Trace Man collective, to his babyhood;
For ’mid the prejudice of full-grown thought,
The truth would be effectually concealed.
Through every people scattered o’er the globe,
There does prevail some idea of a God;
Though rude and barbarous this idea be,
It still, in some form, does exist. The good,
With all, bears reference to this thought;
And what this Deity approves is good,
And what He disapproves is bad. Men learn
What He approves, and what He disapproves,
By revelation, inference, and instinct.
God’s sanction then is origin of Good,
Though afterwards men learn the sweet effects,
And practise it for its own sake; and call
Their little effort, grandest abstract truth.
Developing in intellectual strength,
They plaster up this good in various forms,
Until, refined beyond all subtilty,
It seems to them a self-existent good.
The good is then a certain quality,
In actions, or existence, that assures
Divine approval. This vast idea, God,
Creation sows in every human heart;
All Nature’s grand designs demand a God,
A God intelligent. The same instinct
That tells His being, teaches what He loves;
And what He loves with every people’s good.
But different nations entertain ideas
Diverse in reference to a Deity,
And different notions of what pleases Him.
One deems the care of God’s child-gift her good;
Another tears the heart-strings from her babe,
And feeds, for good, the sacred crocodile.
The good lies in the thought of pleasing God:
The consciousness that God is pleased with us,
A pleasure yields, and good might there be sought
For pleasure’s sake, and prove a selfish aim;
But moral selfishness a pain imparts,
And good, for pleasure sought, defeats the search.
The good is sought, because it pleases God,
Not with the doer, but with what is done.
Good has its origin in th’ idea God,
And what He loves; but to continue good
It must retain approval in the act,
And not transfer it to the agent’s self.
The consciousness that God approves a deed,
Makes Man approve, and thus his mind is brought
In correlation with the Mind Divine.
The man who does an alms, if done to gain
God’s favor for himself, feels selfish pain;
But if because the act, not he, will please,
He finds the pleasure. Man, as time rolls on,
Finds general laws that please or displease God,
And ranging, under these, subordinates
Amenable to them and not to God,
The moral quality of lesser deeds
He reckons by these laws, nor does ascend
To God, that gives their moral quality.
Jouffroy, in Order, placed the Abstract Good,
And paused a step below the real truth,
The idea God, whence Order emanates.
Thus Man, progressing, good withdraws from God
And seems an independent entity,
And man denominates it, Abstract Good.
He can attain the Abstract but in part;
When mind is freed from flesh, he may attain
To its full grandeur. Here, at most, he grasps
A faint outline, and fits it on concrete.
No concept occupies one act of mind,
But opening the lettered label, he
May count the attributes, and by an act
Complex, of memory and cognition, gain
Some idea of his Abstract. Thus of “Man,”
One act can only cognize M-A-N,
But opening, he finds the attributes,
As “mammal,” “biped,” “vertebrate.” This act
Is complex, and he cannot unitize,
Save by the bundle of a word. You’ve said
It answers all the purposes of life,
Then why seek more? lest speculation vain
Point out dim realms, where Man can never tread,
These baffling thoughts are given, as peacocks’ feet,
To Man’s fond pride. The simplest avenue
Of thought, pursued, will reach absurdity,
To comprehension finite.
Even the truth
Of numbers you presume to doubt. Two balls,
You claim, can ne’er be two unless alike.
You mingle quantity and number, foolishly,
As if a ball the size of Earth, and one,
A tiny mustard-seed, would not be two!
You deem all Mathematics wide at fault,
Because Man’s powers to illustrate are weak.
Earth has oft seen a pure right angle drawn,
Because Man’s sight could not detect a flaw;
And if to his discernment perfect made,
He must admit its perfect form. If life,
In every intricate demand, finds truth,
Why seek to overturn by sophistry?
You see and know Achilles far beyond
The tortoise, yet the super-wise must prove
That he can never pass the creeping thing,
Although his speed a hundred times as swift!
When Man commences, he may find a doubt
In everything; his life, his neighbor’s life,
The outside world, may all be but a myth;
Then let him so believe, but let him act
Consistently; but does the skeptic so?
He crams all Nature in his little mind,
Yet how he cringes to her slightest law!
He flees the rain, and wards the cold, or fears
The lightning’s glittering blow. He doubts his frame
Can work by mechanism so absurd,
Yet will not for a day refrain from food!
When Man compares his body and his mind,
And tries the power of each, he magnifies
The mind to Deity, and yet how small
Compared with what it has to learn! The more
Man knows, the more he finds he does not know;
And as a traveller toiling up the hill,
Each upward step reveals a wider view
Of fields of thought sublime he dares not hope
To ever reach in life; and wearily he sits
Him down upon the mountain-side, so far
Beneath its untrod top, and recklessly
Doubts everything, because beyond his grasp.
All skeptic reasoning ends, as did your own,
No fruit but blind bewilderment of thought!
And none but fools will e’er believe sincere
The faith that doubts alone by theory,
And yet approves by practice. Such is yours;
The stern necessities of life demand
A practical belief, and such is given;
And still, forsooth, because your narrow mind
Cannot contain the Truth in perfect form,
You dare deny it does exist. But few
Of skeptic minds are let to live on Earth,
And even these made instruments of good,
In calling forth defenders of the Truth,
Who add their strength to its Eternal Walls.
Then here behold God’s wisdom manifest!
Amid the care of countless greater orbs,
He watches Earth, and knows its smallest thing.
While Man, as individual, is free,
Collective Man is being surely led
Towards an end, but when it will be reached,
God knows alone. Then Man will be removed
Into a higher or a lower sphere,
As he has worthy proved. With Man ’twill be
A great event; his awful Judgment-day!
When from those far-off realms, the Son shall come
With Angel retinue, and through the worlds,
Shall lead their solemn flight, to where we stand;
And as the trump shall peal its clarion tones,
And beat away Earth’s gauze of atmosphere,
The millions living, and the billions dead,
Will leave the sod, and “caught up in the air,”
Shall stand before the Throne, to hear their doom.
Then, faces pale with fear, and trembling limbs,
Will be on every side, as on the air
They rest, with nothing solid ’neath their feet;
And see dismantled Earth burst into flames,
And reel along its track, a globe of fire,
The volumed smoke, a dusky envelope;
Its revolutions wrapping pliant flames,
In scarlet girdles, round its bulging waist,
And hurling streams of centrifugal sparks,
In broad red tangents, from the burning orb.
Upon the conflagration Man will gaze,
With shuddering horror; ’tis his only home,
The scene of all his fame, the source of wealth,
For which he toiled so wearily. All gone!
He would not touch a mountain of pure gold,
For ’twould be useless now! Poor, pauper Man,
Without his money, chiefest aim of life,
Stands homeless ’mid a Universe, to learn
If God will be his Father, or his Foe!
And from the blackness underneath, the swarms
Of Evil ones are thronged, their hideous forms
Half shown in lurid light, as here and there
They flit, like sharks, expectant of their prey.
Then comes the closing scene. The sentence passed,
The righteous breaking forth to joyous praise,
Shall thread Creation’s wondrous maze of life,
And with their Leader, sweep towards yon Heaven;
While down the black abyss, with cries of woe
That make the darkness tremble, the condemned
Are dragged, into its gloom,--and all is o’er--
Earth’s ashes float in scattered clouds through space--
To Man the grandest era of all Time,
To God, completion of Salvation’s scheme!
But Man deems Judgment too far off for thought,
Nor will prepare for such a distant fate;
Yet there is something, far more sure than aught
Uncertain life can offer; its decision, too,
Is just as final as the Judgment doom;
And still ’tis oftenest farthest from the thought.
’Tis Death, the welcome or unwelcome guest
Of every man, and yet how few prepare
For its approach! They give all else a care;
Wealth, honor, fame, get all their time,
While certain Death’s forgotten, till disease
Gives warning; then with hasty penitence,
The knees are worn, the heart’s thick rubbish cleared;
But oft too late; the heart will not be cleared,
The stubborn knees will not consent to bend,
The house is set in order, while the guest,
In sable robes, stands at the throbbing door.
And now to close thy lesson, look through this!
He gave to me a strangely fashioned glass,
Through which, when I had looked to Earth, I saw
A long black wall, that towered immensely high,
So none might see beyond. Before its length,
Mankind were ranged, all weaving busily;
The young and old, the maiden and the man;
The infant hands unconscious plied the thread,
The aged with a feeble, listless move.
They wove the warp of Life, and drew its thread
From o’er the wall; none knew how far its end
Was off, nor when ’twould reach the busy hand,
Nor did they care, in aught by action shown,
But bending o’er their work, without a glance
Towards the thread, that still so smoothly ran,
They threw the shuttle back and forth again,
Till suddenly the ravelled end appeared,
Fell from the wall, and to the shuttle crept;
And then the weaver laid his work aside,
With folded hands, was wrapped within his warp,
To wait the Master’s sentence on his task.
I saw the thread, in passing through their hands,
Received the various colors, from their touch,
And tinged the different patterns that they wove.
And oh! how different in design! Some wove
A spotless fabric, whose pure simple plan
Was always ready for the ending thread;
Come when it would, no part was incomplete;
But what was done, could bear th’ Inspector’s eye.
And others wove a dark and dingy rag,
That bore no pattern, save its filthiness;
Fit garment for the fool who weaves for flames!
Some wove the great red woof of war,
With clashing swords, and crossing bayonets,
With ghastly bones, and famished widows’ homes,
With all the grim machinery of Death,
To gain a paltry crown, or curule chair;
Perchance, before the crown or chair is reached,
The thread gives out, the work is incomplete,
And in the gory cloak his hands have wrought,
With all its stains unwashed, the hero sleeps.
Some shuttles shape the gilded temple, Fame,
And count on thread to weave its topmost dome;
But ere the lowest pinnacle is touched,
The brittle filament is snapped. Some weave
The bema, with its loud applause; and some
The gaudy chaplet of the bacchanal,
And others sweated bays of honest toil.
But all the fabrics bear the yellow stain
Of gold, o’er which the sinner and the saint
Unseemly strive, and he seems happiest
Whose work is yellowest.
Along the wall,
“A fountain filled with blood,” plays constantly,
Where man may cleanse the fabric as he weaves;
Yet few avail themselves; the waters flow,
While Man works on, without regard to stains,
Till thread worn thin arouses him to fear,
Or breaks before the damning dyes are cleansed.
And down the line I ran my anxious eyes,
To find a weaver I might recognize,
And saw, at last, a form by mirrors known.
Oh! ’twas a shameful texture that I wove,
So dark its hue, so little saving white,
Such seldom bathing in the fountain stream,
I could not look, but bowed my blushing face,
And like the publican of old, cried out,
“Be merciful to me a sinner!”
“Rise!”
The Angel said, “And worship God alone,
Return to Earth, enjoy an humble faith,
Whose simple trust shall make thee happier
Than all the grandeur of philosophy.
Should doubts arise, remember, God’s designs
Above a finite comprehension stand,
And finite doubts, about the Infinite,
Assume absurdity’s intensest form.
Man, from the stand-point of the Present, looks,
And disappointed, bitterly complains
Of what would move his deepest gratitude,
Could he the issue of the morrow know.
God sees the future, and in kindness deals
To every man his complement of good.
Remember then the weakness of thy mind,
Nor doubt because thou canst not understand.
To gather scattered jewels thou must kneel;
So on thy knees seek truth, and thou shalt find;
The nearer Earth thy face, the nearer Heaven
Thy heart. And now farewell!”
I sprang to clasp
His hand in gratitude, but with a wave
Of parting benediction, he was gone!
Then in an instant, like an aerolite,
With naught to bear me up, I fell to Earth,
Swifter and swifter, with increasing speed!
Now bursting through a sunlit bank of cloud,
And clutching, vainly, at the yielding mist,
Or through a cradling storm, with thunder charged,
Down through the open air, whose parted breath
Hissed death into my ears, while all below
Seemed rushing up to meet and mangle me.
I shrieked aloud, “Oh save me!”--
And awoke.
The day was o’er, and night had drawn her shades;
The twinkling eyes of Heaven shone through the leaves,
And lit the tiny rain-globes on the grass;
The cloud had passed, and on th’ horizon’s verge,
A monster firefly, with shimmering flash,
It slowly crawled behind the curve of death.
And evening’s silence deeper seemed than noon’s,
For not a sound disturbed the hush of night,
Save katydids, with quavering monotones,
Returning contradictions from the trees.
All drenched and chilled, with trembling limbs I rose,
And homeward bent my steps; and pondering
Upon my dream, this moral from it drew:
Man cannot judge the Eternal Mind by his,
But must accept the mysteries of Life,
As purposes Divine, with perfect ends.
And in our darkest clouds, God’s Angels stand,
To work Man’s present and eternal good.
THE VILLAGE ON THE TAR
DEDICATED TO PETTIGREW COUNCIL NO 1. F. OF T.
A drunkard in a distant town lay dying on his bed,
There was lack of woman’s gentle touch about his fevered head,
But a comrade stood beside him, and wiped the foam away,
That bubbled through his frothy lips, to hear what he might say.
The poor inebriate faltered, as he caught that comrade’s eye,
And he said, “’Tis hard, far, far from home ’mid strangers thus to die.
Take a message and a token to my friends away so far,
For Louisburg’s my native place, the village on the Tar.
“Tell my brothers and companions, should they ever wish to know
The story of the fallen, ah! the fallen one so low,
That we drank the whole night deeply, and when at last ’twas o’er,
Full many a form lay beastly drunk along the barroom floor.
And there were ’mid those wretches some who had long served sin,
Their bloated features telling well what faithful slaves they’d been;
And some were young and had not on the Hell-path entered far--
And one was from the village, the village on the Tar.
“Tell my mother that her other sons may still some comfort prove,
But I, in even childhood, would scorn that mother’s love;
And when she called the children to lift up the evening prayer,
One form was always missing, there was e’er one vacant chair,
For my father was a drunkard, and even as a child
He taught my little feet to tread the road to ruin wild;
And when he died and left us to dispute about his will,
I let them take whate’er they would, but kept my father’s ‘still,’
And with sottish love I used it till its venomed ‘worm’ did gnaw
My soul, my mind, my very life, in the village on the Taw.[A]
“Tell my sister oft to weep for me with sad and drooping head,
When she sees the wine flow freely, that poison ruby red,
And to turn her back upon it, with deep and burning shame,
For her brother fell before it and disgraced the fam’ly name.
And if a drunkard seeks her love, oh! tell her, for my sake,
To shun the loathsome creature, as she would a deadly snake,
And have the old ‘still’ torn away, its fragments scattered far,
For the honor of the village, the village on the Tar.
“There’s another, not a sister; in the merry days of old,
You’d have known her by the dark blue eye, and hair of wavy gold;
Too gentle e’er to chide me, too devoted e’er to hate,
She loved me, though oft warned by all to shun the dreaded fate.
Tell her the last night of my life--for ere the morning dawn,
My body will be tenantless, my clay-chained spirit gone--
I dreamed I stood beside her, and in those lovely blue depths saw
The merry light that cheered me, in the village on the Taw.[A]
“I saw the old Tar hurrying on its bubbles to the sea,
As men on life’s waves e’er are swept towards eternity;
And the rippling waters mingled with the warbling of the birds,
Returned soft silvery echoes to my deep impassioned words;
And in those listening ears I poured the sweet tho’ time-worn story,
While swimming were those love-lit eyes, in all their tear-pearled glory;
And her little hand was closely pressed in mine so brown and braw,
Ah! I no more shall meet her, in the village on the Taw.”[A]
He ceased to speak, and through his frame there ran a shiver slight,
His blood-shot eyes rolled inward and revealed their ghastly white,
His swollen tongue protruded, o’er his face a pallor spread,
His comrade touched his pulse--’twas still--and he was with the dead.
The moon from her pavilion, in the blue-draped fleecy cloud,
Through the window o’er the corpse had thrown her pale but ghostly shroud,
The same moon that gazing upon that couch of straw.
Was bathing in a silver flood the village on the Taw.[A]
[A] The Indian name of this river was _Taw_.--PUBLISHER.
REQUIESCAM
Oh! give me a grave in a lone, gloomy dell,
By the side of a deep, swift creek,
Where the ripples run like a tinkling bell,
Through the grassy nooks, where love so well
The minnows to play hide and seek!
Where in summer the thick twining foliage weaves
A green, arching roof upon high,
And the rain-drops fall from the dripping eaves,
Like tears of grief from the weeping leaves
On the face upturned to the sky!
Where the silence frightens the birds away,
And all is still, dreary and weird,
Except, perchance at the close of day,
The bittern’s boom or the crane’s hoarse bray,
Floating over the swamp, is heard.
Where the dusky wolf and the antlered deer
Ever shun the dark, haunted ground;
Where the crouching panther ventures near,
His tawny coat all bristling with fear,
At the sight of the low, red mound.
Where at twilight gray, the lone whippoorwill
May perch on the stake at my head,
And with its unearthly, tremulous trill
The dreary gloom of the whole place fill
With a requiem over the dead.
Where the greater the ruin in earth’s damp mold,
The greater the contrast will prove,
When the weary wings of my spirit I fold,
In heaven, and swell with a bright harp of gold,
The grand pealing anthem of love.
_February 9th, 1867_
LINES TO AN ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY
KNOWN TO THE STUDENTS AS “MISS ANNIE”
WRITTEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1866
At “Elysium” chum and I were sitting,
Across our vision memories flitting,
Talking, smoking, often spitting
On the hearth, not on the floor;
When suddenly we heard a spluttering,
As of book leaves madly flutt’ring,
Some one there seemed slowly mutt’ring,
At the bookcase, not the door.
Wildly springing to my feet
(Chum with fright seemed tied t’ his seat),
Dreading, fearing I should meet
What so like a ghost had spoken--
Fellow members, if you’re able
To believe what seemed a fable,
I saw “Miss Annie” on the table,
With rage and anger almost choking.
Then without a bow or bend,
Sitting up upon one end,
Without preface thus began--
While we both in wonder stared:
“O ye worthless lazy scamps!
Talk about your midnight lamps,
While I’m in the bookcase crampt,
To what can such Sophs be compared?
“Here you’ll sit and smoke and talk,
To-morrow morn to black-board walk,
Seize your ‘ruler’ and your chalk,
Then I hope get badly ‘rushed.’
Oh! the present generation,
Such neglect to education,
Blood and scissors! thunderation!”
She was so mad the tears forth gushed.
Chum and I had heard enough
To put us both in quite a huff,
So just to stop her noisome stuff
I sprang and seized her by the collar.
George jumped up and grabbed the poker,
Shouted, “Edwin, try to choke her!
We’ll stop her mouth, a darned old croaker,
Squeeze her tight and make her ‘holloa.’”
To the fire we held her near,
Still she showed no signs of fear.
“Shall the red coals be your bier?”
She shook her leaves and fluttered, “No.”
Now my face with anger flushes,
Covered first with scarlet blushes,
I cried, “Will you again e’er ‘rush’ us?”
Quoth Miss Annie, “Evermore.”
“Book or fiend,” I cried, up starting,
“Be that word our sign of parting.”
Then I, in my vengeance darting,
Hurled her in the embers red.
She slightly quivered, slowly burned;
From the sickening sight I turned,
Yet from her this lesson learned,
Prepare before you go to bed.
LINES TO COUSINS C. AND E.
ON THE BIRTH OF THEIR LITTLE DAUGHTER
The marriage over, from the train
Of watching seraphs, one long strain
Of gratulation broke.
And then were still the rustling wings,
And fingers hushed the throbbing strings,
While thus an angel spoke:
“Who’ll go to earth to bless this pair
With angel child, beneath their care
Be trained for bliss or woe?”
He ceased, and from the throng sprang three,
Faith, Love, and spotless Purity.
These knelt, and said “We’ll go.”
Dear cousins, to you these are sent,
Three spirits in one being blent.
It is a jewel rare.
Oh! keep her pure as when first given,
Guide her faith from Earth to Heaven,
Guard her love with care.
_May, 1867._
THE DEVIL OUTDONE;
OR,
THE GUARD OF THE SULPHUR LAKE
To her who sent me the Valentine with the cutting irony, “Don’t I look
pretty in church?” these lines are respectfully inscribed. Not knowing
her name, I will call her “Taters,” as she drew her elegant and tasty
simile from that vegetable.