Though in the various forms of concrete good
We see the similars, and from these frame
A good that serves the purposes of life.
We pass it as we do the concept, “Man,”
But never ope to count the attributes.
Our purest right is but approximate
To this vague abstract idea, how obtained,
We know not. Plato says ’tis memory
Of previous life. Perhaps! ’Tis very dim
In this; and yet it rocks the cradle world
As strongly as the baby man can bear
And so of truth, or aught abstract, we know
Of such existence somewhere, that is all.
“But we,” cries one, “do hold some abstract truth,
In perfect form. The truth of science’ laws,
The truths of numbers, each are perfect truths.”
The truths of science are hypotheses,
And only true as far as they explain.
But perfect truth must save all facts,
That ever rose or possibly can rise.
“The priest of Nature” thought he held the truth
When throughout space he tracked the motes of light,
And ground the sunbeams into dazzling dust.
Our quivering waves through subtle ether flash,
And drown Sir Isaac’s atoms in a flood
Of glorious truth; till some new fact shall rise
To give our truth the lie, and cause a change
Of theory.
Our numbers no truth have,
Or but a shadow, cast on Earth by truth
Existent in some unknown world. We make
Our little numbers fit the shadow’s line
As best they can, and boast eternal truth!
Yet take a simple form of numbers, “two,”
We cannot have a perfect thought of this,
Because the mind directly asks, two what?
’Tis not enough chameleon to feed
On empty air. Two units, we reply
Then what is meant by unity? An “One,”--
The mind can only cognize o-n-e,
Which makes three units and not one.
The mind
Must have a concrete object to adjust
The abstract on, before it comprehends.
But two concretes are never two, because
They never can be proved exactly ’like.
To illustrate: suppose two ivory balls,
Of finest mold, and equal weight, precise
As hair-hung scales, arranged most delicate,
Can prove; yet they can not be shown
To differ, not the trillionth of a grain;
Or if they could, they may in density
Be unlike; then to equal weight, one must
Be larger by the trillionth of an inch.
Even if alike in density and weight,
No one will dare assert that they possess
A perfect similarity in all.
The abstract two is twice as much as one,
But our two balls unlike, perforce must be
Greater or less than two of either one;
But two of one, the same can never be
On poor, imperfect Earth. Thus all our twos
Fall, in some measure, short of concept two.
And if we paint the concept to the eye,
The figure 2 of finest stereotype,
Beneath the microscope imperfect shows.
And so our perfect numbers, wisdom’s boast,
Are faint, uncertain shadows in the mind,
That we can never picture to the eye,
Nor truthfully apply to anything.
We use a ragged, ill-drawn substitute,
That answers all the purposes of life.
The truths of mathematics, so sublime,
Are never true to us, concretely known;
And in the abstract so concealed are they,
No man can swear he has their perfect form.
We can’t conceive a line without some breadth--
The perfect line possesses length alone;
Earth never saw a pure right-angle drawn,
Pythag’ras cannot prove his theorem,
The finest quadrant is but nearest truth,
The closest measures but approximate,
And all from Sanconiathon to Pierce,
With grandest soaring into Number’s realms,
Have only fluttered feebly o’er the ground,
Their heaven-strong wings by feebling matter tied.
Man is a pris’ner, but the prison walls
Are very vast; so vast the universe
Lies, like a mote, within their mighty scope.
Most are content to grovel on the earth,
Some rise a little way, and sink again;
And some, on noble wing, soar to the bounds,
And eager beat the bars. Beyond these walls
The abstract lies, and oft the straggling rays,
Through crevices and chinks, stray to our jail;
And these we fondly hug as truth.
Poor man!
The glimpses of the great Beyond have roused,
For centuries, his curious soul to flight.
With eagle eye fixed on the distant goal,
He cleaves his way, till dashed against the walls;
Some fall with bruiséd wing again to Earth,
And some cling bravely there, so eager they
To reach the untouched prize, and so intent
Their gaze upon its light, they notice not
The bounds, till Hamilton, with wary eye,
Discovers the Eternal bounding line,
And sadly shows its hopeless fixity.
But man on Earth I love to ridicule,
A little clod of sordid selfishness!
I’ll take his mental acts of every kind
And see how self originates them all;
I’ll follow Stewart, since he classifies
With shrewd discretion, though his reasoning err,
He places first the appetites; and these
Perforce are selfish, as our self alone
Must feel and suffer with our wants. Our food
Tastes good alone to us. The richest feast,
In others’ mouths, could never satisfy
Our appetite for food; self must be fed.
Desires are next; and that of knowledge, first,
Is proven selfish, by his quoted line
From Cicero--that “knowledge is the food
Of mind”--and food is ever sought for self.
Desire of social intercourse with men,
From thought that it will better self, proceeds.
Man’s state is friendly, not a state of war,
For instinct teaches him society
Will offer many benefits to self;
And only when he has a cause to fear
That self will suffer, does he learn to war.
Desire to gain esteem, is self in search
Of approbation; like the appetite,
The end pursued affects alone the self.
And lastly Stewart boasts posthumous fame,
When self, as sacrificed, can seek no good.
To prove the motive is a selfish good,
I’ll not assert enjoyment after life,
But say, the pleasure of the millions’ praise,
Anticipated in the present thought,
And intense consciousness of heroism,
Far more than compensates the pangs of death.
A Curtius leaping down the dread abyss,
Enjoys his fame enough, before he strikes,
To pay for every pain of mangling death.
Affections next adorn the moral page.
At that of kindred, mothers cry aloud:
“For shame! for shame! do you pretend to say
I love my child with any thought of self?
When I would lay my arm upon the block,
And have it severed for his slightest good!”
I’ll square your love by Reason’s rigid rule,
And test its source. Why do you love him so?
For benefit he has conferred, or may?
No, as the helpless babe, demanding care,
You love him most. Your love is instinct then,
And like the cow her calf, you love your child;
That you may care for him, before self moves.
Then do you love him always just the same,
When rude and bad as when obedient?
But I’ll dissect your love, and take away
Each part affecting self; and see what’s left.
He now has grown beyond your instinct love;
You love him, first, because he is your son,
And you would suffer blame, if you did not;
You love him, too, because he does reflect
A credit on yourself. You feel assured
That others thinking well of him, think well
Of you. Because it flatters all your pride
To think so fine a life is part of yours;
Because his high opinion of your worth
Evokes a meet return; because you look
Into the future, and see honors bright
Awaiting you through him; because you feel
The world is praising you for loving him,
And would condemn you, did you not. And last,
You feel the pleasure deep of self-esteem,
Because you fill the public’s and your own
Romantic ideas of a mother’s love.
Let each component part be now destroyed,
And see if still you love him. As a man,
He plunges into vice of vilest kinds;
His bright reflections on yourself are gone,
And people think the worse of you, for him;
You never smile, but frown, upon him now,
But still you love him dearly! To his vice
He adds a crime, a foul and blasting crime;
Your pride is gone, you feel a bitter shame,
A score of opposites to love creep in;
A righteous anger at his foolish sins,
A just contempt for nature, weak as his;
But yet you love him fondly, for the world
Is lauding you for “mother’s holy love”;
And you delight its clinging strength to show,
You gain in public credit by your woes,
And get the soothing martyr’s sympathy.
But let him still grow worse, and sink so low,
That people say you are disgraced through him,
Your warmest friends will not acquaintance own,
Your love for such an object’s ridiculed,
And gains respect from none. Your only chance
Is to disown him. How you loud proclaim,
“He’s not my child but by the accident
Of birth!”
Do yet you love him in your heart?
This then because you think yourself so good,
So heaven-like, for loving him disgraced,
You go to see him in the shameful jail;
He spits upon, and beats you from his cell,
And tells you that he hates your very name.
Now all your love is gone, except the glow
Of pity for him chained to dungeon floor;
But he’s released, and deeper goes in crime;
Then, lastly, Pity yields. Your heart is stone!
But love was only touched in selfish part,
Yet should you still deny your love is self’s;
Of several children, do you not love most
The one whose conduct pleases most yourself?
But love, unselfish, never could be moved
By anything affecting self alone.
The throbbing hearts of lovers beat for self,
And this I’ll prove, though Pyramus may vow
He has no thought but Thisbe.
Take away
Love’s sensual part, which is an appetite,
And therefore selfish, by its Nature’s law;
And what remains is, first, a slight conceit
At our discernment in the choice we’ve made,
And then a pride that we have won the prize;
A pride, that some one thinks we are the best;
A pleasure in her presence, too, we feel,
Because in every look she manifests
Her preference for us. This is flattering
Beyond all else that we have ever known.
A friend may raise our self-esteem, indeed,
By showing constantly his own esteem,
But never can man’s vanity receive
A higher tribute than a woman’s love!
This tribute, we, of course, reciprocate,
And when together, we increase self-love
By mutual words expressing our regard.
Yet when our love is deepest, if we find
Our Self is not so worshipped as we thought,
Our love grows cold; and when we are not loved
We cease to love. To illustrate permit:
You’re on the topmost wave of fervid love--
A wilder flame than poets ever sung;
You’ve passed the timid declaration’s bounds,
And revel in a full assured return.
There is no need for check upon your heart,
It has full leave to pour its gushing tide
Of feeling forth, and meet responsive floods.
You meet her in the parlor’s solitude,
No meddling eye to watch the sacred scene.
The purple curtains hang their corded folds
Before the tell-tale windows; closed the door,
And sealed with softest list. The rich divan
Is drawn before the ruddy grate that glows
With red between the bars, and blue above.
You sit beside The Angel of your dreams,
And gaze in adoration. What a form!
Revealed in faultless symmetry by robes
Of rare, exquisite elegance, and taste,
That fit the tap’ring waist and arching neck.
And how superbly flow the torrents of her hair!
Which she has shaken loose, because “it’s you”;
Her great brown eyes that gaze so dreamily
Upon the flowers of the vellum-screen
That wards the fire from her tinted cheek!
One hollow foot, in dainty, bronze bootee,
Tapping the tufted lion on the rug;
A snowy hand with blazing solitaire--
The pledge of your betrothal--nestling soft
Within your own.
And thus you sit, and breathe
With tones so soft, because the ear’s so near,
The mutual confidence of little cares;
And how you longed for months to tell your love,
But feared a cold rebuke; and how you dared
To hope through all the gloom; and how you grieved
At every favor shown to other men;
How now the clouds have flown away,
And all is brightness, joy, and tender love.
Then drawing nearer, round the slender waist
You pass an arm; and nestling cheek to cheek,
Palm throbbing palm, you hush all useless words,
And thought meets thought, in silent love.
And now and then, you leave the cheek, to kiss
The coral lips; yet not with transient touch,
But with a fervid, lingering pressure there,
As if you longed to force the lips apart,
And drink the soul; while both her melting orbs
Are drooped beneath your burning inch-near eyes.
The parting hour must come. The good-night said,
You rise to leave; and turning, at the door,
You see her head drooped on the sofa’s arm,
You fancy she is sighing that you’re gone;
And stealing back on tiptoe, gently raise
The beauteous face, and take it ’twixt your palms;
And gazing on the features radiant,
Distorted queerly by your pressing hands,
You feel that life, the parting cannot bear,
That you must stay forever there, or die!
Another effort, one more nectar sip,
You rush from out the room, and slam the door,
Just on the steps, you meet your rival’s face.
He has an easy confidence, and walks
Into the house, as if it were his own.
Poor fellow! how you really pity him!
You can afford to be magnanimous,
And deprecate his certain, cruel fate.
You murmur: “Well, he brings it on himself,”
And turn to go. The window’s near the ground,
And slightly raised. Although you know it’s mean,
You cannot now resist, but creep up near,
And with a finger part the curtain’s fringe.
You see your darling run across the room
With both extended hands, and hear her say:
“Oh Fred! I am so very glad you’ve come,
I feared that stupid thing would never leave,
I had to let him take my hand awhile,
And mumble over it, to get him off.”
You grasp the iron railing for support,
And, faint and dizzy with the agony
Of love’s departure, cling till all has fled;
Then stagger home without a trace of love.
Yet only Self is touched; her beauty’s there,
Her sparkling wit, and her intelligence,
Her manner even, towards you, has not changed,
And, were you with her, she would be the same.
Love’s every motive disappeared with Self,
No pride of conquest, no romance of thought;
You meet no sympathy, but ridicule!
A mother’s love may last through injury,
Because it reaps the self’s reward of praise
For constancy, through wrong. The lover’s flame.
Unless supplied with fuel-self, dies out,
For, burning, ’twould deserve supreme contempt.
The less affairs of life are traced to Self.
The code of Etiquette, that Chesterfield
Defines “Benevolence in little things,”
Is but a scheme to give Self consciousness
Of excellence in breeding, and to keep
“Our Circle” sep’rate by its shibboleth.
The stately bow, the graceful sip of wine,
The useless little finger’s dainty crook
In lifting up the fragile Sevres cup,
The holding of the hat in morning calls,
The touch of it when passing through the streets,
The drawing of a glove, the use of cane--
Our every act is coupled with the thought
How well Self does all this.
Our very words
Are used to gratify the self. Men talk
By preference, for they judge their words
Will gain them more applause than listening.
But if attention yields more fruit to Self,
How patiently they hear the longest tale,
And laugh in glee at its insipid close!
If with superiors, we attend, because
Attention pleases more with them than words;
But if inferiors, we must talk the most,
Since their attention flatters us so much.
The cause of converse, Self, is oftenest food.
How few the talks that are not spiced with “I,”
What “I” can do, or did or will!
Sometimes,
The Self is held, on purpose, up for jest;
As when men tell a joke upon themselves.
But here the shame of conduct or mishap
Is more than balanced by the hearty laugh,
Which gives its pleasant witness to our wit.
We never tell what will present ourselves
In such an aspect laughter cannot heal;
Although it compliments our telling powers.
Attentions to the fair, but seek for Self
Their smiles of favor. Little deeds of love
To those around us, look for their reward.
The youth polite, who gives his chair to Age,
“Without a thought of Self,” is yet provoked,
If Age do not evince, by nod or smile,
His obligation to that unthought Self.
The very qualities we call innate,
Arise and rule through Self. Our reverence,
Or tendency to worship, is to gain
A good. Religion grows this tendency
Into the various Churches, all whose ends
Are to secure eternal good for Self.
And those who preach that man does sacrifice
Himself for fellow-men, I ask, why none
Will give his soul for others’? Many give
The paltry life on Earth for others’ good;
The very stones would cry “O! fool!” to him
Who’d yield his soul; for that is highest Self,
And nothing e’er can compensate its loss.
In all these things, Self stands behind the scenes,
And men see not the force that moves them on.
But in the boudoir, ’tis enthroned supreme,
And does not care to hide the cloven foot.
In every home, the marble and the log,
In mammoth trunks, and chests of simple pine,
In rosewood cases, and the pasteboard box,
Are crammed the slaves of Self, to poor and rich,
The clothes that, fine or common, feed its pride.
The velvets, satins, silken _robes de flamme_,
The worsted, calico, and homespun stripe;
The Guipure, Valenciennes, and Appliqué,
The gimp, galloon, and shallow bias frill;
The Talmas, Arabs, basques and paletots,
The coarse plaid shawl, the hood, and woollen scarf;
The chignons, chatelaines, and plaited braids,
The beaded net, and tight-screwed knot of hair;
The dazzling jewels, ranged in season sets,
The pinchbeck, gilt, and waxen trinketry;
The tinted boots, half-way the silken hose,
The shoes that tie o’er cotton blue-and-white;
The corset laced to hasten ready Death,
The leather belt, that cuts the broad, thick waist;
The bosom heaving only waves of wire,
The bosom, cotton stuffed, beyond all shape;
The belladonna sparkling in the eye,
The finger tip, and water without soap;
The rouge and carmine for the city cheeks,
The berries’ ruddy juice for rural ones;
The pearly powder, with its poisoned dust,
The cup of flour to ghastlify the face;--
All these, and thousand fixtures none can count,
Man’s vanity, and woman’s love of show,
Appropriate for Self.
And such is Man!
The puzzle of the Universe! Within,
A giant to himself; without, a babe.
A giant that we cannot but despise,
A babe we must admire for his power.
His mind, Promethean spark divine, can pierce
The shadowy Past, and gaze in rapturous awe
Upon the birth of worlds, that from the Mind
Eternal spring to blazing entities,
And whirl their radiant orbs through cooling space;
Or place the earth beneath its curious ken,
And with an “Open Sesame!” descend
Into its rocky chambers, there unfold
The stone archives, and read their graven truths--
Earth’s history written by itself therein--
How age by age, a globe of liquid fire,
It dimmer grew, and dark and stiff,
And drying, took a rough, uneven face;
Above the wave, the mountain’s smoking top
Appeared, beneath it gaped the valley’s gorge;
But smoking still, it stood a gloomy globe,
Naked and without life. And how the trees
And herbs their robes of foliage brought; their form
And life adapted to their heated bed.
And how a stream of animation poured
Upon its face, when ready to sustain;
Great beasts who trod the cindered soil unscathed,
And tramped the fervid plains with unscorched soles.
Great fish whose hardened fins hot waters churned
That steamed at every stroke. How periods passed
And fields and forests teemed with gentler life,
The waters wound in rivers to the sea,
Then spread their vap’ry wings and fled to land.
The oceans tossed in bondage patiently;
Volcanic mountains closed their festering mouths,
And Earth made ready for her master, Man.
It traces Man, expelled from Paradise,
Along the winding track of centuries.
It marks his slow development, from two,
To families, and tribes, and nations vast.
It gazes on the wondrous scenes of war,
And peace, and battle plain, and civic game;
And lives through each, with all of real life,
Except the body’s presence there. It turns
From man to beasts and birds, and careless strokes
The lion’s mane, the humbird’s scarlet throat.
It tracks the mammoth to his jungle home,
Or creeps within the infusoria’s cell.
It measures Earth from pole to pole, or weighs
The bit of brass, that lights the battery spark.
Is Earth too small, it plumes its flight through space;
From world to world, as bird from twig to twig,
It flies, and furls its wing upon their discs,
To tell their weight, and giant size, or breathe
Their very air to find its gaseous parts.
Now bathing in pale Saturn’s misty rings,
Or chasing all the moons of Jupiter
Behind his darkened cone. The glorious sun,
With dazzling vapor robe, and seas of fire,
Whose cyclones dart the forkèd flames far out,
To lap so hungrily amid the stars,
Is but its playhouse, where it rides the storms,
That sweep vast trenches through the surging fire,
In which the little Earth could roll unseen;
Or bolder still, beyond our system’s bounds,
It soars amid the wilderness of worlds;
Finds one condemned to meet a doom of fire,
And makes its very flames inscribe their names,
In dusky lines, upon the spectroscope.
With shuddering thought to see a world consumed,
The fate prepared for ours, it lingers there
Until the lurid conflagration dies.
And then seeks Earth, and leaves the laggard,
Light,
To plod its journey vast.
The smallest mote
Of dust that settles on an insect’s wing,
It can dissect to atoms ultimate.
With these, too small for sight, may Fancy deal,
And revel in her Lilliputian realm.
These atoms forming all, by Boscovitch
Are proved, in everything, to be alike;
And ultimate, since indivisible.
Each in its place maintained by innate force
And relatively far from each, as Earth
From Sun.
Suppose, then, each to be a world,
Peopled with busy life, a human flood,
As earnest in their little plans as we,
As grand in their opinion of themselves!
Oh! what a depth of contrast for the mind!
The finest grain of sand, upon the beach,
Has in its form a million perfect worlds!
Or take the other scale, suppose the Earth,
Our great and glorious Earth, to only form
The millionth atom of some grain of sand,
That shines unnoticed on an ocean’s shore,
Whose waves wash o’er our whirling stars and sun
Too insignificant to feel their surge.
Another step on either side, and mind,
In flesh, shrinks from the giant grasp.
Yet noble are its pinions, strong their flight;
Thrice, only, do they droop their baffled strength,
Before the Future, Infinite, Abstract!
The first is locked, the second out of reach,
The third a maze that none can penetrate.
The first, alone to inspiration opes;
The second dashed to Earth her boldest wing,
Spinoza’s, who essayed the idea God,
And grappling bravely with the grand concept,
So far above the utmost strength of Man,
Placed God’s existence in extent and thought;
And filled all space with God. The Universe,
A bud or bloom of the Eternal Mind,
That opens like a flower into this form,
And may retract Creation in Itself!
Alas! that effort so sublime should end
In mystery and doubt.
A Universe,
How vast so ever, has its bounds somewhere,
But Space possesses none, and God in Space,
Would be so far beyond Creation’s speck,
He scarce would know it did exist. That part
Of Mind, expressed in matter, would be lost
Amid the Infinite domains of thought.
Yet Man in flesh, the casket of the mind,
Whose wondrous power I’ve told, is ever chained,
A grovelling worm, to Earth, and never leaves
The sod where he must lie. No time is his
But present; not a mem’ry of the past.
His very food, while in his mouth, alone,
Tastes good. He stands a dummy in the world,
That only acts when acted on. How great
The mystery of union ’tween the two!
A feather touches not the body, but the mind
Perceives it; yet the mind may live through scenes
The body never knew, nor can. Yet not
With vivid life--the sense is lacking there.
The memory of a banquet may be plain,
So that the daintest dish could be described,
As well as if the eye and tongue were there;
The eye and tongue, alone the present know,
And find no good in anything that’s past.
All thought is folly, every path is dark;
Truth gleaming fairly in the distant haze,
On near approach becomes the blackest lie.
Man and his soul may go, nor will I fret
To learn their mystic bonds. A worm I am,
And worm I must remain, till Death shall burst
The chrysalis, and free the web-wound wings.
Yet, oh! ’twere grand to spurn the clogging Earth
And cleave the air towards yonder looming cloud;
To stand upon its red-bound crest and dare
The storm-king’s wildest wrath.
My thoughts
Grew dull, my eyelids slowly closed, the scene
Became confused and melted into sleep.
And far up in the blue, as yet untouched
By clouds, I saw a white descending speck.
Methought ’twas but a feather from the breast
Of some migrating swan, that Earthward fell,
And watched to see it caught upon the wind,
And sail a tiny kite to fairy land.
But circling down, the speck became a dove,
A heron, then a swan, and larger still,
Till I could mark a pair of great white wings,
Between which hung its wondrous form. Still down
It swept, till scarce above the trees it stood,
Resting on quivering wings, as if it sought
A place to ’light. I saw then what it was,
A steed of matchless beauty, agile grace,
Combined with muscled strength; but ere I drew
The first long breath, that follows such surprise
It gently downward swooped, and at my feet,
With dainty hoof, the turf impatient pawed.
Enrapt, I gazed upon its beauteous form,
Its sculptured head, and countenance benign,
The soft sad eyes, the arrow-pointed ears,
The scarlet nostrils opening like two flowers,
The sinewed neck, curved like a swimming swan’s,
The splendid mane, a cataract of milk,
That poured its foaming torrents half to Earth,
The tap’ring limbs, tipped with pink-hued hoofs,
That touched our soil with a proud disdain;
The dazzling satin coat, and netting veins,
And last the glorious wings, whose feathers lapped
Like scales of creamy gold. What seemed a cloth
Of woven snow, with richest silver fringe,
Draped with its gorgeous folds the shining flanks.