Classic Poem

If thou canst bear
Strong meat of simple truth
If thou durst my words compare
With what thou thinkest in the soul's free youth

Then take this fact unto thy soul —
God dwells in thee. —
It is no metaphor nor parable
It is unknown to thousands & to thee
Yet there is God.

He is in thy world
But thy world knows him not
He is the mighty Heart
From which life's varied pulses part

Clouded & shrouded there doth sit
The Infinite
Embosomed in a man
And thou art stranger to thy guest
And know'st not what thou dost invest.
The clouds that veil his light within
Are thy thick woven webs of sin
Which his glory struggling through
Darkens to thine evil hue

Then bear thyself, o man!
Up to the scale & compass of thy guest
Soul of thy soul.
Be great as doth beseem
The ambassador who bears
The royal presence where he goes.
Give up to thy soul —
Let it have its way —
It is, I tell thee, God himself,
The selfsame One that rules the Whole
Tho' he speaks thro' thee with a stifled voice
And looks thro' thee shorn of his beams

But if thou listen to his voice
If thou obey the royal thought
It will grow clearer to thine ear
More glorious to thine eye
The clouds will burst that veil him now
And thou shalt see the Lord.

Therefore be great
Not proud, too great to be proud
Let not thine eyes rove
Peep not in corners; let thine eyes
Look straight before thee as befits
The simplicity of Power.
And in thy closet carry state
Filled with light walk therein
And as a King
Would do no treason to his own empire
So do not thou to thine.

This is the reason why thou dost recognize
Things now first revealed
Because in thee resides
The Spirit that lives in all
And thou canst learn the laws of Nature
Because its author is latent in thy breast.
And in the Word
A wise man, Daniel, is the man
In whom the Spirit of the mighty gods abides
His goodness doth permit the deity within
To appear in his own light

Therefore o happy youth
Happy if thou dost know & love this truth
Thou art unto thyself a law
And since the Soul of things is in thee
Thou needest nothing out of thee.
The law, the gospel, & the Providence,
Heaven, Hell, the Judgment, & the stores
Immeasurable of Truth & Good
All these thou must find

Within thy single mind
Or never find.
Thou art the law ;
The gospel has no revelation
Of peace or hope until there is response
From the deep chambers of thy mind thereto
The rest is straw
It can reveal no truth unknown before.
The Providence
Thou art thyself that doth dispense
Wealth to thy work Want to thy sloth
Glory to goodness to Neglect the Moth
Thou sow'st the wind, the whirlwind reapest
Thou payest the wages
Of thy own work, through all ages.
The almighty energy within
Crowneth Virtue curseth Sin
Virtue sees by its own light
Stumbleth Sin in selfmade night.

Who approves thee doing right?
God in thee
Who condemns thee doing wrong?
God in thee
Who punishes thine evil deed?
God in thee
What is thine evil meed?
Thy worse mind, with error blind
And more prone to evil
That is, the greater hiding of the God within
The loss of peace
The terrible displeasure of this inmate
And next the consequence
More faintly as more distant wrought
Upon our outward fortunes
Which decay with vice
With virtue rise.

The selfsame God
By the same law
Makes the souls of angels glad
And the souls of devils sad

There is nothing else but God
Where e'er I look
All things hasten back to him
Light is but his shadow dim.

Shall I ask wealth or power of God who gave
An image of himself to be my Soul
As well might swilling Ocean ask a wave
Or the starred firmament a dying coal
For that which is in me lives in the whole