Classic Poem

THE Infinite fills one and all:
The little animated mote,
That on a rose's breath might float,
Or on a sunbeam rise and doat,
God liveth in him, still and small.

Wherefore the earth in eld began,
And God in ancient darkness wrought:
That matter might, at length, be brought
To palpitate with Life and Thought,
And take in Thee the mould of Man.

Incalculable epochs past,
The Void hath filled, the Vague hath cleared,
The orbs, in music, matched and sphered,
Till in its orbit earth appeared,
And, out of earth, Thyself, at last.

“Thou art of too Divine a Birth,”
The conscious Soul within thee saith,
“To think the Second-Birth, called Death,
Can quench thine Inner pulse and breath,
Or down-dissolve thee into earth.”:

“For all the members intimate,
By signs of growth that are as clear
As any music to the ear,
That thou art merely passing here
Through a prelusive phase or state:

“And that, within thee, something swims,
Of which thy body is the sign,
Whereof a good eye can divine
A taking-shape, a mystic shine,
And the glimmer of immortal limbs.

“As in a puck-etched acorn-cup,
A searching soul can clearly see
The forethought and epitome
Of that majestic Forest-Tree,
Which from it surely shall come up.

“Nor can one urge that, inasmuch,
As in some coming century,
The Oak shall fall, and so shall lie,
That so, in sooth, must thou and I,
And Man and Tree be such and such:

“The Tree falls, but it lieth, not:
Five hundred years be past and lo,
What is there of it left to show?
The Tree is gone: Where did it go?
The Vanished Tree replieth not.

“The Tree falls, but it lieth not:
Where once it stood—alone perchance,
The family of the forest stands;
Or the monster of the million-hands,—
The Vanished Tree replieth not!

“The Trunk that long outbraved the storms,
Hath doubtless entered other forms;
The Living Spirit of the Tree
Dissolved forevermore may be:
But why should that discourage Thee?

“All animated as thou art,
By that inherent Man of Fire,
That gives thee Life and its desire,
And all thy power to aspire
Unto a better life and heart,—

“Thou shalt not render to distrust
A moment's tribute! But shalt give
Thyself assurance that To Live,
Is a godlike prerogative;
To Die,—but to shake off the dust!

“As well, in sooth, tear-blur the eye,
And pass the summer morn in dole,
Over the cast-off husk or poll
Of some old symbol of the Soul—
The swaddle of the butterfly:

“While near at hand the very while,
Her little dross-divested sprite
Spreads wings like Psyche, for a flight
Into illimitable light,
To revel in the Summer's smile.

“Behold thy little daughter, Grace:
Lo, canst thou not identify
Thyself in her as verily,
As in the love-blue of her eye
The mirrored image of thy face?

“For all thou ever wast, before
Her speechless smile blessed thee for thine,
With mother-grace did intertwine,
An endless with an endless line,
To live through her forevermore!

“Nor only in thy seed thy soul
Shall thrid the cycles: But above,
Through ways and worlds thou know'st not of,
Thou shalt, thyself, be led by Love,
To some conception of the Whole.

“And thou wilt find, from first to last,
Through all thy varying career,
In passing on from sphere to sphere,
Thou only, livest,—Now and Here,—
In that one moment which thou hast.

“And that in knowing Nature's needs,
Through thy great-hearted sympathy,
With God and with Humanity,
Thou hast an Immortality,
To consecrate to noble deeds.”