Classic Poem

A RE these then made in vain? is man alone
Of all the marvels of creative love
Blest with a scintillation of His essence,
The heavenly spark of reasonable soul?
And hath not yon sagacious dog, that finds
A meaning in the shepherd's idiot face,
Or the huge elephant, that lends his strength
To drag the stranded galley to the shore,
And strives with emulative pride to excel
The mindless crowd of slaves that toil beside him.
Or the young generous war-horse, when he sniffs
The distant field of blood, and quick and shrill
Neighing for joy, instils a desperate courage
Into the veteran trooper's quailing heart —
Have they not all an evidence of soul
(Of soul, the proper attribute of man),
The same in kind, though meaner in degree?
Why should not that which hath been — be for ever?
And death — O can it be annihilation?
No — though the stolid atheist fondly clings
To that last hope, how kindred to despair!
No — 't is the struggling spirit's hour of joy,
The glad emancipation of the soul,
The moment when the cumbrous fetters drop,
And the bright spirit wings its way to heaven!

To say that God annihilated aught,
Were to declare that in an unwise hour
He plann'd and made somewhat superfluous:
Why should not the mysterious life, that dwells
In reptiles as in man, and shows itself
In memory, gratitude, love, hate, and pride,
Still energize, and be, though death may crush
Yon frugal ant or thoughtless butterfly,
Or with the simoom's pestilential gale
Strike down the patient camel in the desert?

There is one chain of intellectual soul,
In many links and various grades, throughout
The scale of nature; from the climax bright,
The first great Cause of all, Spirit supreme,
Incomprehensible, and unconfined,
To high archangels blazing near the throne,
Seraphim, cherubim, virtues, aids, and powers,
All capable of perfection in their kind; —
To man, as holy from his Maker's hand
He stood, in possible excellence complete
(Man, who is destined now to brighter glories,
As nearer to the present God, in One
His lord and substitute — than angels reach);
Then man as fall'n, with every varied shade
Of character and capability,
From him who reads his title to the skies,
Or grasps with giant-mind all nature's wonders,
Down to the monster shaped in human form,
Murderer, slavering fool, or blood-stained savage;
Then to the prudent elephant, the dog
Half-humanized, the docile Arab horse,
The social beaver, and contriving fox,
The parrot, quick in pertinent reply,
The kind-affectioned seal, and patriot bee,
The merchant-storing ant and wintering swallow,
With all those other palpable emanations
And energies of one eternal mind
Pervading and instructing all that live,
Down to the sentient grass, and shrinking clay.
In truth, I see not why the breath of life,
Thus omnipresent and upholding all,
Should not return to Him, and be immortal
(I dare not say the same) in some glad state
Originally destined for creation,
As well from brutish bodies, as from man.
The uncertain glimmer of analogy
Suggests the thought, and reason's shrewder guess;
Yet revelation whispers naught but this,
" Our Father careth when a sparrow dies, "
And that the " spirit of a brute descends "
As to some secret and preserving Hades.

But for some better life, in what strange sort
Were justice, mixed with mercy, dealt to these?
Innocent slaves of sordid guilty man,
Poor unthank'd drudges, toiling to his will,
Pampered in youth, and haply starved in age,
Obedient, faithful, gentle, though the spur
Wantonly cruel, or unsparing thong
Weal your gall'd hides, or your strain'd sinews crack
Beneath the crushing load — what recompense
Can He who gave you being render you
If in the rank full harvest of your griefs
Ye sink annihilated to the shame
Of government unequal? — In that day
When crime is sentenced, shall the cruel heart
Boast uncondemn'd, because no tortured brute
Stands there accusing? shall the embodied deeds
Of man not follow him, nor the rescued fly
Bear its kind witness to the saving hand?
Shall the mild Brahmin stand in equal sin.
Regarding nature's menials, with the wretch.
Who flays the moaning Abyssinian ox,
Or roasts the living bird, or flogs to death
The famishing pointer? — and must these again,
These poor, unguilty, uncomplaining victims,
Have no reward for life with its sharp pains? —
They have my suffrage: Nineveh was spared,
Though Jonah prophesied its doom, for sake
Of six score thousand infants, and " much cattle; "
And space is wide enough, for every grain
Of the broad sands that curb our swelling seas
Each separate in its sphere to stand apart
As far as sun from sun: there lacks not room,
Nor time, nor care, where all is infinite:
And still I doubt: it is a Gordian knot,
A dark deep riddle, rich with curious thoughts;
Yet hear me tell a trivial incident,
And draw thine own conclusions from my tale.
Paris kept holiday; a merrier sight
The crowded Champs Elysees never saw:
Loud, pealing laughter, songs, and flageolets,
And giddy dances 'neath the shaddowing elms,
Green vistas throng'd with thoughtless multitudes,
Traitorous processions, frivolous pursuits,
And pleasures full of sin — the loud " hurra! "
And fierce enthusiastic " Vive la nation! " —
Were these thy ways and works, O godlike man,
Monopolist of mind, great patentee
Of truth, and sense, and reasonable soul? —
My heart was sick with gayety; nor less,
When (sad, sad contrast to the sensual scene)
I marked a single hearse through the dense crowd
Move on its noiseless melancholy way:
The blazing sun half quench'd it with his beams,
And show'd it but more sorrowful: I gazed,
And gazed with wonder that no feeling heart,
No solitary man followed to note
The spot where poor mortality must sleep:
Alas! it was a friendless child of sorrow,
That stole unheeded to the house of Death!
My heart beat strong with sympathy, and loathed
The noisy follies that were buzzing round me,
And I resolved to watch him to his grave,
And give a man his fellow-sinner's tear:
I left the laughing crowd, and quickly gain'd
That dreary hearse, and found — he was not friendless!
Yes, there was one, one only, faithful found
To that forgotten wanderer — his dog!
And there, with measured step, and drooping head,
And tearful eye, paced on the stricken mourner.
Yes, I remember how my bosom ached
To see its sensible face look up to mine
As in confiding sympathy — and howl:
Yes, I can never forget what grief unfeign'd,
What true love, and unselfish gratitude,
That poor, bereaved, and soulless dog betray'd.

Ah, give me, give me such a friend, I cried;
Yon myriad fools and knaves in human guise,
Compared with thee, poor cur, are vain and worthless,
While man, who claims a soul exclusively,
Is shamed by yonder " mere machine " — a dog!

Vurria nu balcunciello, addo nce stesse,
appiso cu nu junco, nu mellone;
na testa 'e sciure, na mamma ca tesse
e na sora che canta na canzone.

E dint' 'a cammarella, 'o lietto 'attone
c' 'a cupertella 'e seta nce paresse;
a ccap' 'o lietto, 'o Bammino Schiavone,
mbraccio 'a Madonna, ca se l' addurmesse!

Turnanno 'a casa, 'e notte, io siscarria,
cuntento e mazzecannome 'o mezzone...
Sorema, 'a coppa, me rispunnarria:

— Comme! A chest' ora? E nun te vuo cagna!
— Coccia lloco! — io da sotto alluccarria —
mannaggia 'o sango 'e cca e 'o sango 'e lla!...