r ■• ^>:f^^ ^ /k^,' .^^ .0., ,V V* .<^'^ .^•• ♦-J o \ »#*, ^'' ■S .-^^ \^^0lii.\ P5 3 5 3S" .Oi5 H3 NANSEN A Poem BY REGINALD C. ROBBINS t PLKI.ISHKD 15 V W.M. Dk.ni'.y & Co., Pri\ti-:rs. Boston. 1898. < rit^-'/ Copyrighted, 1898, BY Reginald C. Rohbins. NANSEN. "'Mid ice and night onward and onward: ice, Night unresisted heaving on and on Though motiveless yet mightily my life In passion of the pack ; pressing on, on From nought through nought: no-progress ; passage proved Prison; persistence, powerlessness : or Pole Or no Pole, equal impotence ! In patience My soul sees, even in impotence, fulfiU'd The prophecy that built, equipt, launch'd forth Her foresight. Yea ; this power, this thrust and stress At bend and burst broad, loud below in the bleak, M}^ heart holds ; comprehends ; conclusively Bursts be3'ond, thrusts down, down and bounds above In freedom of buoyancy. My ship, my soul Are motive; are. sun and strength beyond aught here! "Passion and patience of the universe, Doom'd to this dead, eternal ice and night ! From nought through nought and nowhere an}' end ; No bourne to passage, strength to patience none ; Motive to life nor any life save death : Moon, and these myriad stars moon-dead to-be ! — Yet : what of this that knows, that wills an end. This God-I-Am : for-whom, through-whom, in-whom Alone are ice and night and any thing : This strength-of-suffering, power of life-through-death ; Prophet, transcendence of the darkness here ? Something, through uttermost of ice and night, Will that I question fact ; unfelt before ^ vSomewhat essential beyond ice or night Questions the doom ; demands, if there be life In-me and through-me, how may death persist. Ice and night so entomb earth's truth-to-be ? World ceases not, though I cease or not-cease ! What of world's soul that comprehends ; concludes Together nought with nought ; proves passage, bourne ; Chaos yet cosmos, sentient-system ing : Moon-dearth but sensible by strength of sun ; Strength endless, being criterion of end ? Of energy-potential kinetized Toward equilibrium: equilibrium But nothingness, no-force, non-end inane : Moon, nought save shown in sloth of swooning hun. And if, in such dissemination, ' soul ' (Nice nerve- vibration) over and be^-ond The grosser substance chemical gain growth And power organic over and bej'ond The less-organic ; stands the law the same : Such and such from the nebula to now Mere evolution of the nerve from vague Chaos through energy kinetic, sun And star and sphere on sphere, through molten mass, Rock-metal, vegetation, sinew'd flesh To man's brain : and from now back, back to night, Cold crystalline benumbing up of nerve In cosmical pulsation : now from man Back to chill'd coalescence organless, Lifeless conglomeration : ice and night ! — Ha ! the stars stab, the bellov/ing below Mocks to the marrow! Unto ice and night Dedicate nerve's destruction ! Now, to-night (What of the years of the world if years ^deld nought?) Now, to-night end all ; headlong to the doom Dash on the blank pack's bosom : far below Beat brain out : end the agony ! In name Of Kelvin, Huxley, now, to-night I leap : Anticipate, make mine the doom of all ! — "Mine.-' i\iine the doom of all! I hesitate; Hold breath ; breathe deep this agony of air : Make it my blood and feel it mine ! I am ! Life is what means it to be one of these ! — Alive ; I-am ; nebula, nerve or night ; Necessitating future still as past More and more, past as future, each in each ! World ceases not : nor I cease. World I am ! — And it is new, this union : yet by will To end all proved, made perfect endles.sly In intellectual action : Christ-with-Kant ! — Faith for the facts ! Feel faith and find fact truth ! "This logic of life-origin, this law Of link'd necessity ? Can link by link Interminably link'd explain one life ? Mere mutuality, one molecule Save as the mutual mean identity: Mj'^-life, or molecule, an union'd world? Ay ; in such sort : if just this self of mine — God-mechanician to their made machine, Else unmechanic mere nonentity ! — Hypothesized yet unexplain'd remain (Hardly residuum, scarce for fact beyond) Still for true sonrce, being synthesis, of these, Conscience and explanation, linkage, law — (Sunlike to shrinkage of moon soulless else ! ) — Not cause, yet all-causation ; through and through Immanence and intelligence of all Else lawless, linkless, unionless, inane: Self-ideality of each through each ; Each for-itself forselfness even as I, Identified in me as selfhood all : The molecule-in-man, man-molecule ; Native reality : and only so Real at all, molecule or man, for-nie : Past, future, none less instant, self-for-vSelf, Real union, sentience each ; though yet for-me Polar, unmeaning save as union'd now. Ay ; that I am, I am : all else in-me (As I in-them, through-them, by mutual proof — How else, conceived empirics-error, save World's self-assertion, countervail'd to mine, Insofarforth show Self neutrality?) Through-me make mutualit}' of self Distinct, determinate, dividual Yet individual universally. All that I am, I am: this world-of-mine ; This universe : alive b}'^ saviorship, ( Monad or motive) Christhood- vicarage ! Development-proved-world-dissipation proves By world-retort a false criterion, Half-standard contradictory : proves worth Of absolute process, progress-regressive In pure polarity self-reconciled Evolving, mind from matter, most from least. Law, from the nucleus to now, but time Of self's maturing : ever to mature : Even in the space-dissemination, time's Ingathering of momentum; human mind O'er mental-nebula progressive still In mutual-internality of lore, Even as o'er physical man the molecule Nebular stood, still stands preeminent In property-material of force Extern, displacement substantive ; alike Materio-mental, least and most: one Soul Erst nebular, now nebular-humane; Ubiquitous, being all-self-spatialized; Eternal, being all-temporality: Mine erst, mine now, mine still eternally; By perpetuity-through-passingness (This perfectness of process) nebula To now, yet now by being but nebular (Past and to-come but poles of permanence) : Eternally my universe humane ! — Is it, world-mutuality may end? Yet mutual how, save well aware through each, Alive each molecule — that may not end, Being each for-self criterion of end, World-mutuality in-self alone ? — Ice and night, 'ice' and 'night' (man's metaphor For end-unmeaning, dead) but humanly ; Ice yet for-ice, night yet for-night, humane In selfhood nebular-molecular : Moon 5^et for-moon as sun for-sun, one world — (Transcending metaphor) each molecule! — Union'd, processional unendingly — Soul not above, beyond ; but immanent Self-reference, intelligence through all ! " Lo ! for behalf of such as scarce may speak, Lo ! for life's ice and night, life laughs at loss: Takes truth from lightning of the blank below : Spurns space-dissemination : in despite Turns law to law's impassion'd intellect Proved in performance of my ship, my soul Their prophecy, foresighted impotence ! Lo! proved in the patience under pressure, power Of passive Pole-persistency (extreme Passion of logic push'd to point), behold Motived preeminence of manhood-plan O'er potency less-mental ; o'er the bleak Ice and night I for vicar proving world Processive, though pulsation'd : I by proof Lifting the lost to life's intelligence ; Fact-science to philosophy by faith. What of the equlibrium, inane Frosting of nerve to nothingness ? By pace Equal, if opposite, above, beyond The physical degeneration steps The 'ps3'chic' subtlet)^ : nor moon nor star vShows soul-futurity, save star or moon In spirit equal-born ! — And I north, north Push, overpower, soul-overweight their world Of space-passivity ; their extreme verge Of sphere yet union'd Pole through zone, yet proved Axial, self-orbited — being but motived more Pass on the lamp of light, cramp boundaries. Burst and break down the barriers (limit proved Barrier but by bursting) ; limitless Lead on the more-than-human mind-to-come In conquest of physic's frigidity ; More and more conquer'd, spurn'd beyond, the more Frosted in deadness of new ice and night. — Ay ; and in conquest more and more shall world (Or human or some supra-human nerve. Some more-than-nerve) by reconciling more More comprehend, include and lift to light The 'deadness' and the 'darkness'; more and more Shall time to-come, immanent-now, make now An explanation and intelligence By selfhood. — As my selfhood, savior now Springs forth in fire abroad, auroral, vast From stiffening of this Christhood on the cross Stark aloft ! From the vicarage complete ( Torment of stars or mockery of moon ; This intellectual agony made mine) ; Eternal principle of every end — Christ for the ice and night, redeeming these ! — For whom alone meaning or end may be : World-saviorship that shall not end ! — "I rave? Drunk with the drench of drouth, of deatli? I freeze? — Ha! the skies scoff! I still am doom'd in dream: Man, with the dead-eternal ice and night." lO AC? fiY r?<^H h^Di 78 524 0^ ^o. • -^^0^ .^-^^ '^^ •-^: .* A'- • • / f-\ O o y Q-r 0°^ '^o K' X o. ''"i' o ^0.^. .0^ °o ** .' V^'- .^^^0,,. .0' ' o M o jy ^ -^^^ -^ •. HO. .^^ 0^- /:. Sit. •^^iTf^ r^ 9 ^\ «» /A _ v«. A ,..--, OUL 73 ^^-^ N- MANCHESTER ■Hilc INDIANA .0 ^°-^^ '.^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 018 407 614 7