your Oracle and Prophet now,
Young Mortal, weak and ignorant as I am
And fain to question rather than reply.
Yet have I journey'd on the road of life
Full many a mile, and bought experiences,
Have seen, done, joy'd and suffer'd, with a soul
Not timid, neither hard, sincere in grain,
Open to every influence, not engross'd
Of any, wishing well to all I met.
On foot, but not a beggar, have I fared,
Rested in huts and inns and palace halls,
Conversed on equal terms with many men,
Crept through dark valleys, climbed the mountain tops,
And known all kinds of weather. Here I sit
By fireside, with a baby on my knee.
A Boy with golden curls and grave blue eyes.
Asking me questions. Shall I tell him truth?
Yes, Dearest, now and ever! But to know
The needful questions is to be mature.
A child but asks as prompted—mostly, too,
Prompted by Ignorance in Wisdom's mask;
She uses words unmeaningly, and crowds
Life's pathways with memorials of man's folly.
Prompt him I must, and honestly give answer.
“Who made the world?”—Great God: we use that name.
How do we know Him?—In the heart and soul.
What is He?—No man hath the power to know.”
This is enough to tell him at the time.

Man hath no thoughts to think what God is like,
And much less words to say; but he can feel
At times the Presence great and wonderful
Beyond all words and thoughts and dreams, and yet
Wherein we live and move and have our being.
All great truths are incomprehensible;
Much more the Living Centre of them all.
The clearest moments of the noblest men
Give insight thitherward, and what they see
Belongs to man, though some regard it not.
Soon the clouds roll together, the ground-fogs
Grow thick, and all the vision disappears;
But what the best eyes at their best behold
Is Truth Divine; the test whereof is this—
A lofty sanity of thought and life
In whoso doth receive it, harmony
Felt in his inmost being, nor wholly hid
From other men. But how impossible
To put the vision into words, nor weave
Therewith a snare! O folly, to suppose
That speech, however wonderful it be,
Is more than makeshift! Could I stop thine ears
Till thou art somewhat ripened in thy mind,
My Son, from all more free discourse of God,
Dogmatic, controversial, personal,
I would; and I will do it, all I can.

It may be thou art born to a troublous time,
Retributive on nations for their sins.
At least, thou shalt escape one evil thing—
My Evil May-day, doleful to endure,
Sad to remember. Yet it pass'd; I live;
And God lives.