Its undecaying battlement, presides,
Apportioning with irresistible law
The place each spring of its machine shall fill ;-
So that, when waves on waves tumultuous heap
Confusion to the clouds, and fiercely driven
Heaven's lightnings scorch the uprooted ocean-fords
(Whilst, to the eye of shipwrecked mariner
Lone sitting on the bare and shuddering rock,
All seems unlinked contingency and chance)
No atom of this turbulence fulfils
A vague and unnecessitated task,
Or acts but as it must and ought to act.
Even the minutest molecule of light
That in an April sunbeam's fleeting glow
Fulfils its destined though invisible work
The universal Spirit guides; nor less,
When merciless ambition or mad zeal
Has led two hosts of dupes to battle-field,
That blind they there may dig each other's graves,
And call the sad work glory, does it rule
All passions. Not a thought, a will, an act,
No working of the tyrant's moody mind,
Nor one misgiving of the slaves who boast
Their servitude, to hide the shame they feel,
Nor the events enchaining every will,
That from the depths of unrecorded time
Have drawn all-influencing virtue, pass
Unrecognized or unforeseen by thee,
Soul of the Universe! eternal spring
Of life and death, of happiness and woe,
Of all that chequers the phantasmal scene
That floats before our eyes in wavering light,
Which gleams but on the darkness of our prison,
Whose chains and massy walls
"Spirit of Nature! all-sufficing Power!
Necessity, thou mother of the world!
Unlike the God of human error, thou
Requir'st no prayers or praises. The caprice
Of man's weak will belongs no more to thee
Than do the changeful passions of his breast
To thy unvarying harmony. The slave
Whose horrible lusts spread misery o'er the world,
And the good man who lifts with virtuous pride
His being, in the sight of happiness
That springs from his own works; the poison-tree
Beneath whose shade all life is withered up,
And the fair oak whose leafy dome affords
A temple where the vows of happy love
Are registered, are equal in thy sight.
No love, no hate, thou cherishest; revenge,
And favouritism, and worst desire of fame,
Thou know'st not. All that the wide world contains
Are but thy passive instruments, and thou
Regard'st them all with an impartial eye:
Whose joy or pain thy nature cannot feel,
Because thou hast not human sense,
Because thou art not human mind.
"Yes! when the sweeping storm of time
Has sung its death-dirge o'er the ruined fanes
And broken altars of the almighty fiend
Whose name usurps thy honours, and the blood,
Through centuries clotted there, has floated down
The tainted flood of ages, shalt thou live
Unchangeable! A shrine is raised to thee
Which nor the tempest breath of time,
Nor the interminable flood
Over earth's slight pageant rolling,
Availeth to destroy,
The sensitive extension of the world:
That wondrous and eternal fane
Where pain and pleasure, good and evil, join
To do the will of strong Necessity,-
And life in multitudinous shapes,
Still pressing forward where no term can be,
Like hungry and unresting flame
Curls round the eternal columns of its strength."
7. Spirit. I was an infant when my mother went
To see an atheist burned. She took me there.
The dark-robed priests were met around the pile;
The multitude was gazing silently;
And, as the culprit passed with dauntless mien,
Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye,
Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth.
The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs;
His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon;
His death-pang rent my heart! The insensate mob
Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept.
"Weep not, child!" cried my mother, "for that man Has said 'There is no God.""
Nature confirms the faith his death-groan sealed.
Let heaven and earth, let man's revolving race,
His ceaseless generations, tell their tale;
Let every part depending on the chain
That links it to the whole point to the hand
That grasps its term! Let every seed that falls,
In silent eloquence, unfold its store
Of argument. Infinity within,
Infinity without, belie creation;
The exterminable spirit it contains
Is nature's only God; but human pride
Is skilful to invent most serious names
To hide its ignorance.
Has fenced about all crime with holiness;
Himself the creature of his worshipers;
Whose names and attributes and passions change-
Seeva, Buddh, Foh, Jehovah, God, or Lord—
Even with the human dupes who build his shrines,
Still serving o'er the war-polluted world
For desolation's watch-word: whether hosts
Stain his death-blushing chariot-wheels, as on
Triumphantly they roll whilst Brahmins raise
A sacred hymn to mingle with the groans;
Or countless partners of his power divide
His tyranny to weakness; or the smoke
Of burning towns, the cries of female helplessness,
Unarmed old age, and youth, and infancy,
Horribly massacred, ascend to heaven
In honour of his name; or, last and worst,
Earth groans beneath religion's iron age,
And priests dare babble of a God of peace
Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood,-
Murdering the while, uprooting every germ
Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all,
Making the earth a slaughter-house!
O Spirit through the sense
By which thy inner nature was apprised
Of outward shows, vague dreams have rolled, And varied reminiscences have waked
Tablets that never fade;
All things have been imprinted there,
The stars, the sea, the earth, the sky,—
Even the unshapeliest lineaments
Of wild and fleeting visions
Have left a record there
To testify of earth.
These are my empire, for to me is given
The wonders of the human world to keep,
And fancy's thin creations to endow
With manner, being, and reality;
Therefore a wondrous phantom, from the dream
Of human error's dense and purblind faith,
I will evoke, to meet thy questioning.
A strange and woe-worn wight
Arose beside the battlement,
And stood unmoving there.
His inessential figure_cast no shade
Upon the golden floor;
His port and mien bore mark of many years,
And chronicles of untold ancientness
Were legible within his beamless eye:
Yet his cheek bore the mark of youth;
Freshness and vigour knit his manly frame;
The wisdom of old age was mingled there
With youth's primæval dauntlessness;
And inexpressible woe,
Chastened by fearless resignation, gave
An awful grace to his all-speaking brow.
Spirit. Is there a God?
Ahasuerus. Is there a God?-ay, an almighty God,
And vengeful as almighty! Once his voice
Was heard on earth: earth shuddered at the sound;
The fiery-visaged firmament expressed
Abhorrence; and the grave of nature yawned
To swallow all the dauntless and the good
That dared to hurl defiance at his throne,
Girt as it was with power.
Survived, cold-blooded slaves, who did the work
Of tyrannous omnipotence; whose souls
No honest indignation ever urged
To elevated daring, to one deed
Which gross and sensual self did not pollute.
These slaves built temples for the omnipotent fiend,
Gorgeous and vast: the costly altars smoked
With human blood, and hideous pæans rung
Through all the long-drawn aisles.
His voice in Egypt, one whose gifts and arts
Had raised him to his eminence in power,-
Accomplice of omnipotence in crime,
And confidant of the all-knowing one.
These were Jehovah's words:-
"From an eternity of idleness
I, God, awoke; in seven days' toil made earth
From nothing; rested, and created man.
I placed him in a paradise, and there
Planted the tree of evil; so that he
Might eat and perish, and my soul procure
Wherewith to sate its malice, and to turn,
Even like a heartless conqueror of the earth,
All misery to my fame. The race of men
Chosen to my honour with impunity
May sate the lusts I planted in their heart.
Here I command thee hence to lead them on,
Until, with hardened feet, their conquering troops
Wade on the promised soil through woman's blood,
And make my name be dreaded through the land.
Yet ever-burning flame and ceaseless woe
Shall be the doom of their eternal souls,
With every soul on this ungrateful earth,
Virtuous or vicious, weak or strong,-even all
Shall perish, to fulfil the blind revenge
(Which you, to men, call 'justice') of their God."
The murderer's brow
Is there no mercy? must our punishment
Be endless? will long ages roll away,
And see no term? Oh! wherefore hast thou made
In mockery and wrath this evil earth?
Mercy becomes the powerful-be but just !
O God! repent and save!"
I will beget a son, and he shall bear
The sins of all the world. He shall arise
In an unnoticed corner of the earth,
And there shall die upon a cross, and purge
The universal crime; so that the few
On whom my grace descends, those who are marke
As vessels to the honour of their God,
May credit this strange sacrifice, and save
Their souls alive. Millions shall live and die
Who ne'er shall call upon their saviour's name,
But unredeemed go to the gaping grave.
Thousands shall deem it an old woman's tale,
Such as the nurses frighten babes withal :
These in a gulf of anguish and of flame
Shall curse their reprobation endlessly;
Yet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow,
Even on their beds of torment where they howl,
My honour, and the justice of their doom.
What then avail their virtuous deeds, their thoughts
Of purity, with radiant genius bright,
Or lit with human reason's earthly ray?
Many are called, but few will I elect.
Do thou my bidding, Moses."
Even the murderer's cheek
Was blanched with horror, and his quivering lips
Scarce faintly uttered-"O almighty one,
I tremble and obey!"
O Spirit! centuries have set their seal
On this heart of many wounds, and loaded brain,
Since the Incarnate came. Humbly he came,
Veiling his horrible Godhead in the shape
Of man, scorned by the world, his name unheard
Save by the rabble of his native town,
Even as a parish demagogue. He led
The crowd; he taught them justice, truth, and peace,
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