w ?Sfe;^^JifN^jP ^^8 ^ ^ft ^m ^^S ^^ ^^^^ ^® ^^^^P^ m ^^^gjS ^S » ^^^^^v5vlv ^^m M ^^n^^vi^^^^^N ^S LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, ©lap @]jp^ri3]^:^ Shelf.. .b4 tA^ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ?^i ill M- «nS MAMMAL, ONLY; OR, THE EEVOLT OF EEASON: A POEM, BY / JOHN EDWARD HOWELL. . -^^ OF ( ;. COPYRIGHT EDITION. /-^ c^''"^^' ^^> Hi* n NEW YORK : 9/; U \ THE HOWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY, '^ ^ ^ 35 & 37 VESEY ST. SOIjD by Alili BOOKSELLERS. All Orders, thro' the Mail, or otherwise, from Booksell ers and Dealers, will be promptly filled by the Company, observing their priority. MPCCCXCII, ^nW^ Entered, according tx) Act ot Congress, In the yeai 1892, by JOHN EDWARD HOWEIjIi, In the Office of the Librarian ol Congress, at Washington, D. 0. copies and reproductions. Page. Solomon's Temple 31 Jesus 52 Jerusalem 78 Eome 79 A Knight (Drawing X Vth Century) 80 A Tournament (Drawing XVth Century).. 81 Charlemagne 82 Martin Luther 89 Francis Bacon 90 Battle of Crecy (Drawing XVth Century).. 134 A Sea Fight (Drawing XVth Century) 135 Galileo Galilei 137 Dr. Johnson's Wedding 146 Christopher Columbus 164 Queen Isabella 165 Palos 166 San Salvador 167 Battle of Bunker Hill 168 George Washington 169 Julius Caesar 190 Medina 195 € A MAMMAL, NLY. —The mystery Nature affects is what it ever was, To man's perceptions ; all whose progress lies In having come to broadcloth ; all his worth, In searching for his brother ; back of mun, Before him, silence. Forces rearing man Are tedious as eternity ; in haste To no occasion— and the universe. Without beginning, hastens to no end; Scarce yet reduced, to smear an axletree With th' unguents of re-motion. Equity Is man's invention, to salve legal wounds ; Law's the broad word, in every planet's mouth, Wliile every insect must have heard of it. —Man may not ignore Himself, the supreme factor, in this world, But lay all wagers on him ; it is he Hath pushed along discovery, or life Were telling couries yet, whose numerals Had charged an error, slighter than a hair. On Nature's geariug. —Of that awful Force, Distilling musk for flowers and vernal dyes For wistful forests ; seen in bird and bee So sweetly joyous ; sentient in all life. Vile or innocuous— what a volume, man's Equipt to treat it? —From less to more, the law of life proceeds, From brutish craft to calm intelligence, Throned in the primate, man— who in the "Wjomb Displays a fish's, then a reptile's brain, And last, a mammal's ; whence falls clearer light On Nature's methods than a thousand tomes Of a priori lore had shed thereon. Long, Nature wrestled to arrive at man Whereat she seems to halt; who knows for why? 16 A MAMMAL ONLY. Life set out with a stomach, ere a brain ; Which antedates the genius of the crab. His brain, aside, the sea outdazzles man In denizens, e'en, microscopic up With hues transcending lite in earth or sky. Man's if a language, every beast hath his Signal or interjection— savages Partake of and enjoy, with slight advance. Culture but makes man perfect, who by signs He hath devised may well perpetuate His passing thoughts ; whence song and chron- icle, Thence sound induction, by a godlike brain, Sprung of a Ivaifir's. —Imagination feathers dolorous wings In the thick adr of horrors, like the bat. Saturnine and nocturnal ; to the light Drowsy, dis-souled ; by the moon-haunted tower Flitting with witches' curses in her teeth. Religion, for the sake of fixed belief, Has held man back from thinking, and is yet Pointing his eye to Mecca, or some shrine Tradition may hold sacred ; man so dead To credo, dubito may resurrect. To cherish a delusion hath the effect Dae to a comfit, while the sweetness lasts To charm the palate. Miracles appeal To th' jury sat to try them, less to faith, Brainless as the mountain sorel ; it most true, When man comes to his senses he shall find His senses are correct. —No north wind were free That had reserved the right to inflict a wrong, And once h?.d made the option ; liberty Is motion denied power to perpetrate An evil or abet one ; a sweet breeze Blown man-ward, over thyme and honeywort, Still sweeter for the hearthstones it hath swept. Liberty is the spirit of all law, And not its letter ; while all servitude Turns to the wall, pierced by one ray of light : All rights of human nature but the laws That human nature grows by. —Man is a liar, who in infancy Was a prolific liar, seems the kej' To startling facts in ])istory, that loom This like a Jungfrau, that a Matterhorn. The supernatural is not above. But below reason yet ; for th' fabulous. No law but laughter, and no other rule THE REVOLT OF REASON. 17 Treats it so frankly or so cleverly. No virtue in a man\s sincerity, Who thinks a stone a god and worships it; So are the anthropophagi sincere In th' choice of viands. —Faith like a vampire hath but sucked the blood Of all the ages, known by the myriad names That fancy gives her own monstrosity : While a swift river of man's daily sweat EoUs past his gnawing stomach to quench liell, Her uttermost abstraction ; poverty, Her child, legitimate as any birth In honest wedlock. —To man's traditions thought is dangerous, Yet bullets harmless ; there was never change, Not of opinion, that was not a truce To pick a flint in. Truth is not a thing Fire may consume, or water drown, or blows Eeduoe to atoms— fear for it were vain. As were concern lest great Apollo tire And drop his lighted torch. —Thwacks bear historic instance in them, dealt 'Twixt the wide peeling eyes of Jove or Pan, In ot?ier monsters' foreheads ; since it seems Time's custom to repeat a comedy Till the world's stomach heaves ; thereat to drown In blood the footlights. History is yet Brief, foreclosed eras of man's piety. That witness coarse inventions. What, to proof Hath man clear knowledge of ho would forget, Would even dare deny ? Wherein, a corpse, The Past inspires man's reverence, in the fact It breathed, his ancestor : yet reverence done. Each filial tear is dry ; wherein the Past Doth by conspicuous worth en sample man, Hers, the arch -trick of heraldry, that hath All men's delighted homage : character Is that, man, most, aspires to, at his best ; That, at his worst, most feared. If irony Erewhile, mistook her office, she hath learned Her duty is man's culture; if he laugh He hath digestion ; if he formulate His humor he hath vantage. Sorcery Is out of fashion, with man's intellect Except, for sheer amusement ; so, what worth To science, m a thesis on a bone, Marrowless as the arm of Jupiter? 18 A MAMMAL ONLY. Destiny is the loom that harlequins Do weave their jests in— while the cowards dread It, the brave man's incentive : destiny- Is but Chaldea in her seven spheres. Yet, damning human reason, covertly. The pure mechanics of the busy spheres Find parallel in the unswerving course Of human action : law, inflexible, In God and man and nature, congruous. —Man is no infant of six thousand years ; An adult, rather, with millenniums. Affecting hundreds— who has seen the poles And th' Tropics exchange offices ; tlie Sea And th' Land close overtures of mutual gain : In whose survivals, or revivals, that Which polished his coarse pate into the brow Whence beameth this world's lord. Age hath no reverence for its own sake. But for good deeds ; for ill, it hath man's scorn With his accruing contumely enough To sink a ship o' war— 0, the turpitude Of having writ man— evil ; innocent In right of nature as the elements His flesh is made of ; it so palpable, Anger and hatred, selfishness, distrust, Are all man's properties, not bred in him Of any devil, but in common his With other mammals— O, that laughter grew Instead of leaves on forest trees, and man Had surfeited and mended— a sad fool No lusty humor in him ! —To what eminence Man may ascend, when to autonomy Committed, frankly, hath no prophesy, Since man hath scarcely broken fast, escaped From thraldom in the night ; few colors, his, Tho' he hath bunting waiting for his pluck To fly it, to foul weather. Men are evolving painfully the art Of thriving side by side ; whose annals yet Eecord much friction; to extract his fangs And make a savage, social— uppermost In politics, as ever. —Statutes to equalise all pocketbooks Had come of arson, murder, anarchy ; Yet penury and riches, should these wed, Who had not kissed the bride ? Nature doth not THE REVOLT OF REASON. 19 Compel him to desist, who hath enough From hoarding her choice gifts; nor to the weak Doth she loan brain or muscle, but has cast A scramble to mankind of all her gold, And seems t' enjoy it ; avarice is mad, While reason may not assert sanity. Where it hath never been. —The cause is lost that proves its moral pov/«.'r Thro' firing padlocks at the negative. Take nothing from the rich, had left them poor ; Yet from the poor take what had left them rich ; The rich may have too little, while the poor May have laid by too much. —Justice makes good the pledges of her furs In luminous 'exceptions ; who concedes On vellum, with sharp emphasis, the rights 01 poverty and riches, and confronts A trespass on the weak, with stripes and pains. Here, she acquits herself of duty well; Here, too, her scales do balance to a hair ; Yet when she has a felon by the ear. She sometimes fails to brand him, lets him slip. For reasons less in proof than in surmise; Yet, was it justice did it, or the knave Who wrenched her lucid text ? Thus it appears That palpable as Justice is not she. —Men are stung t' inquire Is Justice such a fiction, gold may leer At jury, bench and scaffold, in her hand The dripping knife she did her murders with ? O, man ; O, God— what argument herein For headlong reformation ? In plebeian vein The gods have spurted their blood, furtively; Autonomy seems so unnatural. Races prepare for it, as wrestlers must, For bays, in the arena : Anarchy Is man, unreasoned, from an animal, Into expediency, which he accepts. His, light enough, to honor thine and mine. Conscience is an election of the mind. That helms it into instant harmony, Struck by dilemmas ; and as each man's flag To shield his person signals to mankind, The soil whereof he is indigenous. Error pales seldom at the sight of blood. Or to the smell of powder ; time and oft M A MAMMAL ONLY. Man has betrayed effeminate love for peace To brawny disputation, the mute air Transfixt to jugglers' batons : men must think Tho' all the guns of the world's armament, At point-blank range forbade it. Chuck man under the chin Till he glance upward, the chop-fallen wretch, As if he had done murder. —Wherever man appears he seems to smack Of life about him as if Nature had Begot him with an eye to fitness there. Thus, the orang touches man in a tender spot, E'en his sensorium, and the shame-faced man Owns, in this primate, a near congener ; Yet, wherefore, blush— the kinship is divine, Or Nature had declined it? With knowledge of what is, man were com- plete ; Thence had few bays to pluck : from the unseen. If it exist, man's knowledge is cut off As clean as by a cleaver : nothing is To man he may not know of. Nature means B^v limitations his, to perfect man Thro' knowledge seized within them; who has found His higher life is to discover this; Whose, if concern with the invisible. He had not been born, blind. — Wliat anything in essence is, who knows? A leaf had argued quite as plausibly, Why, found the shape it is as man had done. Why, found in form and function, as he is. Do not despise an atom ; it is more Than reason, yet hath mastered with the aid Of science and all art: thro' the minute Nature reveals her power— whose purposes Atoms, invisible have inklings of; Atoms, no pack has yet bayed fairly home. No microscope, indeed, has settled where Tntelhgence begins. Science insists That somewhere, somehow, consciousness sur- prised Well-tutored atoms; altho' how appears A Sphinx with bloody fangs, Oedipus yet May drive to suicide. —God is a word, man ventured to his lack Of broader knowledge— just as spirit proves A term of isheer convenience ; knowledge man's THE REVOLT OP REASON. 21 Deductions by his brain, from Nature's course, He glimpses daily and consumes the night Skirting her area with fresh telescopes. Man learns from what he sees, from what beside ? In his emotions, but the changeful moods Fancy makes what she will of. —Man, undisputed. Nature's masterpiece. Yet she transcends all art confest in him. In every eye, of every trilobite; While huge cetacians thrive a thousand years On animalcules each most masterful In its eq.uipment : She, with diatoms Gorging sea-monsters, thence resolves to pave. Sea bottoms with them ; e'en whose polops sweat Founded the Isles of Balm and Land of Flowers —Against experience common to mankind Man had accepted Aristoteles, And Plato, arguing— ere science rose Challenging either doughty Hellenist. A war is brewing unlike any war In all man's history ; a war between That state man finds himself in and a state Alleged as man's hereafter ; the demand For proofs invincible that sta+o e.xists; Unproven, to thence cease to create hope Or inspire terror ; so, apparent, man Bears no relation to a future life In his decaying elements. No guns. No navies like opinion, to the place Of autocrat, ascended; it may spare Thrones to dismiss them gentlj- ; may compel Allegiance to inflict it on an age, More fitly to rebuke it : to dispel Doubt may enlist it by the sword to wage War on conventions. Thus, the ancient's dream Of Heaven as the safe pocket of the soul. Were well translated, free intelligence Climbing her superb destiny, and Hell, When she has lost her footing and falls plump Downward, degrees unknown. — Eeverence And not the object reverenced has made Shrines holy and men pagans : once have done With that which was not, is not, shall not be Confronted with what is, man's history Thence, proving true, were hence, most masterful . 22 A MAMMAL ONL^y. Man's quarrel with the past is to grow wise Thro' disputation, rather than by blows. Nature, in a dilemma, is a lie Gudgeons have swallowed and do snap at stiU. Man wants no sacred fictions, seeks the truth ; Had oxygen itself betrayed a god. The fact must be allowed : the crucial test But, proof, supreme, of what is true or false. God may have left some signs, upon the rocks. But none on vellum— who has slain no Idd For his integument, whereon to pen Advices to mankind. Tho' chemistry Be Nature's own conception of a God, As Nature feels Him, yet man's intellect Would introduce the chemist : Ah ! to know A drop of water were to share God's throne. —Form and shape Man's instincts seize on, while diffusive power, Formless, seems vague, to his intelligence. God wears, to man, a form, man feels hath none ; His reason, to the rescue of his sense. What message had the Infinite for man ? Or, wishing man, bon voyage, doth He hide. Lest man may founder ? Or, amidships, stood, Doth beckon the foul winds to serve him best, The straining hulk gone down— some bubbles left, Witnessing God, not man, in foundering ships ? Herein, is summed up all the mystery Man yearns to know, which, known, had argued him God's fellow, tho' no peer. That false distinction, between rich and poor. Is th' mischief wrought of gold, tho' charged on God ; Penury, thus, divine; yet, were it so, Appeal to God were to man's enemy. Man wants no sweet delusion, as a salve. For the sharp ills of life, but, verities, A stoic, to his pangs. A lie must fall, Tho', God had set it up : the argument Of reason is, that, false, is lawful game E'en, at aU seasons, for a clever shot. Man thrives not, to the fiction, he is not, But, to the fact, he is a mortal man : To tack a pagan fancy, to his life. Proves, hut, a sorry tail, to fly it, past THE REVOLT OF REASON. 23 A yawning yraveyard : long, to live and thrive, Let all desire it, who live uprightly ; So, let them test all aliments and herbs, For the medication, in them. Fashion seems The humor of the hour and always yields A profit, to conformity : if slight, The pleasure, it affords, still, all mankind Have courted Fashion, with assiduous zeal, Ere, yet, Olympus shook with all the Gods, Ere. Isis and Osiris laid the keel Of Egypt's fortunes— to whatever God, May rule the middle air, this Goddess holds All hearts, in charmed thrall : and were it, yet, In vogue, to honor Jove, still, Jove were God. So England conquers India, yet, caste. In sacerdotal molds, her countless Gods. —Ours, a recovered world, were, one, redeemed Of human reason, from th' atrocious crimes Of human fancy ; man, so competent To live a higher, in a better life. Facing the fact, his, but, one life to live. It, tho', a brief one, than, to be misled, By the cruel expectation, of one, more. The cardinal virtues, culture, of the arts Of love, of friendsMp, of good neighborhood, Is man's distinction o'er the quadruped He hath so distanced, thinking, on the way. Man's bold mistake is loss of blood to God, Who much prefers his veins had not been prickt ; Man, a barbarian, still, whom reason plies With all her birches. Why, man's altars, run With bloo^ in rivers, is, because they are Man's altars and no God regardeth them. All sacred books prove the high-water mark Of morals, where, man penned them— otherwise They had no flavor, if, not, of the soil. Whence, they have sprung and naturally, thence, As, its own flora. Fancy, any soil, Or person may make holy ; evidence Must so pursue a God, that disbelief Were, as impossible, as, to accept A counterfeit a God— to every Age, The proof, stm, fulgent. —In all authentic time, not, an event In the affairs of men, but had its source In ^ason, or unreason ; everything. In Nature, may be sacred, perhaps is ; Nothing, by special unction : moral power '24 A MAMMAL ONLY. Moves to the forces, that inaugurate The sway of reason, which, like gravity, Half, unexplained, accomplish destiny. With, never, portent, miracle, or sign. Power, men hail spiritual, is the force Of the imagination, and to faith, May, e'en, suggest the presence of a God. Spirit, but, man's assumption, to sustain A theological hypothesis. —Belief Has been a problem, more, of policy, Than, of conviction ; and to culture, man Hath, of his reason, quite ignored the Gods, He tendered genuflexions, in the eyes Of th' gaping multitude : what, to undo, Be man's first query, which, when, ascertained His, were not much to do, but, to grow wise, Gently, thereafter. Conscience is that fact Of insubordination to all power, There seems no penal statute, yet, of force To j burn, behead, or gibbet: conscience oft Whatever, men may think, to, bravely, do, To opportunity. Christ is an argument ; He, if a man. All pledges are man's pledges, by that faith, Which, the arms of Rome, imposed upon the West. Reason accepts the God, who may sustain The test, whereto, she puts him, tho', her own ; Since, all appeal, to reason, comes, at last. Thus, Reason invokes Egypt, who so far Antedates Moses , it was at her torch The Hebrew lit his own, to argue God, Or, vindicate Him, by declaring, false, What premises are credited His lips. So, she precedes all gods, whereof, we read, Tl'en, in her prime ; while, nations, before her Have left no monuments : nor proof appears Of whence, she sprang, or, when, or, how, she rose. Who stood, magnificent, beside the Nile, When Time passed by and kissed her : Egjrpt's fame. Alone, archaic, in man's history. The Hebrew, but her product. Moses' grave If J Moses have one, were a tumulus Like one, half grass-grown, by the village kirk. Named, with the first man's, found along the Nile. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 25 Still, Kgypt had no memory of when Time hackt the earlier notches on his stick. The endless chain, of history is lost. Since, there be trees, as old as history, Were history the fragment we have found. Antiquity is what man, yet may find, Not, man's brief recoid, backv/ard, with the wax. Of Egypt's mummies, sealed. —Never, since Egypt, has there breathed a king Merged in his office ; government, as hers. Inverted his who said— I am the State, In training every monarch, how to serve : Who lived, but, for the State; his wine, doled out. His pleasures, meted to him : absolute. Yet, of all Egypt, most submiss to law. —What, Egypt had not, of the Hebrew, had. Were, unregretted, of the Hebrew, lost. Egypt, tho', scarce, dishonored, of the Jew, Seems slighted, in memorials of her worth. Since, half, the blood of Israel, was her own. If Egypt and Chaldea were the source Of Hebrew inspiration— yet, the text Of the Crea,tion, Flood and Decalogue As, found, recorded, may have been the wor 1. Of later Ages, e'en, of David's own. From meagre data, writing Israel, With backward sweep, past the Hebrew exodus. A primal, uncaused Being, absolute, Omnific, sole— Him, nothing, else, beside. Who, by a word, creates a Universe Of, simply, nothing ; who, to magnify His glory visits an inferior orb. With conscious life, in th' image of his own, Innocent, pure and holy ; yet, permits A serpent to entice it, to do ill ; Then, gives to death, th' heavenly type that erred. With all, unborn, that, thence, should e'er proceed, Tho', in a universe, a billion orbs, Like ours, omitted, had scarce shrunk the sum Of half the spheres, therein— 'tis pertinent. What had the stomach of man's reason done If, tempted with such viands, served, to her jFoT the first time, to-day? 26 A MAMMAL ONLY. —A Silent world proves Nature holds her tongue, Whose pile had tottered, stood on— let light be ; Supreme Mechanics, all that reared the pile, All, that, yet, prop it. —What God were such, as, of the Hebrew, limned. With features, sharp and pinched, with fore- head, low. Demeanor, Asiatic— save, a God, Then, level with man's genius? Thus, the myth Marked, by each incident of child-like- thought Of the untutored ages of the race. Inflicts the pains of travail ; takes from sweat The honor, due it, over all the globe. E'en from a tropic savage. Ho, his pen. Who left the tale, on record, cast the facts That much perplexed his ignorance at God, Couched, in a curse from Heaven : the subtle snake Doomed, thence, to crawl, that, ever, had but, crawled— To feed on dust, it hath not fed on, yet Still, in batrachians, its supreme delight, Its sweet seductive voice, th' ancestral hiss: Tho', th' fabulist assumes, that man and beast Spake but one language and in harmony Dwelt, socially, on a, yet, sinless sphere ; While, as the innocent Josephus hints. Beasts became, after the first trespass, dumb. —Enmity was not put, by Deity Between the woman's and the serpent's seed; The deadly, venomous reptile had provoked Man's dread and prompted him to bruise its head. Lest, in his heel, the snake had struck its fangs. Instinctive, ere the fable's date, as since. A literal significance, alone. All, the text warrants : for, a fact if true, That, most significant, in history. Had been, as, clearly written, as— MAN FELL. —Man having eaten, did not, surely, die; Mortal, before he ate, as afterwards, A mandate were superfluous— thou shalt die; Who, gently, had unbidden : life and death Already, here, disputing mastership. —Yet, in some plain and unambiguous words, Ages, of zealous scholarship, have sought THE REVOLT OF REASON. 27 A sense, involving human destiny : A falsehood, colored by rare craftsmanship, With all the hues of truth, were paralleled By Art that hlched the marble, she hath wrought Into the breathing bust. —In Serpent worship, prehistoric times Abounded vastly— it, anterior, To the Semitic record, Genesis ; Eemote, in origin as any fact, Not, geologic, it, well, antedates Tho' current with, extant theology. Whence, voodooism, in repulsive forms. Fetishes, from Cape Horn to Labrador, While, va.st accessions of analogy, In charms, in totems, spells and amulets. Pain the explorer's eye, in Africa. To th' Serpent, than t(» any God, beside. More superstitions, altars, devotees. —The Serpent, when, not worshipt, was ab- horred. Semitic and Aryan fable deal Alike, with the shrewd reptile ; while the Greek Dwells on his malice and him, Hercules Slew, in the Garden of th' Hesperidcs. Man seems expelled from Eden, less, for siu, Than, that he grazed the side of Deity. — The first-born of mankind, a murderer Remits the legend's source, to savagery : To a begotten monster, every leaf In Paradise had withered, with each flower, Eden, itself, not, an incongruous myth. Man's fall was a cant, upward, and not down, His blood ennobled of the fruit, he ate : Knowledge, of good and evil, implies both, Not, evil, only, man's. —Man ventures to do right, wont, to do ill, As, if, his bent were evil— is this so ? Or, is it a coarse fiction ? Cultured man Argues the point and brands it, as, most false ; Uncultured man hails tho tradition true, A shield, to skulk behind, his evil, done. The act of man was such a startling feat, As, to inspire the Gods with jealousy ; Whose, but, one more achievement, possible, And Godship had surprised him : such appeara The honest substance of the Eden myth. —The Sun began to reign at an early day Too 'early, to seek when— ere th' primate man Appeared, arriving, by some trackless trail. '28 A MAMMAL ONLY. Science may wait, yet, forty centuries, To boast a Cosmos, if each solar day She solves some problem, to principia, That defy challenge. —Vengeance and hatred, cited, oft, as God's, Are but man's moral lineaments transferred To broader canvas; as, if, magnitude Made just, in God, such vices, as in men, Are execrable : from like premises. Came the Noachic Flood, the blood -and smoke Of all man's altars. —Sinai, Olympus, Meru show to faith. The footprints of their Gods, still, visible. Hebraic poets are God's oracles As, faith construes them : but, as reason holds, Tho' less, than Homer, like Aryan bards. Mystical, when, prophetic, as, the voice Of Delphos, or Dodona. — Ashera, Linga, Phallus are, all one, A Hindoo, Hebrew, Greek or Eoman God, In Egypt's Apis, veiling nudity : Yet, current with material splendor, such Was man's religion ; he with reason, oft. Ours, or, for emulation. Fatuity would dredge the Eed Sea, yet, For th' chariot wheels of th' Pharaoh swampt therein. Instead, of searching, for that, fabulous, That, true, in the Hebrew's annals of himself. Tacitus saith Vespasian healed the blind, Yet, Tacitus writes, falsely : so, 'tis said, Of Alexander, the Pamphylian Sea Divided, to him; false, Josephus, too: As false the annals, whence, he boasts or would A parallel to the Hebrew exodus. Yet, Strabo with Arrian, o'er the bay. Pass Alexander, with both horse and foot. Breast-high, in water, to prevailing winds. —Migrating tribes, with predatory aims. Or, the expulsion of a race, itself, With means of transit, both o'er land and sea A Pharaoh had promoted, may be facts When, naked, true, when clothed in fable, false. They, who had entered Eg^T3t, peacefully, So, may have left, with Pharaoh's blessing, theirs ; A swarm of bees, escaped th' ancestral hive, Light ing, unwearied, in a wilderness. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 29 Of valor, hived on Canaan's bloody soil. If, to a miracle, th' arm of the sea Had been divided, with its waters piled, On either hand, in heaps— there scarce, haa been A monarch, so demented, as to test The power, of th' Hebrew's God, to close the gap, Inopportunely. —Doubling the head of Suez, to have passed, Dry-shod, into the wilderness— how tit ? How likely, too? Tho' fancy cleft the sea, Arguing flight, in them, whose sires had sought Wlien famine-stricken, Egypt's pasturage. Egypt has left no hint, a Moses was ; Whose own faint verdict, Time begins to doubt. The blood of the Egyptian has not dried, Him, no man near, Moses slew cowardly And buried in the sand; yet meekness may Sprout and smell sweet from an assassin's brow. Moses and Aaron, tho', half mythical, For craft and shrewdness have no parallel ; In whom, Egyptian magic culminates. As, supreme factor, in their leadership. Of semi-savage tribes, athirst for blood. Their act, the tithe, laid, ever, on man's sweat. Craft, from th' Eg5^ptian priesthood cleverly Grafted, in Israel's. To credulity, A babe, at th' breast, to-day, had nigh re- buked Their affectation of the marvelous,' Proceeded, duly. —Of Jethro's j^earnings, sprang the moral law While, the fable that attended it, betrays The skill of the Hebraic fabulist. Who, with like ease had set the bush afire, Had shook Mt. Sinai, rocking to its base : So, Manna, fabled, to have rained, from Heaven Yet, from the tamarisk, may strew the ground To th' changed conditions of four thousand years. While, idle, listless, lazy monks, their bread. Smear, on Mt. Sinai, with like manna still. —The Cloud and Fire report to cleverness. In Eastern magic, be the prodigies Not, sheer inventions : every master stroke 30 A MAMMAL ONLY. Of policy, appealed to spells and charme, When, stress was laid on the magician's wand; For, th' oriental had no history But, for the thread of magic, half, th' events, Of all his chronicles, are strung upon : Sorcery, thus, the life-blood of the East ; The God, alone, whence, all her prodigies. Egypt's, Chaldea's, Persia's, India's art. Of feigning, to do what, each doth not do. Done, to the cheated eye, so cleverly. Has brought the curse of magic to our day. In the bazar and by the wayside, still. The Eastern juggler plies the marvelous ; His sleight is theirs, performing miracles. Five thousand years ago, in Chaldea, Wherein the annals are not fabulous, Of orient magic. —Dead every exile from Egyptian soil; Dead, his successors, for a thousand years, Who had not, of the fiery pillar, wrote, AiS, of the cloud, as veritable facts? Whatever, Fancy would, the annalist Of Moses, penned, of Korah— which, 'tis ours, To credit, stricture, or, quite disallow. Two years of fabulous chronicles, the Jew Eeturns, for forty, in the wilderness ; Forty, more cabalistic, than, exact: Two years, enough, wherein, to whet his steel, For conquest, unprovoked and barbarous. The Jew is, thus, th' Egyptian, to a tent. Forging his weapons, in the wilderness, Athirst, for merciless war. —Fierce Nomads, with no love of country, theirs. Set forth, to ravage Canaan, as, the Huns, Late, ravaged Europe, to the shibboleth, Jehovah's with us— which Hebraic brass. Time hath, somehow, transmuted into gold; The craft of Moses, thro' a priestly caste, Lost, in prodigious reverence. The vines of Eshcol had displayed to-day, To the like culture, grapes, such, as the spies Affect, to lug, laborious from their quest : It, but, a ruse, to edge the thirst for blood : The clusters, fabulous, as are the grapes. Famed in the Talmud. Ere, hailed Chaldea, dwellers on her plains, THE REVOLT OF REASON. 3l Views of an Infinite, elaborate, Of man, of nature— from the Hebrew's lips, Dubbed inspiration, by Semitic pens, To Egypt, debtors, both, in rites and laws: Strains, sweet, as David's, ere the Hebrew was, Cheered his migrating Ancestor and thence The harps of Judah wake, in songs of praise, Th' Accadian, in the Hebrew, God's elect. So, th' Hebrew was a pagan, and of Iotas Pagan from their remotest ancestry : —His worship of Jehovah, as of God, The Patron of the Hebrew— his, in war. His, in fugacious peace ; save, when the Gods Of captive tribes seduced him : plural Gods Quite, as consistent, with his chronicles. As with the Egyptian's, or, the Hellenist's. —Canaan, his, Thence, for three centuries, no trace appears, Historical, of Hebrew piety. Save, his vainglory, the Jew's little else Than, Egypt's lore, with, later, Babylon's. E'en, the wine and meal of the Hebrew sacrifice Were common, to the priesthood, of the East, Who, on the first and seventh, of every month Offered an ox in sacrifice, wherein Was found no blemish and between his horns Poured a libation of the tasted wine. Ere, the slain victim, to the Gods, was burnt In sacrifice, its chief significance Seems expiation, for ofi'enses, done, Or, meditated ; for success, in war ; For fertile flocks and herds, in frequent twins A plea, by blood, made, to a partial God. —The Hebrew's Altar was an abattoir. Sewered and drained for wholesale butchery, Eeeking with th' blood of bullocks and of rams. Chiefly, his holiest, at Jerusalem, The captured capital of Israel. O'er Persian, o'er Egyptian, scrupulous, In worship, as, an art ; in sacrifice, Conspicuous, for the merit of the beast, SlaiQ, by the priesthood— to such articles Of pagan piety, the Hebrew pen. Makes bold subscription ; while, the fabulous Hushes the air, with its divinity. Yet, as a butcher, a Semitic priest Were scarcely fit, on life and liberty. To sit with conscience tender : shedding blood A bullock's, or. a ram's, in th' frequent rite 32 A MAMMAL ONLY. Of sacrifice had left of the priestly heart Some such a stone, as Israel's wont to cast At felons, capital. For traflfic in man's flesh, authority; Or, for polygamous households, precedent; For the cement of thraldom that retains Its grip, unslackened thro' four thousand years, Craft, ever, turns to the Hebrew Oracles. —Sinai delivers, in the decalogue, Common experience, to a miracle, Semitic fancy, burst, into a flame. In the first precept of the ten, the phrase, No other Gods, before me, shalt thou have. Betrays the pen, of the polytheist, In the conspicuous phrase of other Gods, Tho' lor the Hebrew, trust, in Israel's own. A God, Supreme, had emphasised the fact. No God existed but Himself, or could; Whose lipis had blistered, speaking— other Gods. Still, twice, in Genesis, are the plural Gods Alarmed at man : first, thro' the luscious fruit, Conscious of good and evil with themselves ; Who, had he, thence, ate of the tree of life, Had been as one of them, an equal God. —How, there could rise a circumstance of shame. From sexual discovery, forbids The argument, it raises— yet, reflects A secret, silence, blushing, would conceal : Knowledge of good and evil, minimised Into an incident of sexual love; With the discovery of nakedness, Knowledge, of good and evil, consummate. God had been willing man had grown most wise. Nor, could man, e'er supplant Him— such a thought Had, only, sprung from a barbarian's brain, As, in the mythic Babel, risible. —If, the next precept spurns idolatry, A jealous God appears the gravamen; The title jealous, elsewhere, hailed God's own. —With the earlipr nations, 'twas ineffable The secret name, of its own God, to each; Thus, had the Hebrew for his God, a name Unspoken, as, the Eoman had for his, A s+ress, unspeakable, laid on a word : In Elohim, the plural, for all Gods, Hebraic usage, till a National God, a?fiE REVOLT OF Reason. 33 Was, in Jehovah, proclaimed Israel's. So, precept, third, appears a feathered dart For him, who takes tiie name of God in vain 5 The pith and essence of his turpitude, By man, toward God, to jvocalize His name Without occasion. —In precept, fourth, Semitic tenderness Votes God, o'erweary, rest— a universe, Done, to his fiat; wMe, unwearied time Down all Ids annals finds a dies non. In every seven— God's. —Had God sought rest upon the seventh day He, thence, had made it holy— had not paused Till Age on Age elapsed and then announced. From Sinai's top, the seventh day, holy, thence : Its first, exploded by geology, Its further, sanction is a festal day. Perpetuating Israel's exodus. —In the fifth, appears Th' ancestral homage of the pastoral age : In the parental *and the filial ties. Jointly, the sinews, of the common weal ; For, with antiquity, more sacredness. In filial piety, than, for the Gods. In each precept, thence, A maxim, of experience, common, man's. In the ten tables, not a hint appears Of the fall of man in Adam : then unknown. The fact, that, he had fallen— Heaven and Hell As, yet, a myth of Zoroastrian faith. —Not, thro' a rift In Syrian skies, alone, a glimpse of truth- Nomadic genius uttering thence its God, So, wisely, to the Ages, yet, a God, Chary, to treat, but, with an Israelite. By th' West, enacted till the boards are thin A drama, by some playwright of the East, His name, forgotten— should it, well, appear But, an invention, of man's infancy, Reason may not revise it, must erase Her tablets and re-testament mankind. To apprehension raised. —If uttered, even, by the lips of God, It were a statute, for the Jew, alone To hold the seventh day, sacred, to his flight From Egypt's bondage : a Creative week, Gone, with the Sabbath's sanction, utterly. —Sunday lis not a Sabbath— late a day— Whereon, the merriment, of Eome, ran high; Day, eacred to the Sun, ere Constantine ; 34 A MAMMAL ONLY. A day, as, Cliristian, unliistorical : It, without sanction, from the lips of Christ, Or, scarce, of his apostles ; in the first, No substitution of the seventh day, Clothed with its sanctions : for significance, Christ-ward, it turns, to celebrate the day. Of his alleged recovery, to life ; God- ward, it looks not, or squints meaningless. Shrewd policy, it seems, in th' Holy See, On this, already, festal day, of Eome, To have thrown open her basilicas ; Her stately pomp, against the hippodrome, Presented the coarse Roman, who declines. Or, for the Circus, would, her mummeries. Of thinned basilicas, came the decree That bade the urban artizan, to rest. On that day, sacred, to the Sun, which yet, Permitted men, to plow, or,, sow, or, reap, Without the City : thus, replenishment, Of the papal purse, ensued ; on which decr^ With men's enactments, since, a Sunday stands. The issue, simple, is expediency, Not, obligation— if one day in seven. Shall, still, be set apart, to indolence. Custom and not utility has made A day of leisure, one, in every seven. —Imagination, still, hath by the throat, Man she so terrified, in infancy; While, fifteen centuries the West has thought To Hebrew premises and, gently, sighed. How, wise, the Hebrews were. The code of Moses appears, scrupulous, Toucliing a bird's nest— which, if robbed aright, Shall prove no robbery : for, who snatch the young Yet, spare the pair, to hatch another brood, Have victualed Israel and have done no crime. Grasshoppers, locusts and the like, if, food, In theocratic times, by warrant, God's, The semi-savage, of the desert, still, May taste the dainties of the elect of Heaven. —To the Egyptian, swine's flesh was unclean ; Whose law of clean and unclean beast and bird, The Hebrew made the basis of his own, In statutes, argued, from the lips of God. The rights of Egypt, ceremonious. The Jew's were, also ; so, the linen, worn Of the priesthood, sacred, in the mode thereof. Were God charm^ with a vestment as a maid THE REVOLT OF REASON. 35 Leaps, at the loom's rare product and adorns Her envious bosom, with its envied folds ? But, hov/ divine that ex post facto law, Wherebj^ the wretch, who, on the Sabbath day Had gathered sticks, was doomed to instant death, Without the Camp, by stones— who had not sinned. For, to no statute, crime doth not exist Not, clearly, stampt, with moral turpitude. —If, a man strike his servant, or his maid A fatal blow, he shall go, quit, of guilt, If, he, or she survive, a day, or, two ; He, smitten, is his money— so, is she. Lex talionis, is the ^Hebrew code. All reformation, of the criminal. Postponed four thousand years. —In the enactment, arming with a spade One, of each soldier's feet, tho' cleanliness Meets with laudation, argument is sprung, As, to how human. Deity had been. Had soiled his feet in the absence of th' spade. Passing the Hebrew forces, in review. —The Hebrew, semi-barbarous, had God, Stoopt, semi-barbarous, to the Israelite ? A longed-for fountain, reached— found, parched, itself, Intensifies the thirst, late, bearable. Till it hath crazed the brain. —Innocence sweetens childhood and betrays Th' infantile wisdom in it ; yet, becomes A felon, thus — thou shalt not countenance A poor man, in his cause : which, from God's lips Had God despatched, as, if, by dynamite, , No shred of Godship, left— thence the coarse jest. Of a swept sphere ; historically, known. As, sheer Semitic craft : or, charity, Therein, had argued a barbarian's God, Intensifying God's, traits, wholly, man's. An infinite Hebrew was the Hebrew's God : So, Gods, men venerate, to-day, reflect But, culture, argued, God-like. —To the inspired Semitic utterance— Thou shalt not suffer any witch to live, Down either hemisphere, what guiltless blood. Has trickled, woman's? thus, has sorcory, Man's evil fancy, made appeal, to God, To vouch, fcr its existence— notably, lu the Egyptian myth, where, magic plays §6 A MAMlNIAL ONLI^. An even hand against the Infinite, Until, it baulks, at lice, as magic should. To Innocent's bull, four centuries ago, A hundred thousand, burnt, in Germany, Wf^re, but, a fraction of the witches, slain, In populous Europe ; while, America Hath Salem's ineradicable blot. —The rite, of circumcision, had its rise Ere, Abraham's birth, conspicuous, centuries In Egypt's annals ; with the Kafir, yet, With semi-savages, in every sea, Eite, sometimes, woman's ; yet, the Hebrew so His tent-pole, thus, in th' hollow of God's hand, And elbowed, thence, mankind. With the pagan nations, Hebrew altars stood, On the high places, whence, each sacrifice Of blood, was oilered : so, when, Abraham Would offer Isaac, he forestalled his faith, By an entangled ram, for sacrifice; It, if, no fiction, not, more notable, Than, th' zeal of Agamemnon, who would slay His child for the weal of Greece— its parallel. —Abraham settles the atrocious plan Of thrusting Hagar, in the wilderness. By an appeal to God, who, kindly, sides With Sara's jealousy : hence, Abraham Eides, spotless, down the Ages. Can it be That th' faith of all the ages has remarked In this Chaldean's craft, the will of God, When, this Chaldean sinned, or would do sin ? Great things and small strike men, so forcibly, What fool had made a lantern of the Sun ? Would make a foot-ball, of the Morning Star ? Let Abraham sleep in the Machpelah cave, He bought and paid for, where, he, fitly, sleeps, A Nomad, typed, in every Slieik, to-day, W^hom, wherein, worthier, by the worthier deeds Eeputed of him ; wherein, baser, then By baselier conduct : if, a slight defense He was a nomad, to the crimes of one; What, of his title, as the Friend of God ? Abraham's memoirs were, perhaps, unwrit Tho' dead a thousand years— if true of him He lived and died a veritable man. The Supernatural that guides his steps, His virtues, with his faults, that crowd his life. Fall in, with exigencies, that befel The Hebrew nomads— or, are history, THE REVOLT OP REASON. 31* If, when, they had no other, but the pens Of the fertile annalist of after times, Whose fancy rioted, as Livy's, since, As, his, the Mantuan bard's, in Eoman chaff, In the folk-lore of a vainglorious race, To set the seal of Heaven, on Israel, Thro' a migrating son of Chaldea. Isaac displays a lack of manliness, Wherein, he leaves his blessing, with the Son, His subtle Avife elects and doth clear wrong- To his first-born, whom, custom had decreed Should wear his honors, fitly : tolerance, Of whose duplicity, toward royalty. With that, of Abraham, as, each bears off The fruit of perfidy, in flocks and herds. In shameful? sheckels, from the manlier kings, Than, they, who, craftily, for gain, itself. Enticed, v^ith shapely wives— 'twere diflicult. To, even, grant a Hebrew patriarch; Its parallel in the Hebrew exodus, When, larceny makes use of God's command To lade itself, with the Eg5-ptian's gold Jewels and trinkets, to a borrower's plea. Yet, Abraham had a Pharaoh, once, erewhUe Entangled, with liis wife, to ampler gams In flocks, in herds, in gold : his larceny A pronounced felon's, when, from Gerar's king Isaac made lame defense, charged with his crime ; But, Abram sprang a quibble, when, accust^d Of th' Pharaoh with deceit, in that, his wife Was, truly, his half-sister— tho' a plea. Intensifying his duplicity ; His crime, the more atrocious, before God; His marriage void of Nature, God and man ; To Egypt, or Chaldea, possible. —In Jacob— Isaac is and Abraham So far, outdone, in shamelessness and craft, The name of Jacob is, for turpitude, Of each, unshadowed : born, to him, twelve sons. Fruit of two wives and of tWo concubines ; His, too, a daughter— thro' duplicity. Who snatched his brother's birthright and had fled, Hia murderous hand for nigh a score of years : Hailed, of God— Israel ; in his sons, indeed. Father, of all the Hebrews— yet, his hand Not, stained with th' blood of all the Shech- emites. §8 A MAMMAL ONLf. For Dinah's sake— he should have washed it, white, Thro' disavowal of th' atrocity, By restitution of the captives' spoils, With th' herds, th' outlaws had borne off with them. Known, as, the sons of Jacob,— Man had, then. No blush, whose shame had turned the Jordan red, For crime, to-day, had made th' Atlantic blush. Yet, remark Esau's magnaminity, When, met with Jacob, who supplanted him, A manhood, rare, in current gentlemen. But, what amazes reason is that ease, With which, the narrative doth handle God, As, the promoter of uaseemly acts. As, the apologist for crime, when done ; Ecstatic piety, evolving, whence The scroll turns black, as night, with turpitude. —Lot's piety had moved the heart of God, To rescue godly Lot, from Sodom's doom ; Piety, that had cast two virgins, forth, Of his own flesh, f appease a lecherous mob. While, entertaining angels, in his house. If, t' insure their safety, thro' the shame Of his two daughters : and if, logical. What should such piety suggest to Lot, Escaped the plain and amorous in the cave, But, by his daughters, to raise sons to him, And charge his lust on innocent sleep, profound A monk had smiled at in Boccaccio's day ; On inebriety, or, on the lust Of his two daughters— Lot, without a stain. What man, but, finds a monster, in himself, When, he would thwart desire? —If Sodom and Gomorrah, ever, were; Or, if unfabulous, they fell, to fire. The witness is, still, present to their fall. Where, Nature so abounds, in bitumen. In geologic and historic time, Strange freaks have seized her and may seize her yet : Or, sank the plain, a sea, the sea is there. — Lo ! where Noah fell, he lieth, snoring yet. As, th' fabulous hero of Semitic fame, With breath, so foul, that an impinging spark Had fired the yet escaping alcohol. Men's scorn for Noah is that he cursed the son ; Tempted, to that, which should have sobered Noah, THE REVOLT OF REASON. 39 1-testoring his lost manliness instead Of stirring passions, fierce and truculent. Perdition, man's own art, he hath the will To culture, or, 'restrain it ; who, in wine, Hath murder at his beck and needs no more Than, wine distilled, to terrorize the globe. With ready-made assassins. —Nature might boil with springs of alcohol. But Nature doth not : it is man who made That poison,, of the self -same elements, Mixt, to her gauge, so wholesome, mixt, to his Mountuig the brain for murder. Alcohol, Thence, not perdition, whence ? The Fegian, The Bushman and the drone, by Labrador, Seek, each, some poison, to antagonize Th' possible manhood, in him : drunkenness, If, from the betel nut, or, from the vine, Accepts the common odium— beastliness ; For which, no plea, but that of courteous death, Whose pity slips a dart ; reform, begun. With babes, to drunkards, born. A Medusa's head. Hissing with serpents, to the bibulous, Whether, an Alexander, or, a monk, A South Sea Islander, or Hottentot, That, in all lexicons, for— alcohol. The tale of Joseph is a charming dream. Half, orient fancy : such, the wail of Job, Tho', faith, for her vocabulary, seeks Her gems and choicest, in this dialogue. Of unknown source— a fiction, redolent Of Chaldean, Hebrew, Persian scholarship. Itself, the jewel, of the elder books. —Isaiah sings the hopes of Israel, Just, as Aryan bards, as Greec-e and Eome Sang racial figments, to satiety. Isaiah, mightiest, of Semitic bards. Dead, o'er a century, resumes his song, With lyre, re-strung, to th' Muse of History. While, who penned Daniel, chronicled events, In th' role of prophesy, that had transpired. All, mystical, therein, as meaningless. As, when, indited : Daniel's single charm, In the post-mortem color of the ink. In Samuel's conduct, toward the manlier Saul, Wliereby, the son of Jesse is made king. Supplanting Saul, by sheer duplicity, 40 A MAMMAL ONLY. Saul, having done the sliameful butchery, A pledge his crown and kingdom should endure, The glib narrator hails the prompter, God. With the Amalekites, prone, in .their gore, Their king, selectest sheep and oxen, Saul's, God hath repented. He had made Saul, kmg, Would, David, in his stead, had sat, liis throne. So, Samuel cleaves down Agag, Saul had spared. E'en, to the plea, that Saul's barbarity, Had not been found, conspicuous, enough ; Thro* stratagem, anointing David, king. A quibble, in a man, were what, in God ? What had not David's royal stomach borne, Who could do murder, to embrace Ins wile, Fallen to royal lust ? Is it not true That, murder, in a villain, in a king, Were, tenfold, murder — in whose penitence, A royal swing, out of a felon's slough ? So, what plebeian had desired the wife. Who, in his absence, with another w^ed. Adulterous, for years ? Yet, David had ; The unwilling, impious wretch, restored to Mm, TliTo' treaty made with Abner. Heu, alas ! For blood, if, royal, that, in David's veins. So, the demise of Nabal, opportune. Falling, ten days, from the acquaintanceship Of Abigail with David, may suggest Poison, instead, of intervention, God's, In haste, to wed to David, Abigail. He, with his harp, who charmed despondent Saul, May make the eyes o'erflow and e'en the voice Grow tremulous, to his sweet psalmody ; Yet, herein, is repentance and what, else ? A manhood to be shunned, constrained to leave Such strains of penitence, behind, to wave Man's indignation oil", as well as God's ; Therein, suggestion crime were readily Condoned, of God, if, to a favorite. —To raise the standard of true manhood, strike Th' offender squarely ; innocence is smirched In felons that go free. If, after God's own heart, this man was styled, He may have died, while, in pursuit of it. The plea, for David and his sacred peers. Their virtues and their vices are alike, Preserved, to prove, how frail and fallible, Man, at Ms best, is— sets, in blinding light, THE REVOLT OF REASON. 41 But, for the hideous background of their crimes, Their straggling virtues were unrecognized. — Pieti' may be Melodious, from the harp, to burniug words, Of anguish, or, remorse ; if, this be so. What felon, waiting doom, but, hath enough, To shake Heaven's arches ? —Of Solomon, Whose proverbs are the sayings of the East, Whose mind debauched, may have propounded one. Or, may have, manj-— his libidinous life. Silence finds speech to danm, or, had been damned. Yet, is that true, or, half, thereof, half true, Eecorded, of him? —Of ease, of leisure, opulence, or power, It often happens the incumbent feels Himself, a special favorite of Heaven; Hence the ellusive strains of piety From such, down all the ages— vanity Prompts tiie delusion, in a Nero's heart, Or, in a David's. —Pious ejaculation, from the midst Of wickedness, astounding, simply, proves How blasphemous Ms piety may be, ]\Ian, semi-barbarous, even, when sincere : It, often, of the priesthood, but, a ruse To awe the vulgar, to revere their words, As, if, God's oracles and wear, serene, Their master's shackles. —E'en, as the cultured Hellenist invoked The aid, of Zeus, th' uncultured nomad strode. Led, of God's spirit, forth, to butchery, As, Samson, with the jawbone of an ass. Dispatched a thousand, tho' th' incredulous Urge he had splintered it, ere, slaying ten. So puerile, the fiction, that assumes That, e'en, a thousand cowards, like a flock Of sheep had, singly, fallen— whose joint charge Had slain and hung him, by his lying locks. That, by their length had in like ratio, proved His strength enfeebled. But, how exquisite When, to the spirit of the Lord, again, At Askalon, he slayeth thirty men. To strip for spoil, wherewith, to recompense His thirty choice companions who had solved The saintly Samson's riddle ? Samson's death Transcends mythology in Greece or Eome : To the miraculous, appeal is made 42 A MAMMAL ONLY. To obviate its incongruities. While, tlie myth defaults to that of Hercules ; More humor in the foxes' blazing tails, Than stench from the Augean stalls. Tho', half is fable, half, the other half. Is mythic, also, of th' atrocities, The earlier ages have recorded— God's, Done, by man's hand— hailed of disshackled thought. Pious bravado, only. God is, still, The God, he was ; of whom no pen dare write, He thinketh evil, or inspireth man, Or, nerves him, to do murder. —The ingenuity of scholarship Has wrought upon its scrolls age after age To stretch the purport of a cultus, meant T' embrace a tribe, or, race, to man, include. And hath, or, would, in only Israel's God, Seek human Nature's- —In the dis-poisoned soup and swimming axe We have Elisha ; yet, what have we here ? 'Twere almost quite as easy to reply, As, to propound the query ; since, 'twas when Magic and sorcery and witchcraft swayed The semi-l>arbarous East, this prophet rose, When, rose so many seers in Israel. While, mythical, of children, two score two, Were, of she-bears devoured, for mocking him ; Yet, the barbarity of such an age Would prove his seer ship, by the fact, itself, That had disproved it, both to Gods and men. Still, when had fable bit her lying tongue While, men had listened? —The incident may smack of Eastern craft Instilling terror in the infant mind, ThaJ had indulged irreverence for age ; Fear as the master passion of the heart With reverence for age, obsequious, The premises of patriarchal sway. Blot from all primers, such atrocities : Fables like tMs to have imparted babes Were crime, continuous, for three thousand years. Fear, not, as of a monster, fear of God. As, of a father, who had kissed his child. And, ere discretion, gently, had reproved, Illume, therewith, the mind of infancy. A fool had charged a wisp- man with an act, Only, ft fool could have been guilty of ; THE REVOLT OF REASON. 43 Its refutation, carried in the charge : bo, savagery had charged an act on God, Only, a savage, had conceived, or, done. Lions and bears greet the Hebraic pen, In th' glare of day, in th' teeming haunts of life. Swarming, like lions, in Bengal, by night. Cautiously stealing past her bungalows. Ah ! who, to-day, had deemed Elijah ripe, For haste to Heaven, by steeds of flaming fire. The blood, contest of quite four hundred men Soaking his mantle? Yet, 'tis possible, Elijah's mantle was as white as snow. As, th' innocent wool, whereof, it had been wrought. The holocaust of the four hundred priests Like other marvels, but the vaporing ink Of pens, Semitic: since the annalist Permits him, to flee danger and to skulk Where'er he may from vengeance when de- nounced. On the atrocious massacre— the fault Not, with Elias, with the fabulist. Who paints the veriest coward, in the seer, He, yet, had armed, with strength, Jehovah's own. —As Constantine descried a flaming Cross. His armies saw not, and inspired their ranks With his narration of the prodigy. So, may Elisha have proclaimed his right To the succession, by a narrative, Tho' false, a master-stroke of policy. If, to assume collusion, possible Between Elisha and the Tishbite, then, Elisha's marked reluctance to permit The fifty's quest, for good Elijah, lost, Might, well, have sprung from shrewd Elisha's fear Lest, yet, Elijah had not quite, concealed His person, safely ; or were scarce en route For th' whither, he would reach-^thenceforth to live Unrecognized, as, late, a seer of Heaven. Elijah doubted, if Elisha should Perceive his exit ; yet, Elisha did. Or, it is written, that he did and seized His mantle, fallen : irresistible Thus, the impression, that no other eye Saw the translation : from the fifty, stood, 44 A MAMMAL ONLY. Afar, at. Jericho, no hint appears, These saw the chariot. —The grossness of the era is contest In the suggestion, fifty should proceed To search for lost Elijah, lest his God Had cast him on a mountain peak, forlorn, Or, in some valley ; so incongruous Men's notions of a God, when miracles The most stupendous, in mythology. Fable affected : what it proves is clear. How raw, the genius of the annalist. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, walked v/ith God: And Enoch was not, for God took him— here. Death, in its choicest figure, appears couched : Enoch's translation, but, an inference. Drawn, from Elijah's, of late scholarship. If, God took Enoch, living, Enoch w^as; Who was not, of God, taken, if by death. In an untutored Age, that rare memoir May have received a sense, so literal, As, that, some day when Enoch walked with God, God whiskt his choice companion (j>ff, with Him. —Have wise archbishops argued, how the sun "With the earth, conspired, that, the sun's shadow might Eetreat on Ahaz, dial, ten degrees? Gravely, these argued- -nay, have, even, urged The earth did change her motion, to effect For Hezekiah, the demanded sign. Alas! for human reason, when, in chains, Thro' fear, of human reason, set, at large. Belike, Isaiah might have aired the cue That, had undone, when, done, the miracle. ^o, if, man ever stayed the sun or moon, His, the like art, or, privilege, to-day. Yet, men insist, that, tho' they sometimes li'^. Their ancestors could not— a courtesy That has cost half the mischief, in tho world. A conscientious liar is the worst, Of liars, easily. Eomulus, son of Mars, had founded Eome, Had reigned nigh forty years, then, rode to Heaven, In a fiery chariot, seated ; the sun, dark, Tlie earth, tempestuous; and was afterwards THE REVOLT OF REASON. 45 Seen, of Proculus Julius, beautiful, As, in a vision— whom hailed Quirinus, Eome, as her guardian God, thenceforth adored. Thus, fable seems imprest on the stones of Eome, As, on the tents and arms of Israel. The prophets of the Hebrew were, but, bards. Hailed, always, prophets— so, all prophesy- Is fancy, in the role of poesy. Just, as the sports of childhood are of kin. Theories, sprung, of ignorance, agree. It strikes the savage, common, to confess God, in the thunder; or, by sacrifice. Bloody and cruel to avert his wrath. So, to incipient culture, God reveals. In dreams and visions, what shall come to pass ; Or, by the vision of a nation's bards. When, reason, bursting sacerdotal chains, Achieved the proof, no priesthood hath, in fee, By divine warrant— man, the spark was struck, That made man, luminous. Yet, who had dreamt Words, by barbarian?*, for barbarians, writ. Should, by their sheer antiquity, alone Have duped the cultured eras of mankind? Semi-barbarians had the audacity To credit God, with having penned their codes. Who is, to them, a partner in each scheme If, kindly, or nefarious ; and the Jew Not, the exception, was the rule, itself. In all its rigor— in the vulgar craft, Of a Nomadic priesthood, to insure Tithes and th' innocent victims, cruelly Bntf'hered, in sacrifice; then, at the age Of fifty years, disfunctioned, left, to enjoy The exacted riches. The muffled sound, of a mechanic's tools. Is heard, in Nature, but, a fiat— where ? Nature had queried, what a fiat meant. In th' Cosmos of the Hebrew stands the earth With the sun and moon, as adjuncts : to create Where Science was in embryo, an act Of God's volition: the Creative week, A tale of attless, innocent, old age, j^rching it« eyebrows, to the wistful tent. With the moon's quarters made to synchronise, To the seven planets a fit compliment. The week, a fact, before Creation's date. 46 A MAMMAL ONLY. E'en, to clironology, the Church's own. In the seventh, haned a day of festive ease : 'ihus, tiie week suggested the creation myth, And not the myth, the week. —From the seven planets of antiquity, Wlience, e'en, Apollo's lyre took seven strings, Sprang, half, the crumbling myths and vagaries, That, like old hulks, in the higlnvays ot the sea, Imperii navies, and men, nautical, Freeze, with forebodings : thence, the mystic seven : - Forty and seven, from the Semitic pen As cabalistic, as is presto-change. With strolling jugglers. —While the ethics of the Bible are the Jevv^'s, The precepts, Ulirist accented, are, of kin To Hmdoo saintship, tho' his argument Is that, of the enthusiast, who dreams His mission is divine; then, stakes his life, Upon the issue raised and loses it, I'or what, the Jew held blasphemy and Eome If, she held treason, did so with a smile. Yet, for the Jew's sake, slew him with a spear ; Man's brother not his sire— wherein, a king The Agnus Dei of all potentates. Some precious kernels, rescued from life' a chalf, Men hailing ethics, cherish, as divine, Experience, always ; how, man cast his skins, Tore out his fangs, endued his cruel claws With humanising arts— to poesy, V/ere man's majestic era : life, to-day, Is gentle, as the jasmine and foretells. Like, that sweet plant, in the yet closed bud Its ministry, in flower. —As, 'tis not knowledge, man's, entlirones a God, Nor lack, that had dismist one— man's conceit Are his peculiar products, never, God's. Nothing, but God is holy— after him, All things bear marks of their incestuous birth Man, e'en, if, raised into the millionth power, Had showed no signs of Godship— man, the more : God, but, an open question, to be met, With light, more light, v/ith, ever, more light, still. Not, to attain power, but, equipt therewith, Betokens God and always : God falls not THE REVOLT OP REASON. 47 la the dilemma, luau'a— faiu, to elect Between expedients. —If, in tlie daybreak, God liad chanced to meet A semi-savage and accosted luin, The interview, if, afterwards, detailed, Had left no faint impression, on the mind, That, He, somehow, had shortened sail, a God. Words, too, inspired, if, in a barbarous ac'o, Had not evinced the savagery, therein, Of such an era, but, had honored God E'en, to an age of culture ; had not craved. For' God, extenuation— bidding man. To place himself, in the barbarian's stead, And by his standard, gauge the immaculate God. From the barbarian's stand-point, to seek Go.L Were to contend, tliro' barbarism, life Had become consummate. — Wliy, between Gcd and man, analogy, Pursued, as, if the fact were palpable ? Men are yet in the leading strings of P^ul, David and Jeremiah — half, their tears. Yet, salted, from the pillar of Lot's wife. -The gentile is the Hebrew's metaphor, A foil, to Israel's glory : scarcely, once. Is th' gentile name sung by Hebraic bards. But, as, a captive, Israel's kingdom, ccmc ; The Jew sang for himself, sang not for man. Modern polemics would thrust man, within. That, written by and for th' elect of Heaven. Yet, God and he a partial God, ^^'ero seen Nearing the exit of the universe- Going, unreverenced. —Nor, are the Hebrew Scriptures vhat they were. Their barbarous cipher, helped by all the pens Of luminous reason to eke out the text, Or shade its unconcealed savagery. The book, if, God's, yet, w4th a frontispiece, A serpent and man's mother, seems to proof, But, a thesaurus of the orient mind, Of Hebrew letters, the compendium : A Hebrew-Chaldean anthology, A synthesis, of oriental faith. In its religion, clearly composite. Its annals, to convenience, fabulous. Whate'er, the void, in Hebrew scholarship, God is imprest to fill it ; for each fact. Asseveration takes the place of proof. That, elsewhere, true, were in the Bible, true. That, false, if, elsewhere, false, why not, therein ? 48 A MAMMAL ONLY. The complement of magic, sorcery, Of astrologic wisdom, when, compiled: Of origin, divine, to proofs, its own, Man ventures near and finds the book, a book. Not, holy writ, 'twere diabolic writ, The tale of butchered Canaan : half, if true Crime in the name of th' immaculate God, Turpitude, baseness, quite impossible, To the West, as fiction, entertained as fact In th' Hebrew annals, it accentuates The barbarism, of an era, known As theocratic. —Despite the glosses of all scholarship. The pen was held by a polytheist, That left on record, paradise and Sin : His scrolls a patchwork of the Hebrews' pride, They realize a tribe's desires, unrest, AmLition, lust, vainglory, overthrow. The author of the Pentateuch, unknown It fareth worse, than, with its author known : Its author known, yet, certifying that. False to man's reason— what shall reason do ? Must man accept of Israel's God, or, none ? How, had this struck a visitant from Mars, The evidence, before him ? —Dubbed as The Books, in the fourth century, Hy an ascetic, known, as th' Golden Mouth, The bible is, in issue, as to the worth Of the genius, man's, that permeates the text. With reason, umpire— man's enfranchised mind Has raised the question, if, the book be, God's. If, God's own word, it may ignore the gag ; If, God's own word, it stands, alone, like Him, Of incommunicable energy. — Tlie bible hands a brief, for any course Of moral conduct to each litigant. While, it forecloses freedom, innocent, ConceiA^ed, before opinion, that man had The right of private judgment. —Man's reverent genius leaves her own light there Fcr light she seeks, yet finds not in the text ; Hor light, man's progress, in despair of scrolls That depreciating change, man, pastoral Hail, finished, as, in Syria. —The Jew is ever challenging the Gods Of other pagans, to some feat of strength, While, his own pen records, who wins the joust r-.o, he indited his own chronicles THE REVOLT CF REASOX. 49 With th' stolen nutgalls of a stolen land, \Vlu>, every scroll embellished as he would. The cultured nations of antiquity, But, as, a slave, or, captive, pdss him by, Who were unknown, with the nomadic tribes His peers, he conquered, but for vanity Unspeakable and tribal, that, to faith, Made an appeal and duped the gentile world, Unwittingly, to venerate his words ; Which, clambering into Israel's narrow bed, Has, ever, since, sought to crowd Israel out. Nomadic legends never become true, Because, the Hebrew's, for no flock of sheep Wayward, as Israel, broAvsed, at will, a sphere, Shepherded by the Infinite. —Bigotry, By, ever burnished arms, sustains ttie seal Of silence, on men's lips. Compute the cost, To date, of silence : blood, e'en ten times o'er, All Alexander's, Caesar's,- Bonaparte's. The issue, stated, were— belief in God, Conceived, as. man may. or, as Israel hath. God is, on trial, always, for a flaw; Impatient to be tried, by every test, Man's reason may devise. —Who saith that God and man are not at one ? An Eastern Fable : by authority, Of whom, is man, a culprit, before God, Forever, in his issue ?— Persiflage, Men will indulge in, whose such antics, here, Such expectations, hence— all history Were a broad farce, to a good playwright's pen E'en, the bible argues, power, wherever found. Whatever, styled, as God's and shuts the door On reformation w^ith a hopeless bang ; Wliile, man's theology supports the text, With theories of moral government By a supreme and personal Deity, Whose counsels are unknown ; evil as good, Laid, on Him, indirectly, thro' the craft Of an arch Devil, who discomfits God, By his devices, oft. Fnith, a lost art, what Fury had restored? 'Twere not essential to true worship, God, Fhould be a Person— who impersonal, Were as adorable : man's ignorance As, to what God may be, leaves God unchanged Who challenges man's homage, as a Fact, Tlio' incommunicable 50 A MAMMAL ONLY. —Man's most alarming Fall was, when he fell Into the gross mistake— that Nature errs, His province, to correct her : who, when dead. Is man, completed, to all science, yet ; Tho' Nature drops the curtain, with a sigh, On his poor playing. —The virtues with the vices of an Age, The Hebrew devotes candidly to God ; Nothing, of good or evil. He is not Amenable to man for— tho' the time Be not, yet, ripe, himself, to vindxate. A plague thins London and the earthqualio thrives On Lisbon and Callao ; in Cathay, A swollen river drowns a million souls ; Wliile, scare, a day, but somewhere and some- how. Revolting slaughter— is it therefore God's ? Slavery and polygamy appear, Early, in Genesis— such noxious haste. In barbarous man, t' enslave each captive tribe Lusting for many wives, who pleads God's wmk, To clinch both evils on a credulous world. —God had He e'er revealed Himself at all And as a Person, 'twere t' accommodate Man's limitations ; God, remaining, still, That infinite necessity, whereof. He, scarcely, probes tho mystery, himself, In self -existence. —Can God perform a miracle— who knows ? His presence, in fixt laws, his history, In all authentic eras? May He act Other, than, is apparent, or, suspend The laws of Nature, or, do that, without. His custom, to do, thro' them ?— or, at will, Ignore the powers of Nature ? What is God Craves, first, solution— for, the Infinite Is what?— and, always. —Man, fabulous, invades the will of God, Whose realm is silence and some vocables Drops, furtively, therein— tho' man's a stretch Of history, with not a portent in, But, to proof, couimon. -Man's wholesale vanity is the false note, Of his first octave, swept from catgut strung, To Asia's barren and unpeopled skies. Speak, plainly, man: thy fluty, so, to speak; Nor, mince thy words, as, if. in mortal fear THE REVOLT OF REASON. 51 Of the ghosts of dead barbarians ; speech, thine own, By right, as clear, as theirs. Ah ! me, if God Doth think of man, at all, when had he thought More, opportunely, of him, than, to-day? God, his, a favorite, had 'been the butt. Of all the universe. —That of the Jew is true, whate'er he wrote In words, self-luminous ; his miracles 8pume, of li'ls barbaro'us childhood— as, if, God, Knew any friend, in man, beyond a man, For man's sake, only ? Wliat, the Hebrew penned True of all men, conceded of all time, J I, God, still, speaks, by man, God spoke, by him. Man, primitive, finds that, an easy stride, Across the doorsill of the Infinite, Man, cultured, finds so hard. —Goblins have held the earth and man has cowed To that, invisible, as, if, the sense Of sight with hearing, were not one to him, Wiiii til' tiger in his jungle— whence, whate'er Had put him on his mettle? Nature stamps On man, her cost mark, to rebuke the I, perhaps, written, and hereafter, God May seem, what, God must be, to God, himself, Law, lixt, unchangeable. —God's in the world, as much, as, ever, God, Tho', man hath less assurance on his lips Of intimate acquaintanceship, with Him, God, gTeater, in man, less : if, moved thereto, God could not save what light extinguishes. —Appeal to miracles, so, final, once. Were an appeal to raw credulity : Conceded, late, proof of divinity, Mii'acles, but, premise the fabulous ; For th' miracles, to Jesus, credited. In kind and number, pale, if, named, with those. His saints did, afterwards, vouched for, like his. Of common rumor and eye witnesses; Of, by the fancy of the fabulist— Wlio raised the dead, performed more prodigies Than Jesus had, in all his weary life A miracle, to every breath, he drew. But, when the house Of Joseph, built at Nazareth ; wherein. The very Christ grew filial, suddenly, At midnight, rides the air aligliting last, Loretto's shrine, since, for six hundred years; His home, traditional, at Nazareth In the Latin Convent, shrined, albeit, still. With the workshop, too, of th' godly carpenter To heal the sick, or, blind, to raise the dead. To east out devils, to turn water wine, Wliat, these, if, named wdth that ? an argu ment For faith, man leaves unchallenged, with the blood Of Januarius, that liquifies. To prayer, tri-yearly. Who shall dare, lo urge All man's experience, against his faith. Who would believe and doth ? What roused the zeal Of th' crusaders like th' bones of th' saints THE REVOLT OP REASON. 67 What shall prove holy, even, fanes to-day, Unless, these relics, with their miracles? Imagination doth, what God had not. In prison, languishing', despondent John, Misgiving him, he, late, announced, the Christ, In that, no hand flung, wide, his prison door- Sent messengers to Jesus, fainting hope T' assure, he was the Christ— wlio^e proof, to John, Argued his feats of healing, while, to the poor The Gospel was proclaimed : therein, a stoop That, the back of pride had broken, then, t' have made, Yet, in a God, to breathe of rich and poor. With sharp distinction, had dis-spliered the Sun Of His divinity; to \\hom, alone, i)istinctions fade— who had not, penury. Hailed, meritorious, such its revenues. Beyond existence: but, ha.d blotted out. The sharp distinction, with a whitt of scorn ; Had done, at once, \%hat man, still, seeks to do, T' abate the evil. —Christ did not snatch the gory head of John From th' wanton's charger and to th' quivering trunk, Ri^store it, quickly— whom, no greater, born Of woman, had been ; but withdrew afar The most significant of all his acts, Clouding omnipotent power, or privilege. At any time, a miracle, then, here : Not, here, where, else, the courage of a God? So incompetent, Met, with the Greek or Eoman, seems the Jew, To limn the awful features of a God ; Such as once hushed th' air of th' Parthenon, Or, by the Forum, cowed a Cicero Who," even, doubted, of him. What a hinge To swing Heaven's gate on, words, cast to the winds Of Galilee, to treasure ? or, the mouth Of Hell to shut, or, open, to a voice. Heard, but, of few, some doubted, if, a Gods? —Christ taught some simple peasants, how to bear Humbly, the Eoman yoke, in parables, Gauged, to their reason. They were fishermen, To superstition, bred; whose eyes descried What others' eyes see not; whose ears had heard 68 ' A MAMMAL ONLY. Wliat, landsmen's ears have, never, hecrd, nor, shall : The frank, yet, treacherous sea had toyed with them, Had tost them, on his billows ; their delight, The perils of the storm— while, to the calm, Their hearts had leapt, to legends of the deep Credulity had set their mouths agape. And reason may not close them— such, were they Who followed Christ, as, in the legend, told. Reverence for Tradition, nothing, else. Restrains men, from exclaiming— Lo ! the tale Of Christ, is, but, by fishermen ; each fact Vouched for, on nautical authority. —Cowardice appears. In every action of the fishermen. Who joined his fortunes : so, he bears his cross, To woman's tears and John's ; in all whose life, No act, of one of his disciples, proves Faith, Godship had inspired ; it competent T' assume the marvelous is, but, the fringe Of orient fancy, on his stainless robe. —Luke's preface, to his Gospel, stirs the doubt He meant to silence, in Theophilus, Since, what had come from Heaven had proved itself. His, all virtues, man's. Had sweetened with fair uses his brief life, And surnamed swollen Charity, the Nile, In honor of its flood ; 'tis cowardice Makes man a villain ; it is bravery Must ralso him to the stars. Christ was, to man. Brother, to that man, lost, Avho had not found A kinsman, to stand by him ; whose own heart Burst, at Jerusalem, in martyrdom, To supreme charity ; and Christ, alive. To Roman clemency, in morals, yet. Dead, to the bigot's poison, in the spear. Displays th' historic halo, round his head. Elisha multiplies the crus*^ of oil ; So, Christ the fishes and the barley loaves ; Elisha gives the mother back her son ; While, Christ restores to Mary, Lazarus : The newer Canon dovetails, in the first. —Man's miracles of healing are, as old A«, his traditions and their verity St.'inds t.» riedulity, quite, uniinp'eaohcd. Him, of Tyana, born, ere Christ was born; THE REVOLT OF REASON. 69 Witli liim, of Sicily, then, Ages, dead, With him, of Crete, wliose miracles command The voice of Delphos— man's traditions, eacli A\\ard tlie honors of divinity. So, tlie Sicilian rodo into the skies, A mortal, living ; and when he was born, The prophet of Tyana and contest Divinity within him, magic, then. Had rcivaged Konie, in all her provinces ; Of Eome, more dreaded, than, a pestilence ; Than, all the amours of th' Olympian Gods, When, Nero, by his edict, dipt the wings Of magic, in mid-flight — w^hile, far from Eome The prophet of Tyana healed the sick. The skill of Apollonius, divine; Who died, in his own bed, unlike the seer Of Sicily, who, to the Immortal Gods, Would pass, undying, and had, cleverly, Had Etna held not, grinning, in her teeth, A brazen saiidal. Miracles, of old. Were, to mnn's reason, what the oyster is, To man's digestion, and such aliment, Of sickly reason, craved, craft well supplied No w-eapon, so like Thor's, that, oft, as hurled Sought the God's hand, afresh. —The vulgar herd demanded miracles, T' authenticate the Gods— no evidence, Half, so convenient, or voluminous: Hence, to the Supernatural, appeal Down all his annals, till man laughed aloud When, lo ! the Gods w^cre dumb. —Who shall say, ^hrist, ever, for Himself, made other boast Than, as the Son of Joseph ? Wlio shall say, What, in his life, is true, what fabulous? Thus, Daniel, if, not Daniel to the age Credited with this prophet, prophesy, Were false, tho' vouched for by the lips of Christ. So, if Christ hung on th' peak of Ararat, The gorgeous Crown of a Divinity, It hangs there, yet, if, not to th' letter, true, Noah sailed a drowmed world and stranded there. If, Jonah sailed not in a fish's maw. Three days, th' Internum INIare, every claim - Of Christ, to Godship, fails. 'Tis possible, Both, tho prediction of Christ's death, itself, And resurrection are an after thought Of pens, that hailed the resurrection, true, 70 A MAMMAL ONLY. And would by Christ's prophetic lips assist Faith to accept it. —Deucalion and Pyrrha were preserved, Whei, man incurred the enmity of Zeus While safely on Parnassus, strands the ship Deucalion built, to ride tlie nine days' flood, As, all mankind, not in the ship, were drowned : So partial were the Gods, to piety, The Flood is proof, of pure benificence : Thus, human, Gods, whose methods were man's own. Or, below reason's. —Who knows what memories, prehistoric man's. Transmitted thro' what eras— cataclysms. As, of a continent, gone down the wave, Or, of one, risen, boldly from the sea ? Traditions, by the shore, affect a ship. Well ballasted and trimmed, with man and beast Eiding, well piloted a six days' flood ; Whose inland versions seem unnautical, As, of an ark, or, chest, nor stem, nor stern. So, from the cave-man and the drift-man, do- .-n Tradition may have plowed its tortuous way ; While, from a watery horizon had sprung. The earth, unknown, a universal flood. Geology appeals to heat and cold. To Continents, emergent, from the deep, Eons— as factors, to relieve a Flood, Of labors, multiform, no flood had done, Tho', universal, half a century. —What, Ptolemaios penned a hundred years After Christ's exit, was astronomy As understood in Christ's day, when the earia Stood, central, to the universe, a point Round which all planets swung: such ignor- ance, Vet, unrelieved, hints what it must, that ClirisT Knew nothing, of the spheres— since, to one flash Of divine science, both astronomy And the, yet, guessed-at Cosmos, st.ood unveiled —Ptolemy Waits Copernicus, an abutment, stood, Against the boUmg strait, where, life went down Whose lenses drift ashore, whereat the earth Wheels, on her axis and rolls lonnd the ^'ln Since, then, all knowledge, with the merit in. Of science, is man's product— all beyond, Pure speculation. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 71 —Astronomy assures man, he enjoys A sciualid quarter of the Universe; E'eu, by her glasses demonstrates the fact : In Sirius, \vitue:s, to a sun, wherein, Quite, twenty sccre the vital force, of ours, While, in Canopus, countless suns, in one. A paltry system, in the Milky Way, Ours, if, but, named, with systems in mid-sky. That, in to-day's, or in to-morrow's glass, May with their satelit?s squeeze, one, by one, Tio patient science, in the astronomer. In man's own system, think, of Neptune s track, . Of near two centuries, around the sun ; A solar year, to her inhabitants. Jupiter,^ vaster, by four hundred times,, Saturn, eight hundred, vaster, Neptune, too. E'en four-score times, tlian is the dwindling earth— , . ., How, dwarft, in his own household, man appears ? The life of man, were it longevity, Like tlieirs, in fable, 'twere not long enough, To cover half the time, a ray of light Consumes, in transit, from some unseen star. To this vainglorious orb. Pitiful era, Avhen a lunatic Was one posssst of demons, or, one, struck Of a malignant planet : him, disease Threw on the gTound to rave, a man possest Of devils seven, or, multiples of seven : Yet, such the era, man's latuity Has garlanded with aureoles of light. What creed is true ? If, faith be made the test. All creeds are true to zeal or votive blood. —To f-lay a true man, in a felon's stead, Is a device, by man, its equity Defyu'g the best moral microscope. To make it, visible : to postulate, Justice is satisfied, thro' shedding blood, Tho' innocent, for crime, at her assize, Tried and convicted, is a maxim, false: In substitution, a sheer subterfuge, , Which, none saw clearer, than, the ancient did : Yet, it afforded license, to the strong, To do their pleasure and to substitute Victims, for crimes, their own, before the law : To loop-holes of escape, power, riotous. 72 A MAMMAL ONLY. To proffer justice a clean, innocent life, For Ms, who reeks witli blood, had seemed absurd. E'en, to the wretch, who slipt the noose, thereby. —The essence of the Gospel cult is faith; J L8 secret is a banquet, for the heart : Eeason is nob invited to the feast; But the affections gorge them and lie down On beds of resurrection, joyously. His sweet emotions, who has been forgiven Offences, if,, but, fancied, with his love For one who suffers, as, his substitute. For crimes charged mortal— altho' fanciful. Has lent the Western Cult, whate'er its hold On man's aft'e tions. Everything, in Christ, Not, pagan, clings to Galilee; is, still, In th' box of ointment, in the human voice. Tender, of woman— while, the venal Jew, It rebuked, roundly : in each incident, Of love, or virtue, in a guileless life. —Yet, grant a Heaven and Hell and man's, a soul That must survive him ; then, conceive, how frail Were that device, to rescue man, if, lost, Had saved, scarce one, of every million, born? Tho' such the Western Cult, that predicates Salvation, thro' the voiced, or written word ; Perdition, theirs, who fail to hear, or read. How many, hear or read, of all mankind? The blunder is not God's, when, a device Is charged on Him and the device lias failed Each popular Cult presumes to solve the doubt Of man's experience, best, by cutting it ; Treating man, hence, with life in Heaven or Hell, Life, here, a dismal failure : but, life here Is all man hath assurance of who, dead. All Nature's voices In^eak forth, fitly dead. —The grace of God, in a dilemma, found, Reason, not revelation, hath made bold To whisper, gently, of, probation, hence, Whereat, the cry of heresy is raised : Ermine, in banco, scarlet, in that, faith Demands, of justice, on her doubts, to make Deliverance, final.— Faith awaits a fall, Fallen, erewliile, l)ut for her legs of gold, T^a^al, ns Jiipi<^er's— like his, wherein, It left no ripple, on th' peace of th' world. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 73* What evil has not come of the Hebrew's pen Voted, the wisdom, of Almighty God? What blood, in God's name, shed, by zealots' steel? What vigils, kept, of faith, to no reward? What fears have dashed the pleasures of this life? Wliat dreams have crazed the lives of fasting saints, Like, th' fascination, that doth o'erpersuade The wretch, to plunge into the seetMng sea. Stood, on a beetling crag? —What, in the Western Cult, best, serves man- kmd Is th' guileless anthem, pitched, in Galilee, To man's atrocious pride, in blossom, there. Had God a message for the human race He had not left it with twelve fishermen To memorize and publish ; since, the act Were charged with nameless cruelty, to men, Who fail to hear it-yet, the fault, not theirs, Denied a yea, or nay : to think, of God, Each nerve had tingled, to his equity. Must light and shade fall, man's, from Palestine ? Hath Nature, not, for all her continents, A love, to each, peculiar, yet, her best? Christianity is welcomed, less, for the pledge. She makes, of life, beyond, than, kindness, here : Her kiss and alms, the miracles, alone, That raise her to esteem; whose name shall, yet. Be changed to Charity, her proper name, Stript, of all, supernatural, the husk, Charity may have ripened in. 'Tis true, Christ did not, soon, return, as, in his life. He, oft, predicted— thus, Christianity, In yielding ground to waning miracles, Is ethical, or, nothmg : Avhile, therein. Lies all the merit of her history; All evil, her pretensions, unsu stained. Evangelizing man Avere teachhig him, Tlio Golden Paile, with ethics— more than this, S^eems, but, new lessors, in mythology, The pagan bolts, to Western pharmacy. Yet, vomits, shortly : Westernized, a man. An oriental, to tradition, still. Nothing, to dread from more intelligence. Spring how, or, whence, it may ; tho' avarice 74 A MAMMAL ONLY. Suffer, proioundly, merchandizing liglit. The l>est, the Supernatural has done For man, has been to roast him— liistory Proves, little, in its favor, but this fact."^ Man and the Supernatural may not, Co-exist, longer, without loss, to man, Of all his manhood's honor : let us have The conflict o'er and peace. —When few men thought, the priesthood thought for men ; Y/hen all men think, the priesthood shall have been. No moral power has contravened man's own, In human history : God, in what, we hear, Behold, or feel, is a fact, polyglot, Our hearts contain, our senses reverence. Our wills obey, or, would: the field for faith, God, the Immutable, in natural law. Man is, to man, himself, the universe ; Nothing, to man, worth knowing, not, of man. In common sense, the world is drowned, at last, The first authentic deluge of the earth. Since geologic eras. — Wliat, in Christianity, is mythical. Had sphered by the fifth century, till then But, formless chaos. Christ, to us, appears, Tho', to his precepts, a discarded Jew, An afterthought of many centuries, Platonized down to Athanasius, Thence, the suggestion, of the Vatican. In no succeeding Council of the Church, Ignorance, sucli, as in the first, prevailed, In the fourth century— whose famous acts Were, scarce, recorded, half traditional, Its chief transactions. Superstition, then, By Pappus and Sabinus told, at Nice, Resolved the Scriptures into those, inspired. Those, uninspired, by casting all the books Beneath a table, whence, to prayer forsooth, Upon the table, those, inspired appeared. Immobile, all the rest— a miracle, To the majority, hardly,, to such, As, had composed the Canon, ere the prayer The brain of the first Council, Constantino, A dabstor, he, in arts, miraculous, With Alexandria's bishop and a clique, Crafty„ as he, thes? wield their credulous peers. —The Father, Word and Holy Ghost, there are ; THE REVOLT OF REASON. 75 Whticli three, in Heaven, bear witness and are one: Words, in John's letter, flowing from some pen Inked, after the first Council, to sustain A dogma, man's, to copious argument, Att'ecting inspiration : Trimurti, As, th' first conception of a trinity, In Hindoo— and in Greek mythology, Zeus, Pluto, Neptune— if, no archetype. Pregnant suggestion. So a Synod's vote. The Incarnation ; for which, precedent, In Hindoo, Greek and Eoman liistory. Sprang, of debate, most stormy, faith, itself. As, th' vote, of the majority, wherein, ' Obnoxious, not to fagots. It appears Blood, if, the seed of the Church, is error's too. Devotion, incident, to policy. If, pagan, or, if. Christian, ever, one. —Can it be, that Christ, Is th' shuttlecock in th' game of battledore, la not, himself, the all-absorbiug game? Man, ever, has been an idolater, Permit him idols— eagerly were, yet ; Whose policy has been, to substitute One idol for another and his gods. To dethrone, moribund. Wherein, the Church, Eeligion is a product of the sword, As, well, as thrones are ; all her annals writ In such accursed blood as dare dissent From faith, already, crowned : in origin, However, holy, it is history, ' One creed supplants another, by the sword ; While, purse and sword are, ever, orthodox. E'en, Christ, himself, heretical, his voice Had sunk, as hollow, as Olympian Zeus'— No Phidias by, to stay the sinking God, With gold and ivory, warranted, divine. —The Cross is old as Egypt as a sign : Baptism, a rite, much older than the Christ ; Older than Buddha, with significance Wherein, symbolic, Christian, much therein Distinctly, pagan : so each festival Partakes of the pagan faith, it represents : For th' early Fathers, pagans born and bred,' Had, scarce, sustained a faith, not mythical. Hence, the mythology, of th' Christian Cult. For Saturnalias, we have carnivals, ^ — Tho' change, of name had left a vice, uri' changed. 76 A MAMMAL ONLY. —Day, festive, to the Sun, in all the East, When he had paused at Capricorn, the birth Of' Christ, was made to synchronise therewitli. Thenceforth, a festival four hundred years After Ms burial : Christmas, thus, a day Sacred in Eome, to Bacchus ; Persia's own In the mediating Mithras; festival. In Egypt, India, even, in Cathay, As, in the yule-log of the pagan North, To the returning Sun, past history. —Jove, scourged from Eome, returned : his temples, burnt. He, of their smoking ruins, built them o'er. The clever God but changed his name and state, "Who, to more light, than erst the Sire of Heaven, Had mustered, well, withiu him, gleams with rays, That, from without him, flood his broadening brows. Poverty, as an incident of life. Dates, ever, from man's culture : savagery Holds riches, common : yet, the fleetest foot. Like the best arrow, wins, in th' equal chase. Of no condition, is equality To be afiirmed, but, as the equal right Of each, to excel all others, if, he may. Want is not a condition of man's life, Tho' half may spring from man's conceit, it is And is, withal. Heaven's gate. —Poverty is an incident and not, ♦ A fact, that human nature may not waive. Man's rags are, half, his folly, half, his sires', Thro' countless generations, who have twanged Their sacred harp strings to such psalmody, As, poverty hath merit, in itself. O, what, a day were that, when poverty Shall find no face to pinch ? —Hath the world naught, but, Eope, for penury ? It hath the very marrow of the earth, To flesh her bones with; hath th' uncounted gold Long scattered to the winds, the price of Heaven. The riches doled to faith, on the joint fact Of cold and hunger, spent, if, wisely, spent, Had made half tropical e'en Arctic frost. THE REVOLT OF EEASON. 77, Had polislied her shrunk flesh to ivory. —What a spectacle. Of murder, craft, deceit and violence. Yet, tins a minor planet ? Man, unmade. Might be man, well, made over : hope were salve, Stale, as from gallipots of Pompeii, T' anoint a sore with, if the sore be old. As, is man's reason— waiting, yet, the knife. Man, homeless, to misfortune, or, unthrift, Anticipates home, dead ; which sovereign cure For tu ills of poverty, by t-pitliets. Pagan and Christian, hailed alike, is hope. Classic Pandora and nomadic Eve, Have, each, left hope, unchallenged, having done, Mischief, not, soon repaired, once, in the blood. Of common ancestry. The sealed jar, By th' one unsealed, and in her consort's home. The other's curious fruit intimidate The Ages, still, because the lies are old. Hope is no remedy for human ills, It never cured one— is a quack's resort. In his last nostrum : hope is not an end ; Is, if, a staff, a frail one. Evidence, That shall make clear man's ills, must prompt each act, Armed, to undo them. Hope, not fortitude. Both, to endure and conquer, were a myth. Dead, as Pandora. —Power, absolute, made, scarce, a note of man. But, to swell armies ; hence, despairing slaves Conjured with hope, till, she invented life Eternal, to correct the mischief in. Of life, that, by the changes of the moon, Eeels off, to secret sighs, a fragile skein, Tangled, by demons. —Think, of that structure, boasting Jesus' tomb, Its shattered dome, ere while, a plea for war ? Did Christ rebuke the money-changers late ? A tenfold plea for his rebuke, to-day, As hostile clans, to a divided faith Would honor Jesus. Yet, what spot on th' earth, With zealot and fanatic, pestilent. As the reputed spot where Christ was laid ? WTiat does it mean, if true, the lowly Christ, And he, the very God, lay there, as dead. This tomb has cost such lunacy and blood? 78 A MAMMAIi ONLY. Christ, if, a God, could. Jie survey that spot, Of Christless bigots seized and yet not rock That soil, with such an earthquake as had swampt The jostling wretches, to which, that on file At his decease, had been an incident, Not worth recital? Stni, round his Salem, hideous, wails the Jew, Ages, expectant, of a Prince from Heaven, T' restore her glories ; he, a maniac, To his traditions. For three thousand years. The Hebrew hath with scrupulous care ful- fiUed His seers' predictions, and is, yet, absorbed, In making good the fancies of his bards; Who, at their consummation, well divines Salem's renown, his own Messiah come. —Martyrdom, for one's country is divine. And glorifies the martyr— otherwise, Oft, epidemical, in history, A morbus, like the plague. Eeason taaintains, That, if a God, Christ had come down the skies. At the cry of martyrdom, and waived its blood Godlike, wherein, die rescued innocent lives. Christ, if a God, upon some gala^day. In Eome, had entered tlie Coliseum, Had strode to Caesar's seat— before his eyes. Had lockt each lion's jaws and every pard's, Satisfied with their faith, who had not bled, To fasting lions, tho', resigned to bleed. Nor, were a dungeon, dark enough to quench His eye, intent, to light th' escape of him. Immured for Christ's sake : there had been no flame. To lick a martyr's blood up, hot enough. Who would be burnt, e'en, for a dogma's sake. An infinite God and personal were shocked, In him, who bled, in ihim, who vaunted blood. The common madness of an era, Faith's. If mart^T-dom were possible, to-day To th' Western Nations, every throne had cast A vote against ^it : yet, to th' praise of Christ, It was not he, that cost the West her blood. But th' fabulous husk of Paul's Christianity. Faith makes a bigot, whence a murderer To occasion scenting blood. —At Superstition, Paul affects to r-iil, Himself, the key-stone in the arch of fear; Wlio, found, in Athens, argues with the Greek, THE REVOLT OF REiLSON. 79 And bids him tliink with. Paul: the cultured Greek Smiled, at the frank barbarian, and his stole Di-ew tightlier round liim. —Paul, as a bigot, with indifference, Had shed his own, or spilt another's blood, Whose fancy left him, sensitive, to sights And sounds, unearthly : in the life of Paul, The right to self-deception, cardinal : Whose arguments are, oft, chimerical As any, in the Talmud ; yet, the Cross, Is planted, not, on Calvary, but leans Against Pauline, dogmatic utterance. Calvin's and Paul's polemic institutes Bear common warrant— false, to reason, false: So, each had burned, or stoned a man to death. Who differed from him, with authority. For the atrocious crime, clear, as his right. To speak the mind of Heaven : who burns a ^ man, His girdle, hung with all, he, ever, writ. Partakes the murderer, with him, who held Their raiment, who stoned Stephen, —Had Ananias been the, first, to lie, In Hebrew annals, it had seemed most fit. To slay him on the spot, with his true wife, Sapphrra, who had seconded her lord's False affirmation : an inequity, Tho' fabulous, without a precept in : Mendacity, a common privilege Of men and women, to the era, bred. A rumor of the miracle had caused A copious stream t' o'erflow the treasury. Wherein, belike, the motive, to the tale. From Zoroaster down, what man is prone T' assume, as evil has been, oft, revampt, The Persian in new garb— whose Ahriman, Whose Ormunzd, to the Jew, reflects the rays Th^ Jew illumed the West with : hence, to-day, Hail ! Zoroaster, gives to Light its due, —In the Parusia, by the Talmudist, Both Jew and Gentile, frankly, are apprised That, men shall grow nine hundred feet in height. One grape, itself, a cargo for a ship. While every son of Abram shall beeet Quite sixty thousand souls, as many Jews As sallied forth from Egypt ; sympathy. §0 A MAMMAL ONLf. Pouring, a flood, from every Hebrew heart. In t'he infertile Gentile's : Paradise, More, than, restored in a Jerusalem, Let down from Heaven. So a millennium, By Zoroaster dreampt of, should ensue Ahriman's triumph and the crafty Jew Made half his vestments of this Eremite's. — Mahommed restores Venus, satisfied, To wind Arabia, in the jewelled arms, Of Georgians, here, and Houris, in a hence, Pledged, to the faithful ; to which reeking Lie Confest half Europe, with the land of Christ, Half Africa and Asia. So, the barb. The Arab mounts, neighs, yet, to victory, His prayerful rider, saddled, hopefully, To raven hair and eyes, that wait him, hence. Arabia outstrips Jewry, by a stretch, JewrsT" shall, ne'er, recover ; while the sword Achieved the empire, lechery holds fast. —Mahommed rose, too late, to pose a God, If, but, in the sixth century, too late For fable not to blush, at the word— divine ; Who lived and died a Prophet, with less faith In Allah's arm, than, in Damascus steel : Whose fasting made an Arab, one, inspired; Who like the Nomad and the Eremite, Sought Allah in the desert, and whene'er His epilepsy seized him— Allah spake. — Th' invention of a Devil is the worst Of man's misfortunes, vastly : it has done More mischief, than, all poison, than the knives Of all assassins, joint ; it has dethroned Man's reason and a Goblin has installed As master of man's fates ; whose subtlety Premeditates disaster to his hopes. And with infernal gusto, thwarts his will. --Thus, the shrunk .soul of man, the Middle Age, Confronts with ghastly fear— inflames the Cross With a, Medusa as the twinkling star Of the pure Christ, set, in th' smouldering wrath Of the Latin Manes. Man, with wars to wage Against the offense of reason, silenced loss With th' solace of his fictions ; who, to war Ascribed all, war so failed of : plentiful, Of death, his ordnance, patented, in Heaven, Parked, on Christ's vantage, at all angles shot. —The Mi(Mle Age is, more, the corse of Jove, Or, Thor, dipt, in the Jordan, than a voice THE REVOIiT OF REASON". 81 Harmless and sweet from Judah : what, a swing Of execution, in the headman's axe, Whet, by her murders ? and, while, tragical Behind the footlights, no such comedy Since, the frogs of Aristophanes. Juvenal Was born, too early to have served man, best ; Terrance and Plautus living, then, had found Such drastic incidents in papal Eome, As Canitolian Jove was guiltless of. Christ, an estraying Lamb Tethered in Latium, pining, bleating, sick For the hills of Jewry!— On the Middle Age, With guilty faith, in what? faU the ringing blows Of reason, resurrected : who had borne Th' impeaoliment, known, as faith, which, analysed. Partakes the same servility that blanched What feathers, blew to Jewry ?— Bravery Cast, but, a spar, across the boisterous ford, Yet, woman passed, a woman over it. Behind the amorous man. The Middle Age Juts, a black promontory, boldly out Into the stream of thought and sinks more ships Than, all the reefs and shoals, whose cruel fame Seamen would stoD their ears to : who will climb Yon Crag?— What Tar? and light the Devil's Head? —Faith, never, lit a candle, in her life, Unless, of sperm ; her forte, to quench all light, But, down a golden, pagan candlestick. The statues by the Forum of old Eome Stirred, quite, as much to the eye of Cicero, With th' pulses of true manhood, as did man Under the reign of Faith; as man had, yet. If, still, a reign of Faith, were possible. Faith, had she held her sway, man had no light. But, from her altars ; his imnoverished mills, To industry, were hushed, save the sad looms Weaving her vestments. —What kent the Ages dark so much as faith. Ignoring Imman reason? Manhood fell. With man's remove from courasre : crime slipt in Between the ioints of the knight's harness since, Grace, by a priestly hand, could purge its guilt Honor, there was, if, in the stoutest lauce. An episode of love, the Middle Age, 82 ' A MAMMAL ONLY. Penned of the Kniglit and Virgin, in the oatli Hissed— Bj^ Our Lady! —In Charlemagne, whose empire ceased with him, The West had found a master, yet, a friend, To letters, culture, e'en to hberty, Frisking within a tether, tho' of steel. An epoch, in a monarch, Time enjo^^s His leisure, oft, in wholesome argument, Touching the secret springs of history. In Charles, the Great, who cleft the sky of Faith With, now and then, a flash of light, itself ; Yet, superstition gave to it the hues Of burning brimstone. —Ah ! the long Middle Age that slept much less, Than, it dreamt evil and, at intervals, Swore godly oaths, by pious lances, dipt In ih' blood of dragons, while in trailing robes, Bespangled so, with sanctity, they gave Off, healing, as did Jesus. How, the air Must have opprest man's reason, if, indeed. He had conceived of cogito— unless, To Schoolmen's hairs, or grave philosophy Transmuting the base metals into gold ? —Peter, the Hermit, in a lunatic. Infected Europe with fanaticism. As, if, a plagvo had swept Jier, in her sons. From th' Alps to Syria, pale, in death— for what ? For th' rescue of, if rescued, but a tomb, Empty, of what was worthy and defiled By the blood that had recovered it— alas ! For human nature, wrenched : insanity In its worst type, lies, in religious zeal, For ends, below man's reason. —How, superstition jested and, oft, reeled O'er the easv conauest of the Gate of Heaven, When man believed successfully and died— Living or dying, his, a hope of heaven. Perched, on the helmet, of the murderous knight, Seen, as a halo, round the bandit's gold. When dumpt in pious vaults. Hiccups, in the wine. Of bibulous monks, of reverence, supreme. Hailed divine utterance, hath audience lost. Much, like som(^ monster, oft, affrighting ships No sea-glass takes clear note of, armed witli fangs s%.- ' V ■-..^■.- '^^tf ■■ .4^^^«^SiiMSi^^^te«*. ■ ,l^c ^^ ^^1 "'■ *' '"^^K 1 mm ^ .;l^'- ^fl m • It ^ 1 I:- Sftl^^^^^i- '■% f '^^Ifc ITHE REVOLT OF REASON. 83 Darted, at Europe, yet, with gracious tail. Dousing with saving water, Europe's fears; With, half, her cargo, sunk, and half, afloat, For further aci tics— thus the papal \y(rld Told beads, an hour, and caballed, twenty-three —We learn more from Pompeii, than from Eome Of what, Eome was and hence, Vesuvius Is Eome's historian— while, her vomit, half, Atones, in Pope and Vandal, Goth and Hun, For hearthstones, shattered, in the Tiber, cast; For Gods, as. Art conceived them, Gothic saints. Eome never soared too high, not to descend Always in the Campagna : liberty In the first eagle's wing, met in mid-sty Had sent her,skurrying down,the despised fowl, Of all the game of heaven. No malediction, ever, fell from God; A curse, from God, ere lit, had God dethroned. Tho' man, affecting curses holds his throne, Tdl man unseats him : in the curse of God, The invention of the priesthood, to the wall, Pushed, for more whipcord. —Heretics may have been who died thro' fear Of Faith's anathema, ere, it had fall'n ; Yet, more, elected, to die afterwards : Imagination is the knife, whose steel, Moral assassins bring to th' finest edge. Of all Faith's enemies, no head turned white, But to her tortures— and pray, where, the knave, Had not hewn dungeons, in the solid rock? Why, still, some version of th' Archaic myth, Of an arch devil, rotund a baffled God, Fomenting mischief— vital ?— AMiat a day Shall that be in man's annals, when his brain Hath no more maggots in it ?— so, of faith, That of th' imagination, oft, wins fame. Thro' pobtquam ergo posthac ; dwarfing those, Of fabulous ages, daily— miracles. By her ascetics, pastime : what a stride Of reason, man, a godlike infidel, Unfaithful, to the past, yet, true to God ? Lot's stay the headlong current of man's gold His fears have made an Oronoco of, Thfit, hell-ward sets, to quench otemal fire. Ablaze in human fancy, elsewhere, not; Let's turn the current backward and remint 84 ''A MAMMA1^ OITT'To This gold, purloined from purges^ crewhile turned. [To superstition. —II, there be, yet, a cat-o'-nine-tails, man's, "lis for his back who teaches men to heed His power, to curse or bless. God had made clear As, by a sunbeam, that, for wliich. He would Men should have reverence : Nothing else, par- takes Of doubt so vastly, in man's history. As, doth religion— which assumes, to be Man's most stupendous interest, yet, proves, His most prodigious folly. —To lapse of time, no falsehood becomes true Tho' reverenced daily for ten thousand years, By acts of homage, worship, zeal and faith. No merit lies in what men mav believe. But, in what is and, ever, must be, true. Earely a lie but contradicts itself ; While, half the mischief, of a lie, T>roceeds From th' marches it has stolen on the truth ; The other half, the cost, of the alkali. With which, to scour its trail. —Semitic vanity imprisoned God In Ark and Covenant : while the Western Mind Has halted life an era, by the streams That water sacred Canaan, dreaming o'er, Each mystic utterance of bard or sage ; Dwarfing man's reason, notably— since, man Shall not find God behind, but, in the fore ; Or, fail to find Him.' Yet when Christendom, In Theodosius, put a helmet on. The West believed, to spears. —By the Internum Mare, vigorous swarms, From orient hives alight, and industry There, plied her arts, while, seamanship set out To scour the coast for gain— th' Olympian Gods, Hushing the waves to peace, till Pan's last wail Died out in echoes on its classic shores. From Salem's heights, where, erst, had gleamed the gods Of cultured tribes, the Son of Jesse flung The banner of the God of Israel, Dripping, with th' blood of all the Jebusites ; A city, thence, the pride of Judah's God, His Temple and his Altar, there, alone : Where, to tradition— later, in his Son, The very God enacts a tragedy. THE REVOLT OF JREASON". 85 Vou^lied for, of Jewish pens, of these, alone. Why, marvel, Europe snuft, in every gale. That swept th' Internum Mare, westwardly, Hebraic fancies ? Stemming every wave Some sea-craft, with the ensign of the Cross, What marvel, hers the cult of Israel— Hers, decimation, faith, therein, withheld? Anon, a ciescent moon rose in the East, In Allah's name, with menace, in its rays Of universal sway, when, at its full. Then, Cross and Crescent, fought their quarre out. In Christian blood and Moslem : Europe, thence Garlands the Cross with mistletoe and bade Both, Jove and Thor, farewell— yet, in he heart. Cherished, by other rites, reveres them, stiU. -How Christ had shuddered, had he dreampt the Church, An organ of the priesthood should ensue His words, in Galilee? Or, that his fame As of a lowly peasant should be wrapt Eound Capitolian Jove— of whom, 'tis like His ears had heard not, used, to homebred tales Or, that, in Italy, the Eoman spear, Dead, should enthrone him, in a Pontifex, Successor, to a Caesar ? Conceive God, as a person, who would make Much of this -trifling star—apprising man : Were he unbosomed, by the doubtful lips Of men's traditions ? or, by oracles, Historically, man's, as Delphi's own? God cannot be the close, familiar friend Of shrewd Italian monks— yet, reticent, To men, in cleanly homespun. -For policy and shrewdness, consummate, A Gregory ; and that the papacy Survives, a Gregory : a pope, himself, Is but, the force and culture of the man, Whose genius, e'en a fish-horn had announced, All, supernatural, in Peter's chair : In feuj>ernatural powers, the leathern fudge. By which, Eome clomb to Caesar. Tho' the zeal. That boasts of proselytes is, oft, content. To fe'^d on barley cakes ; th' anointed few, Styled Princes of the Church, what luxury These wights do wallow in, with what re- proach, 86 A MAMMAL ONtt. For Christ, who had not, where, to la3^ his head ? Christianity, before the Church, was Christ; Christianity, the Church, hall fabulous : Eome, as the weathercof^l^, of Christendom, Of Jesuit oil, sensitive, to all winds. —St. Fetor's stands on broad indulgences, Tho' th' dome of Angelo is innocent Of the transgressions, that erected it ; Art unapproachable, as, if, the gold That made it, possible, had not bp^cn smeared With lechery or blood. A Temple, then, Is God's own house, if, craftsmanship alone, Vouches its fitness ? Eather, the broad sides Beneath whose dome, there is not. never was, To life, in this, or any other sphere, A hint of crime, condoned, lest crime had thriven, But, rigorous justice, flashing, from each breach Of natural law, in silence, ominous : J God's house, wherein, there were not found, a spall, iWith a blood-stain on it.-Fear of God, itself. Is fear of man's traditions of a God ,f^rom papyrus to parchment— and since th<^n, Men fail to settle, clearly, what is God ? — Th© question, whence, is evil, is man's own. Goo , no concern therewith : evil is not Ass imed, a factor but false quantity. To waning brimstone. Disinfect the mind, • Of th* plague, within her hull, whose cancerous sores Disfigired all man's thought : not, yet a pain, But, in the breach of law, or pleasure, man's, But, to obedience. —Who hath the courage to avow that, true. All men', in concert, damn ? Less, what men Than, wiiat, men think they know, yet, do not know, Plays havoc with them. —Slip all the pack of hell on him, who dare Be true, to human nature and avow The truth, for truth's sake ; here is not the place. For truth, to be outspoken.- Yet, opinion fewings Between the poles of blind, submissive faith, And proof, as positive as gravity. Opinions change and men are clianged thereby. With their late selves, at startling angles,stood, THE REVOLT OP REASON. 87 Who neither shrink, nor shudder— scarce sur- prised. No knowledge, like more knowledge; so no power, Like, power, enough, to humble power, itself. Thine is tiie privilege, or, to dispute What stands on affirmation, or sustain What men have negatived : authority The better reason, always. —Who cherish their delusions, in that, sweet, Are like the aged, who in childhood's toys. Would feel, anew, the exctuisite delight. Of childhood felt, alone. That penitence, The sea is hoarding salt for, that, men's eyes. May do their duty, nobly, some day, hence. Suggests the crime of overmuch belief. It costs too much to keep old myths alive : They eat the very bread, that mothers sigh To feed their babes with : nor is corn, to-day, As cheap as to a Eoman Emperor, Who, by his largess, made the yoke of Eome Sit lightly on men's shoulders: festival And circus, free, to Eomans. Nor, are men Bred, but, to fight tor Eome and be amused. In th' intervals of war : all men appear Claimants, for equal honors ; which are theirs Far as uneaual brains permit thereof. —The Aece wants heroes and wants cowards, shot. Half hero and half coward were a mark For f usileers to blaze at : heroism In war, or peace, half-hearted, but confest Cowardice wrapt in a field-marshal's cloak. Let us breed men. against all odds brave men, Who take their ground and hold it. despite arms, Gold, favor, even, life: improvement, man's Dates, from the breaches, made, by catapults. E'en, heroes' brains, in the tough masonry Of reverent custom. —The supernatural survives her time : She, with the Middle Age. had closed her course, INIore fittingly, than, by a lingering death. The dreary dogmas of the Middle Age Survive as problems, but, of policy. The pessimistic East has made the thought Of the world, hideous : true, to man, the West, False, to his creeds, which, of sheer policy. She coddles, entertains, or tolerates. Against the supernatural, the bolts 88 A MAMMAL ONLY. Of reason are directed and ere long. Gunpowder may sustain an ordinance. Denouncing within Christendom, assent To th' evil, longer. — 'Twas Phidias, tlie Greeks adored, in Zeus, Yet, him they dungeoned, lor impiety. If, to consistency appeal be made To save man's sanity, his cause were lost. As hopelessly, as any inmate's were. Of any Bedlam : reason hath the keys Of Faith's own dungeon, on the turpitude That built the dungeon, turned. The Western Mind awoke, refreshed, by sleep. Chagrined, her nap so lon^ : the printing-press Ee-publishi^d Greek and Eoman, polyglot; While, the West marvelled, how, men thought and why. And probed the secret, having thought, herself. To emulation. Freedom, thus, had come, Tho', in a goddess, not, a luminous fact. Till courage supplemented art, with arms. Both, in the flash of true Toledo steel. And in the nerve to draw it, liberty. When, man learned, what it meant and har- bored it. Thence, on th' alert, to mount each circum- stance. Plying the rowels, freely. Ah ! the privilege Of thinking, for himself— what oracle Has man found, like it?— Man, too, with the power So, to surpass himself, he had, to-day. On his best boast of yesterday, the laugh ; Whom, naught concludes, unless the Infinite. TTiought, when, phenomenal is dynamite, Nor, could it prove a harmless fulminate : Yet, revolution in belief imports No bloodshed, but, of knaves and the raised axe Gleams for such wretches' necks— it, always .lust, That such as will not, well contain themselves, Should contain bullets, since there's lead enough. For all who crave it.— If, for centuries. Men did not change belief— theirs, none, t change ; Who bled, but, to the banners, whereto, bred Opinion, yet, unborn : religion spake. By oracles unauestioned, and the State, THE REVOLT OF REASON. 89 By arms, decisive. —What crime so black as man's credulity ? Belief, without confronting evidence, First, made man infantile, and keeps him so. The East reflects the Bible as it is: The West, man's genius, in despite of it. Freedom is, never, lignt, from Syria. Not, to the Hebrew Scriptures, nor, to th' fact, Their leaves i3lew open, freedom : liberty Had made a freeman, ere she made a Huss ; Eoaring in Luther, as a hurricane, Sprung of a zephyr. Ere, his anger rose, Luther was, but, half, certain, he was free; Whose anger found his courage, waiting him. The manliness of Greek and Eoman souls, The fortitude of true .philosophy. Printing had filled the air with, the West ^ breathed. As, chivalry, with feudal arms, went down. Freedom is not Semitic, thraldom is, Whose irons find the marrow of the bones : Not, in the East wind, freedom, but, the plague. Science stood up, despite authority, To argue the earth's motion, to descry Stars and explore them— e'en the Stagirite, To have dumbfounded with his Dremises. Authority ?— in God's name, what were that. Unless, O God, thyself? —Christianity hath not made Christendom : Throned, by her arms, her arms, it still, retains Whose menace hushed each wliisner of debate, Christendom, then, perhaps, Christianity : But, to men's lins, unsealed— Christendom thence The product, of the genius of the West. Freedom is, always, reason, at a stage. She dare assert herself and wit]j a spear. Or, shield, conclude her argument : her light Such as endues man, with new faculties, Or, doth so stretch the attributes, he hath, Ho seems, re-functioned. Always, bravery Presumes such sentiments of manliness. As, arguing honor, with a schoolman's art. Had stirred a s:ladiator's liver ut>. Man has had liberty two hundred years To breathe aloud— the earth rolls round the sun ; Such-, a stupendous privilege is man's. One other right, let faith concede- to probe Her own foundations : liberty of thought. To theocreatic Europe, dealt her. blows. 90 A MAMMAL ONLY. That more restored her brains, than scattered them. Freed from his chains, man turned upon hirhsell And his own thoughts devoured for aliment ; Thence, freedom and true culture ; wherein power, The Eenaissance was. but, man's right to think E'en each man, for himself— hurling at Eome, Her boast, to think for th' A2:es : it was not For th' privilege to think with Israel : For th' right to hear him and think wiselie" By thirty centuries. —Truth, seldom, is, half, radical, enough, Unless, a plowshare : reason shall not cease Propounding questions, or resolving them, Till with a tidal wave, or glacial frost, Met, as forecasted, in her almanac : Since, Nature hints, she may inaugurate A reign of frost and bid man caulk his doors. — Eeason holds Events if, evil, are mistakes, her own, Or follies and repents them— on th' alert, For broader knowledge : she most confident, Herself and Nature are, at amity ; So, cx)nstant, their relations— so secure. In her position, life is tentative. Confusion proves not Providence, but man's Raw manhood, in the offices of man : Life's touching, at the port, she should have made, Five thousand years ago. —Man blushes for his clumsy vehicle, . With the paga,n gods carved on it, with much ■ gilt. Much fluted ivory, spread over it: Savage, barbaric, classic, with a lamp, Swung, at the axle, by whose fitful gleam. The wain goes, jolting on. All freedom, man's, Is measured, by the distance, overcome. From sacerdotal chains— freedom as dead. As, the God, Apis, in the atmosphere. Of superstition : Light, and of man's brain, Is like the handful of avenging dust, By the last Gracchi, falling, cast at Heaven, The Furies honored. —Accentuate the present and forbid Unfounded expectations ; man is what The instant makes him : man is but a fact, To his surroundings, which, his iiitellect Proceeds to master, or, to, gently, serve; ilAfcii&ii" THE REVOIiT OF REASON. 91 Whose future holds the clew of destiny, Men strive to snatch at; whose felonious past But, pickt the lock of hope ; whose intellect May have as low and base an origin, As, in the muck-worm ; if philosophy Holds anything, in Nature, low, or. base. Instinct t' assume is far more violent. Than, to hail reason, common, to a scale. From insect, up to man. —Experience is the measure of all light ; Man's inexnerience, zero : but, one plea. Tradition urges, or tradition may— Thus, thought, our fathers, and thus we should think ; Tho' he shall yet have honor, who believes, Not, what his fathers did, but, what, they had Theirs as clear vision, as, their children have Tradition hath no rights, against the sun; The kid, that gambols with a lion, bleeds, A mounted god, let him assail the light, He were unhorsed, and quickly : So, to-day, Nothing is sacred from man's inquiry. But, that, beneath ft.— Superstition holds Firmly, the keys of destiny and man His reason, half, aroused, is craving— why ? A bankrupt, yet, in that, he, seldom, hath His assets, at command— li id, in the vault Of some basilica, the keys thereto, At some frockt warden's girdle : all his meat Exchanged, for lentils, or, a charlatan's Pledge of clean entrance into Heaven's strait gate. — Eurone has fondled dolls, a thousand years, Trickt out, in finery, in vogue, the day. She raked them from the ruins of old Rente ; Pagan, as Caesar's mother's, or her dame's. —Time is preparing to indulge a laugh. His waistband is so slack! To search for mystery deposits it. Where, none before existed : mystery Is, oft, a Dhantom of the intellect Man hath the knack, to raise, but, not to lay If, mystery were, simply, that, unknown What, else, in Nature, man's, but, mystery ? Motion, in Nature, is significant Of half her fu^nctions : such the mystery. In that, which seems the least mysterious. Science is more than man accords to her. As man's conception— she is Nature's own: 92 A MAMMAL ONLY. All knowledge, man's invention, in the sense Of finding out, or, of discovery. Doubt, is the alphabet, by which, we learn, While, demonstration settles what, we know, Till, to more light, re-argued. n. Why should man's exit nrove more difficult. Than, his unconscious entrance into life ? To light a candle, or. to put it out ? Man lives, because he must, yet brandishes His knife, a suicide, because, he may. Eesearch dispels the notion, that man feels Immortal promptings, due to natural law: No word, in any savage dialect, Native, for yearnings after life, beyond. 'Tis Nature's consolation, no man, dead, Is conscious he has left his palace, cot, Or, merchandise, or shop : the fact of death Eealized, by the living, not by th' dead. What more could Nature do, than, give man sleep, No dreams harass, no trumpet shall disturb, Life, nobly, spent, or ill ? No watchful eye Doth rescue from their indiscretions, men. They suffer, or fall, to them, death responds To vital mathematics ; no regard Had to expediency, in time, or place. No mystery, in death, like that of birth; The flame has, but, burnt out, j^et, how the flame Kindled, is, thrice, mysterious. —Man must be what he most appears to be, Mortal, as if a lichen, or, a fern ; Whose folly seems— to rate himself so high. He sets his idle heart on life, beyond, To the distraction, of his only life : Tho' not misled of Nature, or, of God. —There is no fear of death, net fear of man. Thro' man's inventions : heaven and hell are man's As, truly, as his murders : Nature shuts The door, on inauiry, beyond the grave ; Kindly, in her, to do so if man hath No fortunes, hence— and who had better known ? What is man's age is a momentous fact. Biology lights, dimly : proofs may sleep Beneath Atlantic and Pacific seas. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 93 Of what man has been— facts of yesterday Thebes and the rise of Illion : Nature's trend Seems toward a consummation, hers, wherein, Man is a factor, passive. —Man had clear right a century ago. But, to live o'er, what had been : to have thought Thein, as men, now, do, had been blasphemy. Treason, or, crime still fouler : blasphemy, A faded fiction— treason, blacker, still, To justice, on her throne, than, yesterday. —All crime is possible, to ignorance, Smithfields may, hence, transpire, should faith revive. In Christendom, the final Act of Faith Is, of the past, scarce, yet a hundred years ; When, by the Holy Office, men were burnt, For crime, impossible, styled heresy. Had God interpreted His will to men Of every Age, as if made audible, This had been Revelation— well observed, Therein, God's favor, His displeasure— spurned : But,' what Traditions of His will were true. Extra-judicial, proof of these, alike ? Against experience, hearsay, proof of what? —Physical courage has done more, for man. Than, half, his schools did, for him, ere, the day, Gunpowder, flashing, at the gleaming crest, Of the last knight, unhorsed him— for, it seems, Man had no rights, till courage proved he had. Eeligion, before science— afterwards. Science, and thence, religion, illustrates The law of progress, fitly. Feat, too hard, To argue man, to savagery and fly His annals from a tent-pole : argument Sides with mankind, in action, to achieve; Or, failing, man's extinction. —In a sphere, swept, of idols and false gods. Were ,a clean stage for man, whose, not a fear, But, lest, the prompter nod. Liberty Has doft her Eastern gear, disdaining sleep On orient rug, or divan, every pulse Languid, with frequent amours : watchfulness, Her spear and egis. 'Tis the bitterness, Evolved of man's traditions that defeats The unity of man and shall till time Hath burnt much faded papyrus, or shelved The mischief in it, high. 94 A MAMMAL ONLY. —Opinion, tlio' not air observes the law. Of veering, oft, until it settles down, In a contented trade- wind. In morals, wherein friction, it is man's, Ever, to lack of knowledge : human life Ought to move, noiselessly, along its way, As, ride the spheres, e'en, with a glory, theirs ; Eclipses, transits, every incident In life's astronomy, as positive As th' mathematics, of the solar spheres. —Since, God is other than men deem He is, Ours, a new era— man in search of God. How shall man prosper till he feels his life Is mortgaged to no devil and his name Signs, with heroic flourish, to the deed Of his self-manumission ?— who well needs All th' sulphur feigned, in hell, to fumigate His noxious life with— who would make it o'er To the pattern of pure reason. Never, God Crarns a man's mouth with bread, nor, raven's crop ; Each heeds the law of life and to it, thrives. Or, to its rare exceptions, starves and dies. In th' ear of men's traditions, it sounds strange That, man's is moral providence, and God's Unmildewed corn, in autumn. —Voyaging the ecliptic, if the sun Had smote the zodiac, with pestilence, How, it had smirched his royalty, whose fame Ensues benignant swav ? Wise men rejoice, in wiser, than themselves, But, fools delight in their diminutives. He who had recognized a God, when met, Were, half, a God, himself ; it, ever true, He eulogizes Ms own powers, the best. Who finds another, greater, than, himself, And tells men, of him. —A special message, by an Eremite, Or, fasting Arab, from the Court of Heaven, To-day, were lunacy : God has not changed, But, man has changed his notions of a God. Tho only envoys, God's, from other spheres. As, yet, prove aerolites. —Men are not atheists who disbelieve In verbal revelation and maintain. Law, common, fixt, and irreversible. Appears the presence of a God— whereto, Man piay adjust his life and live, serene, THE REVOLT OF REASON". 95 Such honor Him, too much, to entertain. Traditions, faith insists on— as, of God, Late, vext and wrangling, in the Orient', With favorites perverse. Were God to speak, 'Twere by a protocol, cast down the sky, Witli th' flaming: seal of God on— every eye's For stricture and all Time's.— The priestly caste, To power invincible, leapt, at a bound, Power, to the credulous, it, yet, retains : Dismist, the priesthood, and all men were freed. Imagination is the arm, itself. Imagination nerved to snatch the world. Man, vested, in a devil, by a myth, Was not suggestiA^e to man, barbarous, Of a capacious gullet. What, unless Man's passions, that entice him ? Hence, to charge Temptation, on a devil, proves a man, The veriest, of all cowards, as of knaves. I did not do it, is the flimsy plea. Of the wretch, who dreads a drubbing, so well aired. In th' myth of Eden. It is time, indeed, Diabolism, maeric and the like Distempers of man's childhood were interred In one accursed grave. What, too, of creeds That, while, they differ, scarcely, but, in name. Vie, in ascetic rigor ?— Fast and feast If, to good men's rotundity, the cue, Bad men are lean, in that, no pious serfs Have rolled old wine, in puncheons, down their vaults. For that found clear, faith, seldom, is invoked : Faith is invoked to overmaster doubt ; Tho' doubt be man's own rescue, from himself. Faith, by whatever name, is, still, but, faith, In reason only. Demonstration wields The baton of all knowledge : constant proof Hath made the mathematics, of the sun. Acceptable, to reason— man had dropt His puissant triangle, long, ago. Met, with a fractional error, in the force That wheels the planets. —Who sees not, A somersault, impending, in belief. No gymnast's were a type of, from the first OljTnpiad, downward? How, to prove a God, Is, yet, a problem, how, to prove a man's Avatar is resolved— while, evidence. 9^ A MAMMAIi OlTliir. Two thousand years, wherein, no hint, or sign Flashed down the spheres, that Christ, had, ever been, Sustains the manship, that precludes a God. —The age of knightly Arthur, subsequent, To the lirst, by many centuries, displays. On th' screen of man's credulity, enough, To teach men, how, to estimate the past. The nineteenth century, ,not to test the first, By its owTi rigorous reason, were to take A Gascon, at his word. —Chivalry, her blood. Shed, in tlie knight, of the tenth century, To no appearing God, while, half, her plumes Fell, to the Saracen : so, reason fails To entertain her dream, inspired, with hope That, culture, yet, may so refine mankind, Men, for the sake of righteousness, alone. May, e'en, do justly. —Not, what, men may believe, but, what, men must. Eeligion is the mischief man has done, Eeducing Nature, to his premises. Religion ? Will God whisper it, to man. Now, he is past the nomad ? It, so clear The Supernatural ha/S raised a doubt. No possible credence, man's, may overcome. Hebrew mythology is much, the same. As Greek, or Eoman— no wise, quite unlike. But, in their closing fortunes : e\'ery myth When, of Semitic origin, has had The rasp and varnish of the intellect Of th' Western Nations, to subdue each coarse Repulsive outline, in th' original. To cultured favor, after Greece and Rome's Were buried, with their Gods, in classic mould. The Jew penned history to charm the ear, As Mozart set a fugue. Be man's, for faith. The f act of supreme charity, and live And die, in the odor, of it. —Man implies thought, that prompts the word or blow. Had built life, higher, manlier, broader, yet Than its foundations : no such obstacle To manhood, as man's dread of growing wise. Lest, he supplant his follies : still, so sweet, His stomach sours, to wholesome diet, served With th' salt of lust experience. The revolt of reason. Q1 — Tradition is not satisfied, to feed On her own poison ; she would have, not one, But, many corpses, and in every house, The stench therefrom, a problem national : Still, bidding man seek riddles in himself, Tho' Nature made man, but, an animal, Ambitious, for the sceptre of a sphere— Who needs but one salvation— righteousness In word and action and were, otherwise. In hell, already. 'Tis man's privilege To think and boldly— not, as if the right Were pilfered, as Prometheus stole the spark, But, a condition, laid on man to think Or waive a planet's mastership. Who knows What, man may stretch to, since, no man as yet Knows, from what point man started : history Appears a morbus, with a glacial chill And flushes of brief purpose : intellect Gravitates toward man's future, as t' a ship. In trim, en route, for possible continents, Think, for thyself, is the last Gospel, man's, And man accepts it.— Honesty, alone Is hero, in life's epic : strength to wait Transcends achievement. What the world ad- mires Is manhood, so pronounced, an infant's eye Eemarks th' exception : wherefore, honesty Hath honor, in the blow, had been a kiss, From hearts, perfidious. Who spared the house of Pindar, sacking Thebes, Bunt, in the act, a fitter monument, Than had Mt. Athos been constrained of Art To look, the Son of Philip : sentiment Outlives a mountain ; so, in space, transcends Its bulk, as vastly, as had all men's hearts, Touched into sympathy, the shrivelled soul Of one barbarian.— Thine, a Eoman urn Cato and Tully in it, room were left. For half their compeers' ashes— e'en so small The compass of dead gods, whose effluence Is the charmed atmosphere, breathed of us all. The languor in it, lusty. Life commends The good, the beautiful, the true, alike To thought, as qualities— of Plato, held. Ideas, fixt, eternal: when, in gods. Their foremost attributes. In the first person, singular, quote man Against a visible world : let tliat, unseen, Invite reflection, but, no argument 98 A MAMMAL ONLY. Eaise, toucliing primacy, in man, a fact, That pivots plain and mountain, to the sun, For his vivacious kiss ; man's, or no ear T' en;ioy the gracious smacl?: : lion and nard, Conscriptions levying, on a swarming sphere, Had fought their cycle out.— Still, equity Fights with the moth, to, yet, .preserve her furs, For State occasions ; while, man's liberty By w^ell-known thumb marks, found, upon her neck, Proves her assassin would be, could be, gold. Nature is so committed to fixt laws. Be there a Power above her, or, if, not, Is speculation for the curious. Nothing is more contemptible, than, man's Contempt, for Nature ; doing in God's name, For Nature, what, she doeth, in her own. —If, armed possession, half, the title, man's To this contested sphere— a unufruct, Despite himself concludes him : nains. to gild The fiction of our fathers— his, the soil. Usque ad coelum, to earth's central fires. Who hath paid money for it, clarifies A common usufruct, as the best boast, Man, ever. had. or. may have, to the earth ; Whose title to the enjoyment of the sphere, E'en, all thereof is indefeasible, Till vaster nonulations shall demand Concessions, to their needs : it, never, true That against Nature, is tlie soil, man's own ; Hers, a most clear, inviolable right. To breed, or, to forbear, as she elects— Tho', she had, still, sung lullabies, to men. If, hanging, from her dugs, when all were dry- While, eight parts, out of ten, of all the earth. Were, quite, unutilized— yet, waiting sweat Of hunger, promifted ; thus, to educate Man's genius thro' his stomach. —Labor is not th' advantage, gold exacts Of starved and wasting thews, as in a lad Apprenticed to a villain— is not sweat, Save, as gold, minted, to gold, ingoted. Weighed, sealed and safely vaulted : labor hath Th' election to die, rich, tho', ever poor To man's traditions ; hath the privilege, To be, wiiat Plutus is— with sleeves rolled down, Astride the bullion, she, but, lately, served. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 90 There is no God, but Labor, visible, Armed with a thunderbolt, since Jupiter. Meum and tuum, ever, must remain The buhvark ot the State, the last defense Of industry, herself, who had sat down Had wiped her dripping forehead, indolent As th' veriest vagabond, if, hers, no pledgie Of several gain, inviolably hers. —Labor is prayer, with her petition crowned Wliile, who would toil, yet, may not, the world's crib Is theirs, to feed from, to the equity Of broth ei hood, in sight, if, not, quite, here. Labor is not a question, tho' men make An issue of it : labor is a law. Pronounced as gravitation, and like it Admits of no proviso. Not, to toil Is no man's privilege : tho' every man May,frankly,ask— r< r what ?for why ?for whom ? Whose isinnews, as his own, he hath clear right To market, at fair value, or withhold, His wares, at his eie-.tion. Policy Is tainted meat that any vulture scents, But manliness and honor, what base bird Sniffs carrion, thence? But for man's sinews, gold had starved to death ; A chary dealer, guaging by the ell. Or to, the balaace, labor, when by sweat Thro" the earth's bounty huddled into bins, A value is created, in the power To challenge cold or hunger— in the means Of vantage, man's, thro' iron fuel steam, His arts ha'^'o educated to his needs; As in that force, whereof, as more is known Science with knottier problems is assailed ; Man's motor, candle, eye and ear and voice, With pledges waiting him in wonder-land By this so reticent force, incognito. Frisking thro' aU. the spheres.— Of brain and thews When these have wedded, in each drop of sweat An argument for ten, in cheery homes, To hands resourceful, twenty roods in one. — 'Tis not so much in teaching labor how. As teaching labor why— the reins cast free On the arched neck of common industry. Less when to sweat, than a fair open field : Tho' prizes may be snatched of snail-paced men Against athletes who tarry in their cups. The odds are sweepstakes' to persistent thrift. 100 A MAMMAL ONLY. Toil may not squint toward the pyramids, T' remark the wortJh. of labor— at h^r feet Stretches bread-bearing soil; as right and left Koll populous seas ; whose never-finished Towns Inscribe utility, on Western skies, As, if, the Sun's vocation had been found When, near his setting, in his rising, lost. —The sanctity of labor is, in 'thrall. To pagan rites, while the beseeching soil Waits homage, in man's sweat. Tho' savagery Supremely happy, in the chase or war, Finds life a pastime— indolence, a law Bears but the fruits of indolence, in fits, Of uncongenial thrift. —To seize a /sphere and teach it, how to swing, Is man's vocation— tho' the privilege, To argue bread on every river's bank. Nature contends, were kindlier, tiian to drop Bread from her tree-tops, daily in his lap, Who made the sloth to teach him how to run, And proves her own a doting mother's heart, To have enthroned him. —Man wants men, More men, and better bred, to thine and mine. To courage, manliness ; to all the arts ^ Of strength, of power, of comity— wherein, Man's needs are common :— man's but to sub- sist. At animality, a pause were hiade Wliile, each remove from bestial selfishness, With each advance, beyond the emmet, his Insensibly, had been, to hunger, lost. —No fear, whatever, for the weal of man Urging his way, to freedom of the mind : Nor, for the garnered fruits of common toil : Time, fully, ri,pe, for changes, radical, Had caught no \shriek of danger, in the air. Argued and, oft, re-argued, it remains Unsettled, what, beyond protecting it, The posture, of the State, toward common toil Starvation argues, with sepulchral voice. The wrongs, alleged of sweat, from capital, To Socialism, pointing— that, the bins Of Rome, may be replenished, or, that toil May have a common fatherhood. A fact^ Labor is, older, than the pyramids ; A problem, recent, as man's liberties; Its true relations, as, yet, tentative; THE REVOLT OP REASON. l6l Th' experiment, proceeding, day by day. How, each mav take the profits of his sweat, . Beyond lust payment for the handkerchief, With which, he mops it. —Next, to the question, of one life, or two. Which, late, absorbs men, is that stirring one Wliat rights hath labor, which, has, just, been put To th' current Ages. It seems all, of life, To have well spent it, to have made the most Of brevity, by crowding, well, therein. The best results of all experience— Wliile, Labor seems the sun, round which re- volves The social system. Man. merged, in the State Was but the ward of government, that nursed His thews for war, at its convenience. But, man, a unit, may demand, how far. When, capital and labor are, at odds. The State should intervene. Should riches grow In private life colossal, at the cost Of failing bread to -hapless multitudes. Till Freedom, as a fact, fall, odious, Before the brisk assaults of private gold, Its name, but left, a vulgar talisman. Wherewith to coniure common suftrage, stiU ; Ere such event, 'twere fit, or, then too late, To vest the State with powers to fix, on sweat Its current value and to supervise And promptly pay it, wages, with a view Less to enrich the State, than serve it, best. As, the employer of its unemployed. Th' electric fluid, steam and iron prove The masters of the State— gold, secondly. As th' oil and fuel, to their energies ; WTiile, peace and war insist, that the State maintain Its clutch on each, lest, it some morning, wake. An oligarchy. —No sunshine, like an ever-joyous face: It, even, makes the leathern cheeks of care Dimple, to its contagion. Happiness, Is where men make it; seldom, where, 'tis sought : 'Tis that, good fortune, may not, oft, bestow, 'Tis that, good fortune, gone, his, left behind If, he would but perceiA-e it, who, when lost Berates his stars and dies. Suicide, to-day. Is not a fine art, a surrender, clean. To vanished hope, he seeks to ^andicate, i02 A MAMMAIi ONLY. As, manly, in himself, whose, k^ce raised port Droops to misfortune. —Seize Labor's hand and shake it— kiss the cheeks Of all her ruddy babes; let capital Find that home, sweet, whence, his : a common aim. Esteem and mutual had done more, for toU, E'en, more, for capital, than policy That slights the social instinct '{lud with e.old Pays labor off, with supercilious smile. What, too, when labor shall participate, Most fitly, in the gains of capital ? Labor hath good digestion with sound sleep : Hers, such an edge to hunger, breaking fast Is a deUght— the languid, sickly heir Of ease and indolence, had emptied, half, His coffers, to partake, and then to sleep And wake, refreshed— what Heaven, to health, alone ? Sleep payp the highest wages, paid, to sweat. Pays them, most promptly : Sleep, O blessed sleen. When, likest death thou hast the nearer, Heaven, Him, who awakens, to the Morniflg Star. The rights of man, no Magna Charta yet Hath, half, asserted : Man hath rights t' enjoy Some future day he may not yet conceive, Nor, of the fitness, that shall summon them Into existence : life and liberty Are, still, but terms, with meaning half obscure HoweA^er, patent, they appear to such. As Sv-'ek no meaning, deeper, than the skin. The rights of many are superior To desolating selfishness, iu one, The right of many, otherwise, denied. Diligence is entitled to her own, But, craft and cunning find, defeasible, Whatever title, theirs. —Who rendered verdicts man may not reverse, Facts, found fallaoious, they are founded on ? Wlio hath so settled the estate of main Wliat, vital, none may argue ? Wlio shall set AutJiority against the brain of man. Unless authority o'ermaster it ? Men know a glow-worm from trim Jupiter. To living men, what fact, but, death, itself, Not, subject to repeal, re-argument, THE REVOLT OF HEASOX. 103 Revision, or rebulre? —There seems no stage of culture wlierein, men Do, as they would— the nearer savagery The less election, man's bound, hand and foot, By his traditions : these, his rule of life Inviolable.— All morality Seems, but, the twin of culture and is less Ideal than, of custom, a fixt code, Contemporaneous social life observes. There is no conscience, false— such, none, at all Nor, one divine; nor, yet, intuitive, A key, to ethics : so, all wickedness. Is what, the customs, cf a tribe forbid. Or, what, each stage of higher culture, may. If, in themselves, distinctions absolute. Evil and good, abstractions had been, yet. But, for the customs, whereto, men are bred. Of right and wrong, man's standard is his own. —So, a bandit may be manlier than a thief ; Since, crime hath manliness enough, therein, To warrant sharp distinctions : noble, he Who seeks thee, an assassin, yet proceeds To arm thee, like himself— in valor's hands The doubtful issue : base, with cautious tread Who stabs thee in thy sleep to snatch thy purse Man has no fixt and changeless destiny ; Life heeds the intimations of his will And changes with it : time were just to man Should Justice cast her scales into the sea, Dismiss her lictors and wind up her moot,. With maledictions on all righteousness. Less light streams from the torch, a wise man's own. Than, from some fitful taper, he may trim. Carrara's marble waits an Angelo ; Tho' marble may not sigh for Phidias, Still, Time may wake EndjTnion, unaware. Man scores no progress, in pursuit of God, When he assumes each fact, he seeks to find, Who doth not need a creed as much as light To seek a creed with, yet in search of one: For th' time is come, when Light dethrones a God, Unless it be the God of Light, himself : To veneration, any stone, a God. —I do not know, is father to, I know : I know, aborteth knowledge— half, the art Of teaching man, is learning, what he knows, 104 A MAMMAL ONLY. Imagination, stUl, writes history, As, S'lie, ever wrote it, with an iron pen, Dipt, in the Iris. That, vital, of all problems, men's, is how To make the most ol' life and gently die, Unresurrected : thus longevity. May prove a question, graver than was sin, That tortured man for sixty centuries. Cost, what it may— man seeks to learn the truth And cease his errors, gladly : so, wherein, Man is himself, the subject of the probe. What glory, his, who speeds the eager knife ? The highest wisdom, man's, proves common sen se, Wlien, apprehended ; so profoundest truth Takes refuge, in the hornbook, having run The gauntlet of men's jeers. Strange, altlio' true Man hath not, yet, the privilege of thought But, to the censorship of penal laws— As, if, thought had done all, that thought may do; Man's, but, to rock his faculties, asleep. And genuflect, profoundly, to the past. Facing the future, backward. The fact that men believe a Devil is, Achieves the mischief, that a devil had Were he, a person, and hath travestied The whole economy of life, itself. An evil spirit, postulated, man Dances, a frantic devil, soon, himself. To Fancy, fiddler— witli his sensitive nerves. Her royal catgut.— Tho' to science, man Seems an illustrious toy, of Nature, made. Fondled, awhile, who with its atoms seeks Amusement, in new ventures— man, himself, Devoted to the toil of head and heart Is, thereby, sacred.— To invent a world Peopled with spirits, pestilent and just. Eternal feud, between thorn, was a feat Fancy was equal to— which, reason seeks To contravene and flatly : privilege, To have learned, how, with courage, to do right. Is finding favor. Eeason would re write The Vedas, Shastres, Gospels of mankind. In her charmed ink, that hath no element Of wonder, in it. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 105 —There's not a grain of merit, in belief, However, sanguine : who believes a lie, Yea, bleeds for it, cloth himself twofold wrong. Martyrdom argues, but, how frail man is And, ill, concludes its argument, for faith, By its false system of phlebotomy. Faith, in that, true, were, scarcely served by blood, Unless, faith, in a monster, to whose nose The scent of blood were sweet. 'Tis rational, Faith, if, not logical, is obsolete : Faith is th' assent of reason to clear proof ; Heresy, his infirmity, who, yet, Bleeds, to the supernatural, or, would. If, late, the fashion, to seek pleas, for acts, Eeputed God's— it is, the vogue, to-day. All props, withdrawn, t' remark th' conse- quence : Had ill befallen that, indeed, God's own ? Wliat, in its stead, 'tis argued, as, if man Must have another error, were one, lost. O'erthrow the error and make inquest, thence, For the truth, men could not, while the error stood : Error is, always, quite, infallible? To any change, of sheer necessity^ Fpllen, forever. —Faith is p. T^opPibil-'+y of birth. Its quality, an accident, of where, Its worth, the custom of one's ancestors. Faith is oppression, in the shameful act Of clinching irons on his wrist, with hand Outstretched, to take her sop : 'Tis in the air, That, reason, tho', no God, resembles one. Faith, almost, bloodless, in the classic age ; Ascetic faith, the preface and the close, Of medieval madness, throve, on blood. Theology, at bay, well nigh concedes God, thro' his reason, only, treats with man ; Thus, dissipating formulas of faith, Derived from words, wherein, exclusively, It, late, sought revelation— igjnorance Whereof, had left man, unrecovered, lost. Until his faith embraced them. What is this But, the "onfession, that a book from God To be accepted, unon faith, alone, Were, quite, uncalled-for? reason hath no need Of a bard's fancy, to make up her mind, On life and death, qu God and providence. 106 A MAMMAL ONLY. Man's vital issues : every sacred book Foreclosing knowledge, thro' its boast alone, To have exhausted knowledge. Man stood still, By the North Sea, the Danube and the Ehine, Chained, like the Asiatic, but, for faith, In reason, only. —Man's own improvidence has never had A Providence, to succor it, in men. Who to test poison take a dose thereof. Nature's to him, a special providence Who, snugly, sidles up, between her knees : Since, th' supervision of a personal God Could, ill, consist with famine, fire and flood. God, within Nature, or, outside, of her. Personal, or impersonal, but facts, Meaningless God-ward : God, no more, a God, Sceptered and sitting an immaculate throne Than, immanent, in Nature; to men's prayers Just, as accessible. —Man formulated life, to dogmas his, Ere, science split a sunbeam : when the eartn Seemed, as the vestibule to man's estate, His fortunes, behind doors, of burnished gold That swang, at death, to rapturous music, wide The moral evil of this wicked world. Demands no fable to account for it, As, far, as it coneeras man, 'tis his own. The purpose of this life is what appears Its purpose, on the surface— why, elsewliere, As down the depths of an unsounded sea Should men, still seek it? Man's culture, with no cue from the Orient, Is the experiment of Liberty, Made to conditioas, positively, man's: While, men and women, joined, in wedlock true Man's morals, purer, thro' his privilege To make more odious, to more honor, vice, Has made of life, a garden of sweet herbs. This is no sin-curst, but, a sun-blest sphere Tho', scarcely maa's, five centuries, wherein, Fable is not the warp of history Done, with the fictions of a fabulous past, Man shall have honor, mortal and enough. That, clearly rubbish, why not brand it such. With label, rubbish in all languages ? Man seeks re-education, to the fact, There is no Devil chafing, yet, his heels, Pe hopes to distance ; nor within his breast, THE REVOLT OF REASON, 107 Gliding to ensnare him— which infernal myth Has done man infinite wrong. —Granting a Devil, whence, had he a soul, To torture in his brimstone ? Shades appear Poetic license to eke out the m.vth, Of the sldpper Charon and his crazy boat. The flesh of Plato, and of Plato's dog 'Have common prospect of a life, to come : A resurrection, to man's intellect. Presents no problem, in an idle dream Of callow fancy. —His search, for final causes, is the rock Whereon, man has made shipwreck and must yet Till quite contented with phenomena. He, w^ell, concludes— Nature was never, not, While, his own fortunes ride too near the ground To argue eagle's wings.— Time, hence, must grow Wiser and wiser, still : if, time do not. Time were man's enemy. Death consummates Man's purpose, to fond tears, and buries him : Man, in tlio race immortal— for who knows There is a spirit in the universe? Truth must be w^elcome tho' she prove a torch That lights man to the grave and leaves him there, In dreamless sleep, him, happy, thence, for aye. Death was, to fable, man's arch enemy : Death is, to reasoja, but, the curtain, dropt, On life's brief drama. Death is negative, A self-commissioned executioner. To savage eras, by his fleshless ribs. Still, startling fancy.— Not a mortal dies, Unw^illing to die, then, at Natur?s's nod. She having whispered— peace. Write, kindly death Against man's known mortality and writ, Lay down the quill, as Nature breathes, Good night. —Man is a series of phenomena. Due to the solids, fluids, gases, mixt In Nature's crucible, exprest, to law Science is in pursuit of; she, assured. Reason is as contingent on pure blood As is a yeoman's muscle— impotent To ill-conditioned brains. The fact of thought Seems a bold feat of chemistry, so far. As, science, yet, has treed the intellect. In man's cognition, every gap, faith fills With a God, personal— but Science waitei Her better opportunity. 108 A MAMMAL ONLY. —Man may, albeit, in the gorilla, find A kinsman and confess it, yet, what harm, Or, what humiliation, in it, true? It had been, simply. Nature's privilege So, to unfold a man, a process, hers. Exposed to wonder— and had clinched the truth True worth is what man is, not what, he was, In some dead ancestor : 'tis well nigh true— * Who was thy father, man ? is obsolete ; Who art thou, man, thyself ?— birth, but as- sumes A fitness, left, to worth, to vindicate : Birth is a small contingent, under arms. Against an ambush ; blood is worth no more When worth, the most, than, rectitude had fetched In a dull market. Creeds are the dry-rot of the centuries. To break th' heart of th' oak, make motionless, Its restive branches : all the sap, wherewith, The Ages are, in leaf, is, but, the zeal Of man who would do right, inquiring, how. Action, tho' evil or the world's great heart Stood still, disfunctioned. —Nothing, beyond, should kindle glory, here, And healing common life, so jaded, torn. Make every hazard, sweet : prodigious gain, Eternal life, a day, be that day, man's. Here, is man's home, and here his final rest : Who, on some eve, may gently fall asleep. Yet, fail to wake, next morrow, as his wont, Fall'n on a longer nap— while furtively, Science doth swing her lantern thro' the grave. And finds man, snugly, there. -^Lay but a grain of poison on his tongue, The shuddering Buddhist may forego all fear Of re-incarnate life— Nirvana come. Mind, tho', a product with creative power, Hath no more mystery, concealed therein, Than, hath an atom. —Man's, if, but a spark. Amid stupendous suns, he doth bestride. The rider and his ride ephemeral- He should feel grateful, that, he doth exist To th' Source, whence life proceeds : so gratitude For a full stomach or a polar fleece Is an emotion, had required no shrine. All soil were sacred to its exercise. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 109 Is man to stultify experience, To win the favor of Supernal Powers ? Must that, the eyes and ears of all mankind Eeport to reason, as a verity Surrender, at discretion, to a voice, From Galilee, or, Mecca? What, his shame, That, man has, ever, for a moment, held The witness of his senses— fallible ? What'er delusion promises to men. More, than Aladdin's lamp^ hath audience, And swarms with votaries : men are so frail, Delusions serve for wine, since, indolence May brim the flagon. Morality is the one cult on the earth, Which undivided, indivisible, Shall surviA^e man's traditions and repair The evils, in their name and demonstrate That, th' supernatural is Nature's self. Not, ethics in the shadow of a spire. But morals in the circle of the home. Pure, from a father's or a mother's lips ; With no root, there, ethics had ceased to be. Bread is rcligioji, proffered, ere, it mould : Salvation, oft, the cramming of a loaf Down th' fasting stomach. True morality Is more a river, than, the Amazon, With an affluent, in the Hebrew decalogue. Men, to attain the summit of a man. Require no pagan stairway to ascend : God was not in His infancy, when, men, Clearly in theirs, affect to speak, by Him. Man's worth to-day exceeds a thousandfold The best quotations, of th' Mosaic Age. Eeverence is a distemper, that has brought On man, more evils, than, all, casualties Quintupled, Nature's : Man, if, with a soul Or, man without one, dead, is it with him, The crisis of his fate, a dogma, spurned ? Who hath the power to light a fagot, had Prompt, to occasion— hence, t' anticipate The fact, v/ere wisdom, by forestalling it, In Power, yet, possible : it is so true, 'Tig, ever, but, a question of more power. Who fires the pile, or, who shall roast thereon. —Time, now, is ripe, to s^y to him, who boasts — I had a vision, or, I heard a voice. Thou' liest, man ; thou bast not seen, nor heard But, what is, common, to experience. 110 A MAMMAL ONLY. To a barbarian, a barbariaii's God : To cultured man, a cultured God appears, As th.' image of man's brain, thrown, on the screen,, That chronicles his mental history. The fortunes, if, committed, of tliis sphere, To reason and to law, inflexible, 'Tis, then, to mathematics, that, ma^n errs, Or, to raw reason— and man's providence God doth not challenge. Who did it changes, not, the quality Of any action ; that, were evil, God's, If, evil, by a fiend : to evidence. Men prove, that, black is white, or, white is black, Tho', neither, yet has changed its hue a whit. Her type, in Proteus, conscience might be known As th' fabled lizard, so content, with th' hues, Of life, contiguous. Over this world, raise The banner of expediency, whose folds. While, lustrous, with man's arms, smell of a loom Wherein, no spindle, not a pledge 'of peace. What custom, man's, so sacred, but, its breach Than, its observance, may prove, holier? —At the equator, conscience liquifies ; Yet, at Fuego, waits a sailor's ham ; It, to the Orient, Hymen glorified, In, quite, five hundred marriages, for one. Who, with an easy gait, shall tour the sphere From Hottentot to Hindu, conscience finds And, always, pander ^to the reigning vice, Or, winking at it— a convenient fact That much is made of : to experience. Conscience seems rapid logic, nothing, more. A dicer hath the conscience of his dice ; A gamester, of his cards : each bigot, his. Defined, not, by some other, but aspersed— Since, there's no compass affects points, enough To serve good conscience. —To tolerate each faith men might elect. Seemed feasible, ere conscience had been found A cover for the evil men would do, As, often, as the Nemesis of vice. With th' moral code, perfected, by the State The citizen, who finds his conscience, still. Unreconciled, must bear its penalties- Conscience, the purer morals, or, a lie. THE REVOLT OF REASON. Ill Man should, first, find, what conscience is, and, then, How much, 'tis worth, pending, a holocaust, To her entreaty, who has, falsely, spilt Blood, that had swum the Navi^ of all Powers ; More rogues, thro' conscience, shielded, than were scoured. That monster Fear hath man, in thrall, to faith, The monster's own device. What, man's, to fear. Not, his misdoing? Not, a hint, or, sign, Of danger, man's, in Nature: man evoked The very fear that haunts him— who hath powe To slay the devil, he begat, himself, When, liis, the nerve to do it. Hell is thus. Fear's rash deduction, just, as Heaven is hope's Fear, never, yet found God, but courage may : Courage is that, hope prospers and God greet As something, like Him : God, if voluble. Men's ears are prickt, and, yet, may hear fron Him, Who seems, to Silence, to make overtures Of unreserved surrender. —Nothing, for fear, but, what man sayet false Or doeth evil, is a formula That hath man's true salvation, in its gift. Not, a slight hold mythology hath, yet. On man's imagination, tho' it served Man, as a cable serves a straining ship, Oft, in the classic era : man's concern Seems, late, lest, famine close the argument. For his existence, longer, but, in ruts Of power and abject servitude. What, man, If, not, th' illumined mammal, vulgar Time Hath, oft, dealt ill by, who must cease his pranks To man, insurgent ? —Freedom, with culture has byilt hospitals, While, Faith was rearing dungeons : thus, the eye Notes gloomy Abbeys, on the map of faith. But, rarely, finds a pillow for the sick. Or, surgeon, for the maimed. To liberty, Life hath a value, in longevity, To faith, it had not— which was consummate. Wound, in a dogma, hushed, at early dawn. Think, of St. Simon, on a pillar, stood, 112 A MAMMAL ONLY. Whence, serving God for more than twenty years Had God not rather, seizing by the heels, {Snatched Simon tlience— to serve Heaven faith- fully In daily toil, than blistering, to the skies Of Syria daily— God, if in the case? The duty laid on all men, to do good. Who had disputed, had, for cavU's sake ; How, when, and where are subject to debate, Lest undue zeal mistake the time or means Of realizing purposes divine. Yet in each hour in every twenty-four, God had been served, who therein succors man In straits, to shame, disease, improvidence. O, what a rose is every gracious deed, Still sweet at fourscore, should it find thy nose Thro' the chinks of recollection ! It is true. That riches may forsake thee— it is false, larhat goodness thou hast done may cast thee off- It were thy fortune, left, thy riches tied. Eeligion were not a belief or creed, Were but an engine of beneficence. That from the text of common suffering Had drawn its earliest precept and its last. St, James' religion, therefore, best, to-day Was best when he confest it ; best, ere Christ, It shall be best forever— to do good, If left undone, what, man's worth doing, done ? Eeligion is an eager pocketbook, Had rescued a lost brother, or had raised A sister, fallen— is the kindliness, Had cast its fatherhood, o'er orphanage : Known, by one name, or many, God is— whence. Whom, men had served, who follow, tho' afar. Each blow on Vulcan's anvil falls unheard. Silence, if, due the fashion of an ear, Lo ! Man's some special auricle, a roar As of a tempest, had been, from the hushed Midsummer forest— while the coursing blood Thro' vein and artery, of mortals, heard, Man normal, had been mad. Yet there may be No mystery in silence, save the fact, Tliat Nature, but mechanics, at their best. Betrays no jar or strain. —From poverty of knowledge, gods have sprung, Which penury sustains them— dwindling thence In numbers, to more knowledge into one. Whom, Science startles in a grain of sand, '' 5^HE REVOLT OF REASON. 113 Pursuing Him, with lens and crucible. — Eeligion must be tried, where, it hath yet Evaded trial, or ilias put it otf , Demanding faith, when pushed for evidence. Faith, more a product, but of mother's milk, Than, of conviction. —The Eastern Magi are responsible For half the dreary fables, by the East Eevered with pious reverence— but, when. The Chaldean astrologer had cast His night-owl iu the pot, the broth seduced The semi-reason of the Hebrew clan. God to the Greek, a sample Hellenist, The Eoman lashed Him., to liis conquering car ; While, man, to-day, who, sadly, turns from each, Waits information. 'Twere a misnomer to hail Christendom, By any name, not reason's : Christendom Is, but, the trade-sign of the Middle Age, Swung, yet, on royal hinges— while, within, Traffic partakes not, of the Orient, But, bears the stamp, of Western righteousness. Man has been scared, not, cursed, and all he needs Is to recover, bravely, from his fright : Christendom, but, man's genius,. half in flower; Meum and tuum, thrice, as palpable, As, to ancestral nomads, with the light. Due social friction, man's. It is alms With the fruit of culture that has made the scent Of Christendom, a garden of blown thyme: Her charities, a sheaf, held in the grasp Of costly fable— like a candlestick, Its price, ten thousand fold, the light it sheds. Could Christ return and make His pledges good. He had disclaimed all knowledge of the West, Yet, had found Sjrm, much, as in His day. What glory Western genius has achieved Christianity appropriates; the fact. The West is known as Christendom, has swept Each precious gem into her jewel box. What wisdom, Western genius, yet, displays Is the first crop, that Liberty has reaped, Half, due the sickle's edge. The faith of th' early Fathers looked afar. 114 A MAMMAL ONLY. Who on the elder Canon laid all stress, Too recent Christ or Paul, for these, to quote Distance, in time, made sacred, even, then. What distance still makes sacred : even Paul Had doubts cast, thick, on his apostleship ; Nor do the early Fathers leave a hint The Gospels, then, were written— but suggest, Doubt, tliro' the scripture, cited, which has since Been voted non-canonical : herein. History has no vantage to lend faith. But, leaves her, to invention, desolate. Let doctors' wigs curl, promptly, to discuss Knots, medieval, by theology Yet, proffered faith— tho' reason with a smile May with a jack-knife slash each precious knot. Man were Tjorn, fitly, if but to enjoy— Whom, virtue rewards gently, for good deeds ; Whom, vice doth roundly lash for evil ones. Wliat motive, God's, to have withdrawn from man Yet, by the East, in a Chaldean's ear, Have breathed a purpose, that a purpose, failed, Exclusive, Sin His heart, both him and his— God's love for man, postponed, or hinging, it, On lapses, theirs, sprung of him .^ Done, of God, And if not level with man's reason, why ? Eeason, alone, is absolute to man, For him, appeal no higher, tho' to God: Hence, loyalty transparent, he most glad To serve, her liege, if worthy mastership, Divine as hers— since, slavery is sweet. That, to the obedience of the intellect Hath joined the passionate heart. —Man's need is purer morals and less grace To heal innumerous lapses ; since, he bears, Unwittingly, the pains of every breach. To ce;rtify man's reason of the 'fact, Wlioever sins, must suffer, despite grace. Is natural religion and man's own. Mint into sterling coin the costly shrines That have no meaning God-ward— all such gold Should reflect God in pure beneficence. No ill had ensued laughter, should men lausrh At much, men have dubbed, sacred— since the right To laugh is, quite, as sacred, as the power THE HEVOLT OF REASON. 115 To carve a slirine and bid mankind adore. The world is better, than, its creeds, to-day, In that, it hath a common conscience, man's Faith in a dogma, but, the underling To faith in the gold, that props it. The Hebrew Scriptures are responsible For a shrewd Arab, in a Mahomet, Who hath succeeded Moses and the Christ, As Allah's greater Frophet ; so the pen Of the Hebrew sponsors Mormon lechery In the polygamous dots, it left beliind. A bishop, as the husband of one wife, Gives to the later code, that perilous wrencl The elder Canon, no wise, blushes for. The blight, on woman, lays its curse on man Whose maudlin sentiment would tolerate More wives, than, one, to the insidious plea- Less fallen women— as, if, all, were not, In plural marriage, fallen lower, still, Than, such as block the way to the potter' field? —Purred, in the jungle, whistled, in the air, Monogamy is Nature's law of life, WTiere, life's conditions stir love, conjugal. Men may abate a nuisance and not wait The law's delay, that, oft, doth lag, so far. Behind outraged justice, that, abhorred. Hath done a mischief, past all remedy. Ere, heaves, in sight, the law's executive. Thus, bestial saints, do scour the earth for maids To stock their bunks with, in the name of Heaven, Under the nose of manly continence. It matters, less and less, what men profess The issue, what men do— is uppermost : WThat villiany, so black, but lust, or gold May touch into a dolphin ? If, man would have a future, let him live To expectation, gently, as he should ; At one, with Nature's law : to live, divine, Ennobles man and patents all his blood. With heritable riches— whose best thoughts. Like Nature's marvels, disappoint us,, first, Yet, educate our wonder, afterwards. 116 A MAMMAL ONLV. Man, e'en, is classing among verities, Conceits, whereat, his gorge was wont to rise The day may dawn, a lie had not survived A moment, in the world's Irank atmosphere. Who forgeth irons, lor man head or hands Waits death upon a gallop : where, is not So much the issue, as when, best, to strike, Spurring each lost occasion, foaming, back Success, but, valor, worsted, twice, or thrice Ere, knighted, on the field, lor gallantry. Who stirs a lion, in the hope, to lay His anger, roused, shall have mortal proof. If, merciless, or, not, a lion's fangs. Man, in tlie West, is all the type of man, Worth quoting, but to dreamers ; ail wlios brain Appears the outcome of his liberty, Man, in the West,, half Godless, to his creeds . Grows, holy, to th' evangel— units, men. What weak men starve on is the aliment High purposes do gorge with. Immortal is not found in the Bible text, Touching man's nature : if eternal life Is promised man, 'tis pledged, thro' faith in Christ ; Pledged, by the lips of Christ, nor, otherwise Who, if, a man, the [pledge were worth a man's. Thro' resurrection, well, unargued, how. A word not found within the elder scrolls. While writ with Aryan ink, when, writ, at all —if Lazarus was raised from the dead, Christ had, to Martha, made this utterance- I am the resurrection and the life ; In me, whoso believeth, he shall live ; Tho' he were dead, shall live, and never die To Lazarus, not raised, rhetoric, From his Platonic pen, who gave the world The fourth Evangel.— But, Christ, elsewhere said Of many mansions is my Father's house ; I would have told you, if, it were not so ; I, thither, go your places to prepare; And, if, I go and these prepare for you, I will return and take you to myself. That, where, I am, there, ye may also dwell A declaration he left, unfulfilled, If, ever, uttered by the lips of Christ; TH-E REVOLT OF REASON. 117 Who, if, lie, thither, went, did not return. For life, beyond, such, is Christ's argument Wherein, once more, the end heaves, full, in sight. A resurrection were a promise, man's ; A feat, indeed, impossible, to God: A reproduction were a promise, God's. To men, as sparrows, mortal, by the lips Of th' Hebrew oracles— a future life Were, like a graft, set in a stem, long dead : Wha.t was a man— a blade of grass, a flower, Or, e'en, fthe pestilence that smites the town A reproduction, possible, to God, Is, nowhere, pledged men. 'Tis th' invisible hath time undone, Whereof, man knoweth nothing, yet, has made Populous with his fancy, arming it. With terrors, nameless. —A waiting posture seems a wiser one Than to acclaim God in each candidate. For there's no scroll upon the planet found Not, to the gauge of man's own genius, writ; With notliing worthy of man's intellect As a conception of the Deity In all his Shastres— tho' men still look back At th' vellum, shelved, in Asia. —Light, strong, enough, shall so adjust men's rights. Clamor shall cease, in common equity : The era of man's victory is come. Not, swampt, by Ms delusions, but, ashore. To lusty swimming. — Eeligion seems the scrawl a shild had made, Ere, reason nibbed the pen, to write man's life. The costly fiction, of a life to come. Thrives, saddled with the squalor, it creates Not acumen, enough, in all Gray's Inn, To have relieved its guilt, a feather's weight A theory of life, if, "whollj^ false. Were, to be abrogated, not reformed. E'en, by a revolution of pure thought, Man may be extricated peacefully. And set in fair pursuit of life's true ends. To enter, play and exit seems, enough, As much as Nature owes man : What is man ? Who, sometimes, thinks, he ought to figure hence, A reproduction, to new properties ? Il8 A MAMMAL ONLY. An incident, but, in. a planet's growth. The less a man believes, the more, he knows : Wisdom has slirunk, in bulk, yet, grown, in weight : Learning had spread more wing than she had wind; So, many discarding half, he dreampt he knew, Is perching, daily, higher, nearer ground: Wliile, who would teach the world, the world has taught. Man gave himself the likeness of a God, When, Gods were, at his beck, who, now con- cedes His countenance, mammalian from the start Man, with the universe, has no concern : Nature, no trader— inly, who intends Bankruptcy, at convenience and designs By fLnal conflagration to expunge Proof, of her turpitude.— All fear to die Is as unnatural, as scorn to live; Each man's false entry in the book of life. Which courteous Death doth balance with a smile. Faith, in his masters, left man in the dust ; Faith, in himself, has raised him to his feet : Man's growth is, to morality— whose Gods Take to illumined vellum and there die. Man, yet, unfinished, must be, till convinced Here is his home, not, hence : tho' of trifling cost, To pregnant Nature, man, to reproduce, She had declined with caustic emphasis. In getting riches, God has no concern. Nor, in man's honors : in the game of life The stakes are man's, when, lost— are man' when won. Is that, poison, true ? Tho' the truth slay thee, speak it, better, far To die, to honor, than, survive to shame : He were not worth the .plaudits of mankijid Who could not bear the scorn of all th^world ITnruflfled, by it. Who, misunderstood, Is great, enough, to win the whole world' nate, May capture the world's heart, when bette known. So, if, the world condemn thee, deem it proo Thou'rt worth damnation— the age seldon halts. To trifle with a fool. Maintain thy cause, r THE REVOLT OF REASON. 11» When, thou art certified, the ground is firm, Wliereon, thou standest, tho' the world eject Much rheum against thee and expectorate Its gall, in rivers— for such cowardice Proves, the world hath no argument, where with To meet thy challenge. Tho' addition be The law of increase, no arithmetic May deal with wisdom, which is consummate A unit, stood, against the millionth power Of any numeral. Thought, lately, come To th' rescue of man's fortunes, shall hav seized The throats of all his swarming enemies ; A bloodhound, from whose scent, no felon flies Man seeks a change: The West is in tha groove. Of mastership and slave, the Orient Hath, ever, dragged in, which the Westeri mind Endures, yet, madly spurns. —Whoever thinks, profoundly, for mankind. Has declared war, on custom and his ears. May, thence, be fusilladed, with a storm, Of scathing objurgation : fear of change Doth tolerate the fabulous, to-day ; Since, who believes it? Faith? But what i faith, That dwells, or, may, in the edge, of an ; axe. Swung by a headsman ? It is orthodox To dwell, on the earth gently and there thrive ; And, he's a heretic who starves his maw. To his traditions— tho', so marvellous, If, man's true riches have their origin. Where, 'tis so hard, with the best microscope To find a trace of silver, in the rock. Due, to the arms of Eome, to nothing, else, That Eastern superstitions dominate The Western Nations.— What is pure to-day Takes its complexion from the current Age; Is reason's, with her torch held, thrice, a high. As th' tallest steeple, in all Christendom. Orthodox means and, ever, meant, the powe To kindle fagots on the wretch, too weak. To put the fire out. A Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, 120 A MAMMAL ONLY. Tho' this was written before Christ was born, Wiiile ChriBt was not iu the bard's fancy's eye— A Virgin, wed to Joseph, did conceive , Who bore a Son in Jesus Christ, her lirst; As, any Virgin, wed, may bear a son ; A widower, in Joseph, Mary's spouse. It seerns, but stress, laid on pure motlierhood ; Tho' Faith would entertain a mii-acle. And Fancy gives a star erratic fligiit. Man, in a near, not, in a distant, hence. Probing tlie secrets of the centuries. Shall, in the nineteenth, at a triple crown. At, in the first, a visible Deity, Start, marvel, smile and wonder,, what. Faith was. No stigma, in a charge of heresy But, an explosion from a pinch of snuff Had blown to atoms : God's, at second hand, Hearsay— to sift and argue as men will. Who marks the laws of Nature swerve a hair. To bless one, for his penance, or, to curse Th' unflagellated many ? —Each man's opinion is quite orthodox, When guns permit it ; heresy, itself, But, tlie majority's anathema: Heresy, yet, no topic for debate, Till, proven, heresy were possible, With blasphemy, its medieval twin : Since, every statute, as to blasphemy. Implies the right, in a majority. To, first, define God's wUl then t' enjoin, On the minority, assent, thereto. By reverence, penal. —Men, still, slinli cowards, behind old redoubts, Thrown up, by semi-savages, instead, Of courting battle, in the open field. Each cult assumes th' estate of man, as found, Both, fixt and changeless and adapts itself To its conditions : an immobile world, Asia's prime maxim.— Subject, to review. Whatever, man believes, or, man may, hence, In that, infallible, a caveat, Aginst experience, or a brighter torch. —Gold, not involved, and not a yard, or ell Of bishop's lawn, conceive of heresy ? Nor, living, fatter, than, th' Apostle Paul's? New faith, or, none, seems far more imminent Than, is a dogma, vital. She, on fire, THE REVOLT OF REASON. 121 The flames of reason have quite charred the leaves Whence heresy has sprung. —The lion hath not credit, but, his cage, Therein, if, merciful : a whifl: of blood. Him, loose, in the arena, drives the beast Back, to his jungle. Once, return to Faith, And Faith, again, were Mistress of mankind. The right of private judgment she denies. Itself, the weapon, that shall cleave her down, Should Light continue, common property. To his emotions, man is, what, he will ; Is,, to his reason, what, he, ever, seems : No creeds, no zealots— only, common, man, What a sweet world, to breatlie in ? —Light must be blessed shot from any sphere; Darkness were cursed, tho' a mother's eye. Tradition is no oracle— her bays Votive, as at Olympia, won, or lost. To emulation, always : what is false ? Is reason's proviace— not, what seemeth true? Fear^, to man's primal fancy, sealed his lips And shut the door on inquest— but, is, late, A feather, blown,, by all winds of contempt. Belief, against man's reason, is belief That hath enslaved him, who hath played hi part To superstition, gleaming from a cloud, Eeason discharges, harmless. —Time was, indeed, when Superstition held The keys of destiny, and to have slain The monster, then, had raised one, dreaded more, Than that, beheaded : now, if, at a stroke To slay the monster, had recovered man, From the Himalayas, to the Pyrenees. Eeligion and the State were, always, one. And to tradition are a unit, stni, Man, the defenseless quarry both pursue. All the confusion of this eager world Is man's, who could restore the world to peace Had done it, if, he would ; had, but for faitl In Power, unknown, to adjust life some day hence. Ignoring Power, confest, tho' Nature's own. In man, made luminous. Improvidence Is this world's prime reproach, most justly man's. In that, he doffs his courage to his faith. Men shrink to question every sacred tale, 122 A MAMMAL ONLY. Woven into the warp and woof of life, By Time's insidious shuttle: Karnac weeps In each surviving stone, her fallen Gods : No God had reared a Temple, man had razed; No God had done an act, man had undone; Nor, could God speak a word, man could gain- say, Whate'er is God's, why, wince, lest, it may fall ? —God, as a father and of many sons, Hopes their success and when they prosper, smiles : Yet, never, lifts a hand to succor one, Beyond another, lest, a doubt be cast On his impartial love: the gold their own, Whose industry has hoarded— God affects No title to it. Unlike energies, With unlike opportunities, dispose Of power and riches, as, but, problems, man's. Factors, in an economy, man's own- To silence in his sire, completely, man's. Silence, itself, is more significant, Than any fact, in Nature, if, a law, 'Tis that law, paramount. Not, innate is religion, nor, is fear. Fear, as the child of ignorance, begat Eeligion and dame Fancy suckled her : False, as man's notions of the Earth, itself. The source of all religion man hath yet : Eeligion a chimera of man's own, Of his imagination, a disease. Proves, of all maladies, most virulent. Man, in God's image, what had Time, to dread But, God, the less, a God, in more, a man ? —No hope for Liberty, but, in the fact. Of faith, at war, with faith ; or faith, no more. The Church, if, man's, she, hence, had served herself. E'en, at the cost, of life and liberty. Man's fear of death, whence, he descried hia hell. Or glimpsed his heaven, is that authority His valorous reason shall have overtln-own. To no commotion, other, than, a smile. Pure morals stand, to man, as hull and helm. As, shroud and sail, as seamanship and port. To clear and enter. —The last entren client of theology Flies Eeason from its parapet, assured , THE REVOLT OF REASON. 123 Reason and Eevelation are, but, twins ; Yet, represents the Church, unblushingly, As, their co-equal— much like hauling coals To Newcastle, since, reason must possess The field, alone, or, must abandon it, To Superstition, frankly, whence, have sprung The Church and revelation : light, enough, For one man, reason's, light enough, for all ; While, revelation and the Church, both fail, Handicapt, to reach all men, reason doth, Itself, all men's salvation. Pitiful When, th' Church appeals to that, the Church forbids A liberal use of, lest, adieu to faith. Thus, faith, to-day seems less alarmed for th' truth, Than for her mitres— it is less, with her. What shall the Church accept, than, what device Had stayed her rocking spires, in the sti£E gales Of free opinion. —Man, mortal, is most glorified, who casts Dying, his immortality, behind. Exit, forever : What, so masterful, To stir ambition., as to build a man, Unsullied, or magnificent, or just? Of sheer necessity, a man is born ; Of sheer necessity, he falleth, dead— Whose future state is fame, or, daffodils,. Man's annals, lost, recovered and the chasm. Pending his alphabet, bridged, o'er, were worth His bullion, ten times, over : Mystery Involves his genesis, with eA^ery fowl's, Tho' th' doors of exit are, or, seem, alike. Man has begun, albeit, awkwardly. To tap the till of Nature, and the thief May line his pockets, yet : so evident. If, a resplendent destiny be man's, "^ WTien he comes to it— to have tethered man, With a barbarian, yoked, in the lean fields Of Asia, had undone God. —Nature's perpetual frankness is the key That, best, interprets Nature ; whose sweet face Is, ever, framed, in smiles, but, to false moods In her illustrious mammal. Nature's freaks She hath not yet, exhibited a freak. But, to some law that had been trifled with; Who, never, did ^ marvel, out of course ; Tho' all, she is, seems marvelous, to man, From daisies, upward. Man, himself, appears 124 A MAMMAL ONLY. That motive-moved machine, of consciousness And grossly fed experience, that relates Man, to progressive reason. To have won The lordship of a planet, seems man's right, Of Nature, uncontested; whose brief life Done, man is finished. Why should Nature nurse A purpose, to withhold the fact, from man. He is, immensely, worthier, than, he seems, If, indeed, worthier? His vainglory, then, Should be a robe, if, worn on gala-days, Yet, cast aside with scorn, in common life. The Earth is reason's playground and the chil Frolics and gambols and may much amuse Supernal Powers, if, mindful, of the bairn. Man, the imperial mammal of the globe, To speculation, would ignore the fact, His rank is mortal : if, to argument, Nature inclined her sceptre, to present Man, to more honor, than, her purpose had, Who had not argued, long and lustily? Faith, while, man's worst delusion is the mouth. That bolts all others down : but, to believe A crime as capital, as to have thrust A dagger in his heart, who, ever, stood, To thee, a brother. Logic is the fact Of this world's progress— which defeated faith And mathematics wrote across the sky ; Which, man, a unit and invincible, This world's prime factor and immediate God, Argues, so justly. Wherein, is sanity may, yet, be man's Most precious problem: men, most prompt, to !Rtetreats, for madmen, may themselves be found. Swayed, by hallucinations, as pronounced. As simmer, in the brains, of maniacs. Fashion so flavors folly— it is sane. To do, what were, insane, done, in the cell. Of any mad-house. The gold, of generations of the dead. At death, devoted, piously, to prop This, or, that dogma, has postponed the fall Of errors, manifold : gold stirs their zeal To propagandise, who have gold, at will. That, most distinctly human, if, found, true THE REVOLT OF REASON. 125 Stands, unsupported: it, most marvelous. Why, that, divine, requires a prop, at all. Few devotees had life consumed, in rites, And meditation, but, for gold, abused— That may permit it : vows, of poverty But, slightly, pinch the pious devotee. Whom, gold, in the funds, stands pledged, to feed and clothe. The anchorite of Asia had proved true. To his traditions of five thousand years, Gold, not, if, lentils were and had retained, Scourged home, the light, he lit. — Ahl what a felon, he, who, his, the power. Had murdered Light and men had suffered him? Man, in his generations, to endure. While, th' planet shall support him hath no time To pander to the errors of the past : Custom^ must prove its fitness, not by its age. All argument, fallacious, that appeals Gravely, to what men do, for what men should Light hath the privilege to slay, outright, Whatever, menaces the weal of man ; Since, th' tail hath no election, but, to wag. And, where, the head may lead, to follow on : Tho' ignorance profound may seek delight. For its o"v^Ti sake, in grosser ignorance, Knowledge, impossible.— Authority Seems, but, opinion,, subject, to review. And faith, the aliment, whereon, a child Feeds, till he reach discretion— afterwards, A child, forever, if still fed, thereon. A pagan seems, whoever may not think, As, he doth, who would gain a proselyte. Should man, again, pour out his blood to faith It might be., to suppress and not sustain His, late, convictions : martyrdom, to-day. For any cause were weak, as suicide E'en for a love distemper. Character, Some think, if Heaven exist, had entered it- Shot, thitherward, from the howitzer. Death, Denied a pass, from Mecca, or from Eome. Faith makes no proof of any tiling, but faith Juggernaut, boasting martyrs, as may Christ, Faith, falsely, guarantees, its object, worth The blood spilt for it : faith, unreasoning trust In what, men will, is faith, was, always, faith Faith, that had cast a mountain in the sea, Of quantity, a mustard seed, in bulk, 126 A MAMMAL ONLY. Man, never, may enjoy, unless 'tis faith^ In some explosive dwariing dynamite. If, hard, to give our father's dogmas up, 'Twere, harder, to retain them. As divine, Christianity, therein, may cease to be: A cult, premising, that, Uie destinies 01 all the sphere, are subject to her own- Prediction, false, for nigh, two thousand years : Whose ethics are the culture by the West Of th' cardinal virtues, man's, and, always, man's. —In the prediction, of th' END OF THE WORLD, A sameness runs, so startling, tliro' the text. Of the Synoptic Gospels, as, to hint Interpolation, or, a common pen, In the unknown compilers. TaJke the ground, Christ in- His own esteem, was, but, a man, Who hailed, in common life, the end of Time, Pursuant, to tradition— 'twere a stride, Easy, to Godship, in a fabling Age, The Moralist and Good Physician, dead : In Isaac's, Samson's, Samuel's birth, for John's, Suggestion, as, for Christ's, of the marvelous. Yet, Samuel's sire, a Hebrew, double-wived, Isaac's, a patriarch, with half-sister wed. With Hagar, unwed ; in Manoah's wife, Wlience, th' mytliic Samson, womanhood, re- marked. Concede, Christ made the prophesy, himself, Its non-fulfilment proves an Israelite, In th' toils of his own fancy : vain, the gloss, That, the prediction means but Salem's fall ; It points a dream, the most extravagant, In human annals— and the rendering, false. That had postponed a generation, born. To one remote, as witness of— THE END. Christ's, daily, cry was, ever. Watch and wait. Who gave to sweat an oflfice, for to-daj^ None, for to-morrow. The mind, of man, has, scarcely, yet, breathed free. Has, but, descried some straggling rays of light. Thro' th' crannies of her dungeon— but, hath hope Of sunshine, yet, on her unweathered cheeks. Light, tho', but, common sense, so crystalised Its purity sustains each crucial t^est: THE REVOLT OP REASON. Hi Still, Light's that hero, who against all odds, In armStt makes good a challenge, or sends home An unrepentant bullet. Tho', yet, in print. Statutes to punish light are obsolete. Time deals in golden moments and man's life Affects these units and not, centuries; Hence, man should have the privilege of life To no unfair conditions : thus, some day. Should Light invert the order of this world. Light had proved thi^ world, rotten. Light suggests First, opportunity, and, then, equips Man's reason, to command it. His, more cost, To bear the burthens of his ignorance, Than<, every laurel cost him, he has won. Man, at his worst, is better, than, he seems— Venture a kiss, and it is odds, he smiles. Let ignorance go veiled and lift her veil. But, to occasions, of necessity. What hamlet, but some oracle, therein, To whose, the wisdom of the outer world. Were, as a magpie's ? The Earth appears no stage, whereon, a God Is acting a grand drama, but where man Is playing at low comedy : the scene However, yet, may shift and th' player's shame Incentive him to glory. Time must prove His Gods, no product of the pastoral Age, Or, frankly, own they are, to all ears, prickt For revelation, from the chemist's jar. Man, still, a savage had abused the sphere, While, all the powers of Nature, to his spleen^ Had moved, submissive— e'en, no God had raised A finger to dethrone him ; to whose brain, Aglow, with light, still predicating more. He well enjoys an orb, abloom, to him; Yet, not a force in Nature, kindlier, moves To his ambition, than, it moved, erewhUe, To life, that laid her fortunes, desolate. Here, seems man's own economy, not God's : To God's assent, quite unreserved, man plays The role of master : every incident. In Nature, man's, to deal with, as he may, That baffles, or, promotes his hopes, or aims. If, God should speak one word, it had been law. And loud, enough, to shake the outmost star. To tolerate religion, as it is, i28 A MAMMAL ONLY'. Appeals to policy : reason lias made Her argument against the wiles of faith, And man accepts it : when and how to mend Eeligion, or, annul it, that, whereof, Time waits advisement. A conceit of man. To th' earth the apple of the eye of God, Eeligion, that seemed plausilDle, appears To th' universe, unveiled, preposterous. Light, dangerous, to man's errors, the world waits ; Not, power, obsequious, to them. Christianity, affecting hostile camps. From each unfurls its oriflam of faith ; And if hostilities should cease— that day Liberty were extinguished. As each rose Of fear and prime gunpowder— each shall fall, To both's disclaimer— tlio' the clans may, yet. Strike hands, for spoil, upon some evil day, Few marksmen, on th' alert. God, heed this, If, Thou hast, yet, heard prayer— Defeat the hope Of a unity of faith— the odds of power, Hers, lest. Faith roast, or dungeon man, again. To set m.an free, O God, from chains, his own. Extinguish faith, itself, and re-assure Man, Death concludes him, mortal, happily: E'en, palsy the knave's tongue, who argues faith Above man's reason, with the fool's, besides, Who sputters— bravo !— Freedom, ever, rose. To faith, at war and fell, to Faith, at peace; Faith, thine own enemy, in man's, O God. Is not man's freedom, ever, dear, to Thee? Christianity should be the Golden Rule, Eeduced to practice : all beyond, but froth Upon the beaker's brim, that urges faith In aught above man's reason, or below; Or, charges false, experience. —The dogmas of Christianity, alike, Discover Latium, more, than Nazareth; While, the freed genius of the West, her head, Self-luminous, has thrust between its lids, Two hundred years and credited the Book Oft, with the light, she lit, there; with such zeal. Men had sustained traditions of a God, Speaking, thro' sundry nomads, to all time. The temper Christ displayed is man's, for aye: THE REVOLT OF REASON. 129 While, th' Supernatural surveys her grave, And moralises, on her obsequies. Thought, ever, was and must be troublesome, To the pre-occupation ol the world, By man's unreason, until thought has swampt The hideous relics of a barbarous past. Man is not born, to find out God, or, die. To pains, for failure, tho' impossible; For this had charged insanity on God, To rescue Him, from sheer malevolence. Man, if, a vegetable, come to speech. Thro' eons of progression, were, he less A man, for such a lineage? Why, not, more, By all the glory, man's, beyond a snail's ? To misinterpret Nature is the fault, Man is persistent, most, to aggravate. As the corner-stone of primitive belief. Was laid in ciuicfesand, so, the wit of man Is, on the rack, to prop it— yet the crash Draws, nearer, by each shift : man honors God, Who remains silent and because He doth— The crucial test of wisdom, in a God. What, God, in essence, may, or, may not be. Nature doth raise no points of equity. For Him, to settle : law, inflexible, A star must stand, or, fall to, or a man. Is Nature's revelation— where, appears One precept and one penalty— obey. Or, thou Shalt perish. Thus, tho' men may Mercy, in Shastres, 'tis to changeless law, They live and die, eager, to be beguiled. Of Fancy, and to die, her willing dupe. Nature, thro' haste, gains nothing, hers, no loss. To the most tedious process, she elects ; Time is man's opportunity, not God's. Force pervades Nature from a grain of sand, To th' Himalayas— life, the subtle key To all her problems : wherein, beautiful, Grentle, or, sweet, such, always; so, wherein, Murderous, or diabolic, to man's view. Constant, in fresh surprises. What seems waste. Or, labor, quite, misspent, a problem, hers. So, reason seems as cheap, or, whate'er thinks. As carbon, oxygen, or life, itself. Her T) rices-current, seldom, bulletined. —Organic life and inorganic kiss, - . -, Somehow and somewhere, not, yet, advertised. 130 A MAMMAL ONL^^. Thus, may a fern be cognate to the stirp 01 Linnaeus, thro' eons of base blood. In beast and reptile : to the mystery Of life, man bows profoundly. It seems clear. There were no laws of Nature, e'en no need For any law whatever, if, a w^ord, By a Supreme Intelligence had reared The Universe and sways it : miracles Were, then, as possible, as probable ; Physics, with no vocation,, while, the mind Had drawn no data from experience ; At sea, forever, to a Sovereign Will, At liberty, to swerve. The Age demands an exodus of faith, An influx of pure reason : evidence, Both, clear and cogent, or, the jury nods. While, the Court sneezes, to its fiftieth pinch, A Cicero, propounding pleas, for faith. Give man, to tliink— withhold what else. Thou wilt. Great Source, he sprang from. —If, with the purse and sword, both, at its beck. What error had not stood and outraged light ? Tho' it but stood as any corpse had stood? \\Tiat man may demonstrate is, that, his brain Hath shaped this world and to its destinies. Imparted purpose— with tli' earth, his own. And his successors, in a usufruct. ]\Ian's moral forces, joined with Nature's powers In cordial concert, baulk improvidence : Her destinies, in vaster ratio, man's Than he suspects, they may be— cowardized By th' prepossessions of the nursery. Light, from man's brain, alone, makes proof, the world Is not,, all, pagan, or barbarian; Wliich light, extinguished— in a howling sea. Life had gone down, forever. Faith, in the Supernatural, tho', false. The object of his faith, is urged on man As th' inspiration of his intellect, As th' lever, to uplift his character : Yet, man, the Supernatural, must accept. As, did the pagans, who conceived of it. Or, all its offices w^ere meaningless. Faith, such, as, of the past, is moribund. To the customs of this era, and what faith. Stands, unimpeached, is faith, in man, himself— THE REVOLT OF REASON. 131 To wliicli, is due the sixteenth century, When, men resolved, to tliink ; tho' in that age Men saw, as men, just, from a dungeon, had. — 'Tis thro' the mystery, investing it The power of th' invisible prevails Over man's reason, thro' the artifice Of fancy, wholly : that, invisible. Is, less, a matter, vital, to man's weal. Than, curious, to beguUe his scholarship. From the oracle of man's experience Proceeds a sermon, to whose sterliug sense. The stalls do, never, snore ; tradition's voice. Nasal, or gutteral, inducing sleep. —The cult of human nature shall endure, Founded on reason, with revision, oft, As, light, increasing, leads to broader aims. Cast man upon his mettle— bid him swim, Who needs no pagan life preserver, still. If, he, but, learn to hold his drooping chin. Above the surface of the roaring flood. A falsehood is a falsehood, be the frills, Of fancy, it may strut in, what they may. Chemistry and biology, both, smile. At that, divine, scarce, fifty years, ago. Man, yet, had no astronomy, if Faith Had still, a dungeon: faith to Ptolemy Points, not to Copernicus— and the trick Of Joshua, makes more of, than, of th' law Of gravity, that sets the trick, aside. Wisdom is in gestation— oracle Nor, prophecy concludes the birth to be : Freed, from his raw delusions man had turned To ethics, with a will— whereof too much Had not been his if, e'en thrice three times o'er The morals, vital, to a piety Oft, sidling past his frailties with a leer. Gold is a coward who had slipt within The church and hid her bullion, confident That Cherubim shall guard it— hath she not The pledge of Superstition, to her hands Lined, each with largess, of Heaven's vigil- ance? To come into existence and go out Is Nature's method ; to whom, life and death Are, perhaps, sjmonyms. So, to be meek, Becomes a man, and lowly ; fortitude Squared, to a glowering mountain, honors man, Whose glory lies, in what, men, least, esteem; Therein, no chink of gold ; in it no smack. 132 A MAMMAL ONLY. Of a choice vintage— chainless as the air. Like it, intangible, yet with the grip As of a demon a puissant aye, To all men's nays— in wisdom. —Yon stars sliine not, to an o'ermastering force Without them, but within them— theirs, the art "Whate'er, it be, to sliine : still. Science knows. Of this cheap sunshine, scarcely, anything; With power, or privilege, to quicken life. That, in prime order, keeps the perishing world. This animated sphere, more data, yet, Must furnish Science, ere, she pluck a quill To write the secret of the universe— Which seems, a God, yet, seems his product, too. Man's personality proves nothing, more. Than, had an insect's, when, the point is raised- Is God, a Person ? From man's infancyi God, not, in faultless broadcloth, smells, of th' loom. Whenever man portrays Him: let us have God, undefined— still, God. Just, as the Caspian Sea keeps all it gets E'en grudging to the Sun his revenues ; So, should a nation reservoir her sons. And scuttle ships had voyaged them afar ; Coaxing the frisky rivulet to crowd Its banks, with verdure. If, a State neglect To tni, or, stretch her acres— sonship due To a son's privilege, takes umbrage, thence. What? is the earth too shrunken, to sustain That life, born to it ? that were Nature's fault And she must answer for it— if not room For life and sweat, together. Who shall say. What, Nature's belt may hold, since no man, yet, Hath filched from her, but farthings and what pence Gleam, at the feet, of half-roused indolence ? Politics are man's method, to teach men Their duty, man-ward— past the savagery, The shark, the hawk, the lion and the wolf Are constant types of : since the primal law Seems, life, to craft and slaughter and may bear No gentler strictures; lagging reason comes, *HE REVOLT OF REASON. 13^ in aid of Nature, whom, she supplements, While, culture takes up stitches, Nature drops. Wliat right had savages, still, stringing shells On all the Ocean's beaches, in canoes, Skimming life's turbid inlets, to dispute Man's plea for ships? So, what, yet, bar- barous prince Had sat a throne, but, on its crumbling edge. Who treats his subjects' lives, as but one neck, To his raised cutlass ?— It has come to this: Autocracy is driven, home, to God; Or, tarries with pure reason. Greece, out- lawed, Th' assassin of fair honor, Time presents Her exiled, hemlocked, glorious sons, alike, The freedom of the Ages. His reputation, lost, what had he left, Crassus, or Croesus ?— but, with character. Self-murdered, he were poorer, to himself, By all, his ingots swore, his riches grew. Yet, a trivial lie may rake a character, From stem to stern, while sailing summer seas, Sunk, ere, advised, how. In common life, Character is the seal that certifies Man's bulk, dry measure, like the staple, corn. Whose value rises, with its scarcity; So, in a slave-mart, e'en, a slave shall fetch What gold, his character had weighed, if known. Yet, with what malice is that most beset, Wliich hath most honor? while, that, void of worth, Hath, scarce, an enemy? Who'll sully worth? Aye! from a mjT-iad throats— and yet the seal Of the most righteous God doth patent worth, Eusty, thro' lack of use. Of shameless greed. Men have been taught, a pennyweight of gold Outweighs a pound of brain, while, custom hath Sustained the notion; yet, gold, but, appears A jester, to occasion, that ma^^ oft, Amuse a royal master. Money, means The same, in morals, that it means, on 'Change* Adjusting men's transactions: so, a bond, Is solemn, not, for gold's sake, but, for man's. Whose honor, gold has vouched.— Tho' ques- tioned, true— A gentleman hath honor, in this world. His bullion, inconspicuous : such, a charm 134 A MAMMAL ONLY. In true politeness, it is capital, Beyond, a million, sterling, and a churl, Wlience, to woo Fortune. Man manufactures all tlie light he hath, If, from the resinous knot, ere, candles were; Who, not, the product of himself— what, then? Yet, as the sovereign product of a sphere. He like its flora and its fauna, smacks, Of the 8oil and climate, whereto, incident. So, the unity of man, when, consummate. Shall not have changed the color of his skin. But, men's opinion of it : unity, Both, thine and mine, at peace. What Marshal snuffs the wind, his feathers raise. Whisking battalions, forward ? praise moves, late, To supplement success,, it should inspire. — Crecy and Agincourt are framed, in gold. To. look at, to, half, smile at ; if, for tears. For tears, dead valor waits for, by whose grave, Brambles, yet, eyelash her long innocent sleep. Blenheim's a peal of thunder, down the lines Of Europe, t' affright, back, to their stalls. Her snorting chargers : Waterloo concludes The purpose of her States, in what o'ertakes A man, who mapped her, over. War, not, one. With reason, must be murder ; yet, a hair, If, honor's, hath the sleight, to wheel a gun, A dragon had, not budged. Lives there a man Who dares if, even, to liimself, concede, His honor, stands impeached? there falls a blot E'en, from the shadow of suspicion, foul. Black, as a feather, from a raven's wing. Forever, where, it falls— and on this spot, IMen's eyes shall fix and must, as, if, some spell Did rivet all eyes, there. — Tho' York and Lancaster fought thirty years. They sheathed their broadswords to a nuptial smack ; While, the bride's nosegay, blushed with the best blood, From rivers of it, England's : such is war. That,, but postpones, th' arbitrament, or, kiss. All warfare leads to, tho' it spurn them both. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 135 War, as an argument, is, never, done. Still, in the maddening logic of defeat, Would seek the premises of victory: Thermopylae, tho', lost, thus, later, won Platea, and confided Greece, to Greece. The field, tho', oft, the purchase of tried steel. Is, oftener, of the charge, that holds its breath : Mars' confidence affects, the soldier's nerve, A woman shakes, a host electrifies. —Peace proves, too dear, ere, all the blood be let, That feeds the ulcer, war had, laH;ely, probed. Thus, power to hold an unclinched conquest, fast. Must spill more blood, than, shed, to humble it. Peace, by her exit, from the frugal hearth, Hath left it, bare ; for her, no substitute : So if, a State, but, burnishes its arms. For re-engagement, in brief intervals Of war,— what peace? 'twere like a breathing spell, To gladiators, faint. The queen of flowers. Peace must, as, had a lily, choke the air With perfume, till perforce, all nostrils yield. Ere, peace is come, to re-imburse the State For treasure sunk, in war.— What now excites Amazement, is a bullet, since the wounds, It makes, all nations medicate, with th' lint, Of common offices : compassion, that. Of all man's newels, flawless. —Power, when, not thought, is power's apology. Absolute Power were Eeason, with her Court, In th' ante-chamber of the Infinite. —Man made environment, who, still, a man 'Twere, his, to, well, undo it : once, observe, How, reason tears, in tatters, ba;ttle flags, She, late, fought under, bravely, and erects New ensigns, to fresh leadership— which means Eeason is bred, to arms, intends to fight Untreasonable battles, till this globe Moves, to her bugles, cheerly.— Everything Of Nature had, is man's, he, so alarmed At peership, with her atoms, without wing, Who sails past Sirius : let him, freely, ask— What has man done, man may not, better, do ? The world, if, often, wrong, is, oftener, right. Is, seldom, wilful, in the offices Of censor, first, of headsman, afterwards, And, when, dishonest, learns to blush, wherein, ^till, thro' a cloud of missiles, one must pass. 136 A MAMMAL ONLY. E'en, thro' a slough of envy, he may wade To man's idolatry.— Enigmatical ? Genius is man, provoked, to do his best, In arts, in arms, in painting, sculpture, song; While, in sparse instances, 'tis manifest, That, man hath done it— how is seldom clear. Yet, in her absence, oft, a madman's freaks Are blazoned— genius, a profound mistake, Perceived, on her return. Time is not bound. Him, men may spurn, to recognise, anon, A genius, to such proof as proves him, none. Genius bows not t' opinion— it, a force That makes opinion, while, despite himself, Man hath a master. Genius is no knot, Eequired, a century to, half, untie; Is not a sphinx, to tantalize an Age; By speech, the clearest, frankest, manliest man's— The sum, the soul, the marrow, of life, lived. Men have no warrant to anticipate Their action, who succeed them : life is theirs Born to it, absolute; and on this fact. No emphasis, too startling, may be laid. Man is a valorous thinker, on the verge Of his exasperation, and, betimes, The earth, itself, doth quake, to words, he saith. Censorious world, yet, prompt, to make amends, Wisdom shall suffer nothing, at thy hands, But, unadvised haste. — Whate'er, the reason of an Age, accepts. Is his authority, born to that Age— Who may decline, or, not, that, gone before Take issue, only, with the world, on what Is worth a quarrel— readily, conform In shoes, in waistcoats, in small beer, thereto Open thy set, undisputatious lips, O Silence, to this waiting argument, Man must be free, the only fact, that man Hath staked his life on. The earth presents a Forum, where, but, late, A Camp of Mars, wherein, who, wisely, speaks AU ears attend him. The experiment Is making, if, to broadswords, or, to brain. Appeal shall, hence, be made— if, possible. To arm a State, toward others, yet, defend Itself, thro' even justice; brotherhood. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 137 Hitherto, written, but, in polar frost. In wait, for all men's hearts. Men do things, that belittle them, but, thooight Hath built man, godlike; he, with plenteous light, If, he, but, use it, to out-mariner Historic voyaging, by fabulous stars. Sweat is the epic, Homer could not sing. In semi-barbarous ears ; nor, Virgil when Augustan glories poured down Latium's skies. The gordian knot, of Alexander, cut, Had baulked untying, till his head were white. To the unmanly task— and one hour, lost, Had sullied Alexander. Thought puts to sea, in gny craft, at one. With man and Nature; sails, along, intact. The Ages convoys to this Admiral, Or, sunken prizes : thought, for aliment, Eiots, on war, on famine, crunches all The garbage of the Ages— in th' event Master of sequence.— Yet, invincible. What reason is— who knows, may rise and tell, Since, reason, altho' man's, may be, of God ; Who^ w^ell, may kindle reason, from a torch, Let down th' infinite stairway, where, He will. No beacon, but, his brain, itself, on fire, Has signalized man's seamanship, in keels l*]0Aving all waters.— But, to m.an as knoAvn, Man's obligations bind him, who, on man As a conjecture, he may turn his back. —The emancipation of the mind, tho' first. Of all man's triumphs, shall prove, last, in time. Whence, common brotherhood, in common aims; Man, in the many, man, to be conserved ; With altruistic throbs of righteousness. In quondam cowards' hearts. Galileo Galilei vomits up. To pains, inquisitorial, gravity— Which man has swallowed, frankly; which, the Church Infallible, had burnt, had she known, how. With a world, docile, at her hitching post, To mount and ride, when, she adjusts her spurs. From th' earth, as th' centre of th' universe 138 A MAMJNIAL ONLY. Have sprung, still, thrive— more errors, to correct, Than, from all sources, else.— Eeligion hath Consigned man's stomach to the griping pangs Of mortal hunger ; to the lash, his back ; Hath the smooth current of his life, involved In foaming vortices— yet, for himself, T' achieve his rank,, in Nature, and to feel His way, by intuition, man seems, born : The conquest, by his reason, of whose fears Hath published man, the autocrat, who waits The goldsmith's final touches, on his crown. The earth is man's who flourishes to-day, Not, his, of forty centuries, ago : He hath the right to sweep it, who is born, To the entail, and venerable filth, Cast in the anxious flame : 'tis reason's turn To seize the earth and farm it out, to men. Our fathers were our sires and were not Gods, The Lares and Penates are, no more. Man's fortunes, mortal, welded, to the sphere, A proposition, for re-argument. Were every custom, creed, or pleasure, man's. The rich shall not be hated, in that, rich ; The poor shall not be slighted, in that, poor ; With purer morals, better manners, man's, In the blest Age, when Season shall take breath. In her pursuit of gold.— Already, wealth, Of bulk, enormous, incident to life. In current Ages, is debating, how% To, best, conserve man's welfare : yet, the task How, well to serve man, thro' ancestral gold, Or,, with gold, won, of industry, appears Far more perplexing, than, how, gold, to get. And vault it, against loss— since, charity Hath blundered, often, and may blunder, hence. Her purpose, man's, her benefaction, not. Thus, th' concern of wealth, is, how the bank Of charity, may pay vast dividends. With a surplus, against famine, in its vaults. The test of every cultus should be— how It deals with life, itself,— against it, false. If for its culture, true. To desecrate The sanctity of Nature, to impugn Her honesty are postulates, absurd, Of Superstition, seized on, to enslave ]VIan's budding reason : Nature, a mistake THE REVOLT OP REASON. 139 Is man's prodigious lie. No fact, so clear— What, men may, even, die for, may prove that The most remote, from reason— since, belief Proves, neither, sanity, nor, reason, man's; Whose actions so partake of sanity. He is not adjudged, mad. Yet, scarce a heart Betrays its idol : to what, each loves best, Eesponse, were, mystic, as, an oracle's. Dispel man's superstition and his load. Of poverty, goes with it ; penury Hath, scarce, a blood relation, not, thereof. Poverty had not been, or, not,, a stat^. Men seem, as, born to— but, for piety Mstaking avarice, for Heaven's decree. Hath Heaven, for ignorance, a broader door Than, e'en, the door, flung, wide, to poverty? For penury, less stress, on blessings, hence, With sharp demand, for rights, denied her here. His, life, beyond, man shall find methods there, How, to conserve it, he could not take hence Preach to the poor, more bread, for potter' fields ; No dogma, like a loaf, it, providence, So clear, to life, so hungry— hope, if, sweet Served up, to a full stomach. Man's, notliing, on the earth, but, man, for. fear, Fear, if, his, first mistake, hope seems his last ; Neither becomes him : life is in the act. Of doing, or, of suffering this, or, that. In th' instant, glorious : feathers, not, so light As expectations, founded, upon hope, Hope, simply, hope— not, reason, with a train Of logical surprises, yet, to be. —It doth not cheapen life, to learn its worth If, Heaven and Hell are not, man's, were a smile. His, not, a shriek of pain, as the joint mj^th Sinks dowm oblivion. With the pain of loss The world's heart doth not fail, at some man' death, Still, throbbing for the many, who survive : Death, but, a common incident, whose force Is balanced, as a factor, in new life. Better, equipt and mounted : no men, yet. Of whom, it has been written, Tliey were Gods Or, written, were not, false. 140 A MAMMAL ONLY. —Fear, in an interjection sliot between Man's lips, entreats God's services, wlien, foes Do press him, sorely; tho', to evidence, He, in the jungle, with the lion, met; Or in the foundering ship, finds providence Impersonal as law is— in himself, Or, not, a special providence appears. God is not guarding dykes, lest some give way Nor moles,, lest undermined : make each, secure To natural law, or perish, as men do. To negligence— transfigured, providence. Yet when, on th' earth a providence, wherein It contravened, or strained a cosmic law ? God, by what names, men will— by none, were God: No name concludes Him, who inscrutable, Of silence, heeds the sacrifice, that speech May fail to offer. Death's, not, a single trapping, it were well : E'en, were the fact ignored, no monuments To mark its devastation, palpable, Beyond, the pang of loss, Time, gently, heals Death hath such prominence and fashion pays Such court, to bier, to pomp, to sculptured stone. It proves the head-spring of an affluent. The chief, in penury : 'tis barbarous, Much advertisement, of the fact, of death. The certainty of death disterrors death, Wliose pang, if, felt is instant: death, for all Is as balsamic, as the resinous firs. Of wholesome Norway.— Why not, once, reflect, That, th' dead themselves, have no concern, with death, Tho' lacerated hearts would, fain, accept What cordials, fancy proffers their distress, Th' occasion, past, recovered strength declines As, on the maxims of experience. Reason reclines her head and dries her tears. What flatters man, the most, men would be- lieve ; Yet, not, conviction, nor, belief, that makes One's dying, grateful— it is Nature's skill. In anesthetics. 'Tis Plato's dream revised, 'tis notliing, more, The hideous incarnations of the East, His inspiration : from man's ignorance Of matter, sprang the fiction of a soul— THE REVOLT OP REASON. 141 It, not the body, nor a part, thereof, That, like a skilled musician, touched the keys Of every organ into harmony : Itself, innnortal as th' Immortal Gods. What stretch, between a Kaffir's and the skull Socrates dwelt ia? Socrates, tho', dead. Seems but a lion, dead— while, zealously, The heavenly thinker and the vicious brute Had plied the bellows of life's forge, alike,. To aims, divergent. Birth, marriage, death, as the three cardinal facts, Of man's existence, should eschew, alike All vulgar ostentation : love, alone. Hath, here, to prove her tender offices As if, gold had not been— and emphasise Liile, by its heart-throbs, not, its accidents. Woman has come of liberty of thought, Much, as her consort, man hath— each to each The other's complement : archaic tales Framing few pictures of rare womanhood. Tho' on his gender, em.phasis be laid, Since, it is man and woman, and not, man, Singly, the earth revolves for— let us hope From wedlock, cleaner loins, as from a tie, Woven, of passion, dyed, in all the hues Of conjugal delight— not, some frail bond, Tho' lawful, with no fibre, put to th' test, Of life's misfortunes and seductions too. Man hath his complement of ribs complete; WhUe, woman blooms, no more, a part of him : Distinct, as Venus and as Saturn are. With duties, several, as these planets have ; With occupations, common— yet, whose sex May, at the peril, of dead wombs accept. Is man's and woman's equal fellowship. Man, consummate, in woman, she in man. Props marriage, firmly, against argument Destructive, of that oneness, whence, imbibe Both sons and daughters, filial reverence. Yet, marriage is a contract, nothing else, Sacred, to love and to the pledges, hers. —Pluto and Proserpine, whenever, met, Assure the hell, their wont, to kindle up, Th' occasion, trivial : where, else, proper hell. But in the fancy of the rhapsodist, 142 A MAMMAL ONLY. If, not in wedlock? Where, else, proper heaven ? A mother, sister, daughter and a wife Are notes of music sung, by every tongue ; Nor, had a prima donna sweetened them. Thro' cultured execution to the ear OX common life, that, to its native airs Trills them, to care, a feather, or, to toU,, With stifEenuig thews, incited, to toil on. True men and women seek for yet more love Who well esteem our English heir-loom, home That holy spot, the axis of this world. Home, a state sacred and all spires may fall Willie, still, were safe within its sanctities. Charities, broader, than, they advertised. The red-breast, to the Tropics, trills no lay ; An exile, from his home, in Northern climes He waits the vernal welcome to return To his deserted hearth-stone, and to love, Revoice her praises, wed and multiply. So, Love hath her own habitat : beyond Her cherished home, the song dies on her lips, Her cheeks do pale, while, the persistent skies Fail to look lovely. —What, virtuous love has done, is doing yet, Proves the best half of history; the worst The scandals, in her name. Fortunate man. Who learns the key of wedlock is to treat Love, as, still, young, as, ever, in her bloom When, fading to much fruitage, worn and wan : Love, woman's sceptre, thus, compels the nod Of Jove, a Tonans, or, a Fluvius. —A woman's loveliness should be the fact, She is a woman, simply ; yet, alas ! A woman is the worst enigma, man's. Or, woman's either ; since, the fact of sex Proves her capacity for motherhood, Yet, flatly, baulks thereat. —Gold hath the art. To argue Beauty from his manly troth. Whose purse is empty, rifled, or misspent. Love spies a golden bough, alights thereon. There, plumes her wings, thence trills her amorous la^'s ; To some, the warbling, sweeter, than her wont. Ah ! shall we sigh for man, or rail, ai him, Gold, thou, ungodly god, men, so revere? THE REVOLT OP REASON. 143 —What, beauty's power, We see, we feel, confess, armed, cap-a-pie Who, face to face, surrender : not, a rose. But wakes our pity, it must fade, so soon, And stirs us to its rescue— if by steel To pierce the stealthy frost. Wliat, a rebuke From beauty's self, were righteousness, com plete, Seen, blushing, in her tingling puberty ? —Beauty hath offices, love vows are hers Aside, from th' vantage, sight doth occupy, For passionate glances : not, for the scent, alone, But, half, to feel them, flowers seduce the ey E'en, melt the frozen heart : thus, in the eye. Of Helen, if men stare, it doth not seem They e'er descried a penny's worth therein. The wound that pained Achilles, was no stroke Hector dealt him, but when Patrocles fell, Achilles, too, was slain : friendship, betimes. Is what, love, ever is— two, almost one, Wherein, not. one, but, mathematical. —Love proffers love, a heart so sensitive An insect's wing had cast a shadow there. Huge, as th' eclipsing moon's, on the sun's face Love, that withholds from love, what, love would know Has suicided, to the fact, of life. Wherein, two lives were lately, sweetly one. Beauty so stirs the senses, five go mad To do her homage and what syllables Fall from the lips, fall, half, articulate. Young life is such a tongue-tied scarlet dunce Kissed, slyly, by life's captor— beauty, yet. Nor, with her blushes, ripe, nor with a taste The Eavor of all excellence, in the fruit Hearts, daily, pant for. —To bolt bitter grapes To legal manacles, lockt, daily, on A venal wrist, is a stale compliment Paid, to the loveliest name, a woman bears Till, merged into a sweeter holier one. Yet, hath young love time's glib apology For frequent misadventures, for oft falls With th' balsam of sweet hope, poured in each wound. Sovereignty has been crowned, within man's heart, With autocratic jewels, in each drop Of staunch, puissant blood, a maid, or wife 144 A MAMMAL ONLY. Hath vouched her fair renown for : loyalty Is love's own earmark, always, visible^ Thro' all erasures : how, to well obey, Is love's first query, as, is soldiership's. It seems a woman's privilege, to treat Man, as her debtor, whom, she honors, most. Oft, spurring him to payment : man reflects- Woman is his dear mother, his sweet wife, His self -upbraiding sister, to his spleen. So, doth confess a debt, he had not paid, But for such tender statutes.— Womanhood Takes ship with Chastity, in a fra^l craft, To cross Biscayan waters, yet, makes port. Despite men's jeers, who thought, to see her sink. Not, always, manly in love, sexual. That makes, or mars man, yet to man's renown He doth adore a woman and, wherein. Bestial, to woman, is, not, man, at all. Love, bred, to sunshine, trembles in the dark Famed for stilettoes, sheathed in chastity— Too brave to make surrender : who dare die So, bravely, as a woman, when, she would ? Yet, love will, often, argue with herself A problem, fatal, argued— innocent As, love's first blush itself, left, to resolve Sweetly, to continence. Lust may be love Turned into poison, with no flavor, thence, Of that sweet wine— of men and women, drank, Unheadached, to more thirst. To a per Averted woman, death, itself, A cruel reformation, seems her, best ; Thus, what a moral, in depravity. Wherein, a woman's? Innocent and sweet. She was, whose lewdness is the mouth of hell : She to the fact of sex, a woman, still, So hideous, by the virtues, she has lost, And lives, to not regret ; a spectacle, Vice, in men, most depraved, had shuddered at. —A heart and with no image, there, of one She loves or hath loved, were not woman's heart : She, loveless, masculine— whose sex, alone, Hath, in itself, no pledge of womanhood. Woman would have that reckoning, with man So long denied her, on th' popular plea THE RETOLT OF REASON. 145 Of wife or mother ; as, if, motherhood Or, wifehood, either, could give countenance To a false ledger ? All, she craves of man Is, that, the balance may be, fairly, struck. More womanhood were woman's policy, In, more, a woman, than, she ever was : Equality of sexes, in the fact, A man and woman are, distinctly, such ; All oneness in two equal hemispheres. Yet, hath a woman, the same rights, as man Hers, the election, to assert them all. Or, to refrain from those, whose exercise, Might shiver honest hearth-stones— tho' the lin Dividing man and woman, be, like that, In mathematics, quite, impalpable. No woman argues, she would be a man. Who is a woman— in a manlier man, Tlie inspiratioBj of her womanhood. As, beast and bird both honored sexual love, With jealous reverence, ere the lecherous mar Debated sexual constancy— the tie Of single marriage, doth legitimate Love, in the earth and sky— exceptions, few To proof, that Nature spread the nuptial bei And to its stainless sheets, escorted Love. Chastity wins no laurels, save, wherein. The better, of temptation, notably. A woman's honor, breathed on, of men's lips Were stained, albeit, stainless. Yet it seems, A woman's honor, priceless, hath a price, As, custom urges : against Chastity, No weapon, but, were laid, till woman drops The shield of her pure thoughts, to toy, awhile With capering lust, in an Apollo, shrined. A woman, made, if, of a woman's dregs Were, but, a stale decoction ; nothing, there. Of th' innocent flavor of her maidenhood. —Kisses drip Their honey, o'er love's wounds, so artfully, They gape for medication : by retreat From the world's stare, thrives virtue, brave to wed Th' espoused earth, her orbit, liberty. —Ah ! what so SAveet as is a maiden's blush. Unless the kiss that seals her lover's own, When troth is plighted? Ha! love'*?, thrice as sweet 146 A MAMMAL ONLY. As from the windward ol distress, is slied Odors, o'er Junes aromas, eminent, To bottle,, sealed, against adversity. Love, ever, seeks tor love a crucial test, That blends two blushes, or one blush shall mar ; Proves, by two kisses, if, one kiss defiles. Remitting speech, to silence, silence speaks Love hath so, often, felt, what words are worth, Dissects a smile, evaporating tears. Till a brisk, cleansing shower has purged her bed. —Who, in the morning, weds, Elects a rose, whereof, no perverse wind Apprises him its scent has wantoned free, In th' nostrils of dislionor : love, at noon, Hath doubtful warrant of the passionate God- But, what, on th' verge oi manhood? Well-a- day! — Wliat venal gossips be the sighing winds. What sorcery, in moonbeams? Aye, wha shame From Sappho, downward, scarlet, from the bays. Fanning the brow of Venus, cold as ice. That locks the poles, if, love, be, but, a fact Of merchandise and not, that oracle. Whose priestess, Nature, to no lapses, errs ; Who, of no bribe, were, false, to honesty ? —As, if, the glorious cordial, labelled Love, Must sour, in musty phials, till the leech Uncorks them, to perverted appetite ? Love is that secret, broken to the heart In th' dewey dawn— yet, not till mid-day scents The air with frank confession : love, a dream Buds into passion ; thence, to early fruit. Blushing with laden boughs to the four winda Of duty, sweet allegiance, charity, With all-o'er coming chastity, to clinch Love's tendrils, climbing— for there be no height Love may not challenge, and no soil's too thin For love to thrive in. —A woman's heart has been a Caesar's prize— If, to another Caesar, it were, • still, A prize to capture and, therewith, to treat THE REVOLT OF REASON. 147 For terms, of non-abasing servitude. If, no explosive in a magazine As fatal, as the mischief, from her heart, So, if no serpent, with her subtlety, When, woman would be vile— her argument For life is braver, than man, ever, makes In her supreme endurance ; in her loss That had remitted sins, the grace of God Had looked askance at : to whose purity. The priceless jewel, of all womanhood, Man's coarser passions, so refine themselves. Till what, in man, is manly, lovable, Hath woman's seal on. Two drops of water are not two drops, still. When they have met together and so, love Doth unify a man's and v/oman's flesh. Whereon, the State stands, squarely ; to the lair, Or, to the nest, appeal is, never, made For plural marriage— there, the law's divine, One male shall with one female, sweetly, wed. Love, strikes, like lightning, always, when it strikes ; Where, it may strike, who knows, ere, it hath struck ? Such pranks, it plays with hearts, no sophistry Hath, yet, been able to convince a heart, What a mistake, it makes, to love, amiss ; Since voluntary love's a counterfeit Of th' ringing coin, so rare, its price rules high, With numismatics. —Commerce seeks a port Within the harbor of a woman's heart, Wliere, ride, at anchor, gallant merchantmen. Unlading to her love : a woman's heart Is the one theme, tho' hackneyed, ever, new Whose simile, is, best, astronomy, A science, never, done. — Wliy should the stigma rest on woman, yet That, in the first of women, she first sinned. And, then, enticed her spouse to share her sin ?i Why cast in woman's teeth, the fact of death The cause of all life's woes, late, popular ? Or, e'en to patronize her as— the sex. In that, she is a woman— she, to man. The immediate Source, he sprang from ?— Let' have done, With the perplexing fable and kiss her, 148 , A MAMMAL ONLY. The tempted— not, the tempter. — Lfove ie a sweet emotion to a smile, Or, a caress, responsive : love, tlie wiglit That empties ail tlie treasures of two hearts ; Each, gently, in the other, and withdraws Scarlet, as having done some foolish ac". Love wantons, when, estraying, from the heart, To take the lusty senses, in her arms ; That nameless charm, dispelled, from th' netlier heaven Love peoples, with her saints, in spotless white. —Love, her mistake. If, harder, to correct, than, to endure, May veil her wound, behind a radiant smile : Yet, th' heart is, quite, untravelled, that main- tains It cannot love anotlier, having loved. —Life witJi its habits, fixt, Love undertakes Too much, would she reform it, after troth, Is plighted and vows said : repentance comes To the crushed heart, too late, that, to a pledge Of reformation, or to ardent hope, Love may heal other lapses, than, love's own, Ventures, on wedlock. —Woman hoped From Greece a^nd Eome, for parity, with man, Who, scarcely, in the Orient, looked beyond, A hlorizon of traffic in her flesh. As, in a camel's. Nomad womanhood Was woman, semi-barbarous, her arm What strength, her lazy liege lacked in his own, Or, feigned to lack, therein ; her chastity, His, to augment his herds with— his, much wived To cast aside to his satiety. A woman, wed, the peer of many wives ; To some bond-woman, comelier, scarce, a peer. A theocratic marriage ran the Jew's, When woman drew the watetr for her lord. To bathe his feet with ot to slake his thirst ; Who, having browsed Ms camels, watered them, Her duty, gently, done.— Not woman, thus, As, th' nomad bred her, when the Eoman had Imprest his manlier virtues on mankind. Producing Eoman matrons, of whose fame, Time shall not sicken. So, was woman stirred To aspiration, by the force of Eome, In womanless Judea, that inspired Woman, with zeal for man's companionship. Ere, had the gentle Christ permitted her THE REVOLT OF REASON. 149 Tlie common bliss of heaven. —Christ gave audience, With leave t' repent, a woman, who had sinned— How, could tliis be, yet, stones, to cast at her, So plenty, im Judea? Manifest, Woman had, but, the privilege, to be. Aside, from pious cant, in Israel : Her terms of life, man's own. Chiist if, he spake To Magdalene, bidding her, take heart, Spake, with a whiff, from p^agan Greece or Rome Fresh, in his nostrils— tho' the pity, his. His, the compassion, who found woman, chained, And dropt his tears upon her manacles. Israel, tho', theocratic, to one God, To many, Eg5T)t— yet, the Egyptian held Woman, in honor, for her sex, itself ; For worth, exceptional, Hebraic pens, Surprised, may laud a woman— of whose sex. Of all, in myth, or, story, emineiut. Found, in Chaldaic-Hebrew chronicles. The fingers of two hands were, in excess. Six thousand years ago, along the Nile, Woman was queen within the realm of love. The knelt Egyptian vowed, whate'er, he had, Or, might have, thence, all, for her love to yield : To forfeit all, to honest wedlock, false ; While, he exchanged his own, for her sweet name. But, when the Arab vented Egypt, scorn For that witliin her lovable and true, Woman fell inider him, a slave, and there She lies, impassive, yet. Woman is not An outcome of Christianity, of brains, When, voted to man's side : in all time past, Culture and brains, where, wanting, woman fell. The Zend-Avesta shuts the maid, in hell. E'en, to the resurrection, who declines At eighteen years, to wed ; woman, therein, A wife or felon. Zoroaster, still, Hath staunch supporters : the God Eros thrives, Tho' Hjmien suggests hell, to wedlock, man's, Or, woman's, denied love. —Fidelity in marriage, seldom, springs, Of infidelity, in pairing tLme ; 150 A MAMMAL ONLY. Of wedlock, had againet tlie grain of love : No, less, absurd, in man, than, in the wren, Or, turtle, to wed, falsely. —Love is the single obstacle, that gold Hath not surmounted : if, so competent To eolemnize the nuptials of two hands. Two distant hearts, unwed— 'tis, yet, so vain. As, to believe, that golden links had held Hearts, restive, back from shame. All that's divine In wedlock, must be love ; love, absent, then, Marriage, the flippant lie, so, often heard, Eepeated, at the altar : home must be A word, with pathois in it, to his ear. And hers who founded it, and have, therein. Cradled, a pledge of peace. Tho', love may not, A child shall read the human heart, aright. And where, it finds a bed of daffodils There it shall, sweetly, nestle : innocence Is like the sounding lead, that with the ooze Of the deep sea enchants philosophy. The quality of man's and woman's love Lies in endurance ; in the strain, it bears, As, honest metal had. Passion may crown. But, prudence and discretion prop the throne Of common wedlock : wed, who live, to love. Shall love to live, and had not, otherwise. Yet, love is but half, sentiment and half. Hard rigorous logic, that must, day by day. Argue, how many footfalls, how much sweat. How many strokes, by a brave, brawny, arm. Material comfort may exact from him. Who, his, a wife, with sons and daughters, his. Why, should Love on her bridal lavish, more, Than on her larder and for Fashion's sake, Endure a querulous stomach ? Love, with bread. Is, far, less vulgar, than, pretention seems, In that world's captious eye, half, the world lives 'T attract, to please, to captivate, to win. —Christendom, tho' the soil of womanhood, Woman's, the flower, of public liberty. —The power of prayer seems to the pious East In frequent iteration : thus the Jew Prayed, often, and prayed, long— and still, the East Prone, to her gods and constant, in her prayers. Thro' a breath-saving trick, the piety THE REVOLT OF EEASON. 151 Of runuing water, hath tlieology Concluded, by the ablest water-wheel. —Such liglit, has Asia slied on human weal, Salvation to a tliird of all men, born, Is to repeat— OM-MANU-PADUA-HUM. One-third of man drones i,n the Bo-tree's shade, One-third bends toward Mecca : of the rest, Some scale the skies with ladders of their own, While, others are resolved, to wait for God. All Veaas are, alike, the work of man : "Wherein, inspired, of genius : which is, best ? That cult, a man is born to, tho', the worst. Restore the pillory and stand, therein, Daily, the dreamy anchorite, whose God Must wait, to scourge, not, bless, his indolence : Idleness, hell to any subterfuge Of stranded sanctity, dead, to that Sea, Lii^fe rides with steadfast helm. Eeason suspects The earth is her true habitat and crowns Herself, its master ; conscious, she is weak, Yet, with no regent\, pending infancy, She gropes her way to fitness, absolute. —When drones fulfil their office, drones are slain. Indolence denied favor : anchorites, Dead to this life, interred, had spared man's crib. God is not charmed with one, of all the stripes. Men hope to enter heaven by— as, if, welts. Thick, on a sluggard's back, were evidence Of righteous living ?— To interpret God, Make not, of Him, the Monster, man had been If, made a God of : assume that, divine. Which starts with reason, but outstrips her, soon. Thence, unattended. —Light abrogates all treaties, made in th' dark Break with Tradition and shake hands, with man : A sweeter song is on the lips of men. Than, life to mortify, 'tis life to heal. Why, any hateful secret, in man's past. He must pry into, to exonerate His life, from future pangs— so manifest, Man is, but, mortal— lack of diligence, In life's vocation, whose peculiar crime? No soul, to save, concludes the joys of heaven ; No soul, to damn, had quenctied the tires of hell. Man is not standing at the Gate of Heaven, Searching his pocket, for the obolus, 152 A MAMMAL ONLY. Of his admfesion ; nor, at hell's broad gate, Wa,a, wrangling with tlie porter, wiiat, the bribe, Had shut denial, on the curse of God, Who had stood there, till, squalor, rags and tears "Were met with scowls and flings at either gate. —Death has no terrors : 'tis a pagan myth That armed death with a dart and conjured up When he doth launch it, nameless agonies. A world of courage— a world void of fear ; A world of courage— a world filled with joy ; A world of courage— a world filled with thrift ; A world of courage— a world filled with God. This planet, curst, man curst it ; man, if damned, His lips pronounced damnation. —How sweet the earth had been, how beautiful, Enjoyed, as Nature's bounty— not, with th' air Tainted of demons, said t' inhabit it : Nor, its rich herbage, withering to the curse Of an angry Deity ?— for to such straits Man's lack of reason drove him, to account For evil, man's own product, as to liimself : Since, man's, the passions of the tiger cat, More reason, his, to curb tiiem : what m found Mysterious, in man's nature ?— that, he tliinks Profounder, than a dog dotli ; who, made o'er. To th' pattern of pure reason, had dismissed All damned superstition, utterly. —In the near view of death, Nature dissolves Th' enchantment of life, gently ; gives the will No longer, function; and both sinking mind And memory, cordials with forgetfulness, As, sweet and easy sleep reports to Deatli— He, with the o'erpeopling earth, full, in his eye, To slip his eager dart. —A human Christ is th' Christ of reason sought In, not, a pagan, nor, a mythic Christ. Christianity should drop her stilts and walk Human, in every peasant, born, to-day, Thus, to exalt her lowly origin : The spirit of whose etliics and good- will Has passed into the mass of common life, While, Organised Power Is left behind ; Christ, but the incident of ghostly sway, Without, a witness ; tho' the heart of man Throbs, with the Godlike Man of Galilee. A wave, like Fundy's, man's recovered sense Shall swamp, his trim delusions, in all seas. THE l^EVOLT OF REASON. 153 Sailing as jocund feathers, ride the wiud, As, valorous hies, tlie sunbeams.— Man excels, But, to th' assumption, man transcends all facts Himself, tiie past, the present, the to be. A good man doth liis duty— lie is vile Who sliirk,8 his duty : herein, manliood's sign, And with aU togas, obsolete, the fact. Shall be, in vogue, forever. On that day E^ligion 's human, man shall grow divine : Dethroned fancy, thence, a farthingale May brandish, for a sceptre. O, for a flash Of Light, so common, all men had cried— God! So, clearly, revelation.— What is Light ? Who know, who think, they know ? That, by the sun. Such, an enigma ; that, from man's own brain, A series, of surprises ? —Hath man put on the boards, a drama yet, God, in his private box, had sat t' enjoy ? Nay, never, never, yet. So, in whiat kirk Or grave cathedral, odorous of myrrh, Its arches, strained to music, midst the pomp Of mitred prelates, hooded priests, with wax Flaming, to alleluiahs, hath God stood. Enraptured, of snch worship ? Where, a heart Is bursting He may hear each heart-string snap, With clear report, as, when, his heaviest guns Surprise man's slumbers— on whose auricle Sounds, rapturous music, to man's tympanum, i'all, flatly, silence. All, the argument For pomp is to impress man, thro' the eye ; The cost whereof, in alms, had worshipt God. Eeason has made confes'' That stains her signets, but, of avarice. In the name of Him, uncovetous, whose or^^ Was thorns, whose throne, his sandals p men's hearts. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 157 His kingdom, or, no kingdom? —Fitness springs from responsibility ; Tho' 'his traditions palsy him, who sits Facing man, medieval, or, man, scaxed. As, Asia scared him : so such liberty Sprouts, by the Alps, or, Andes, native, there As, never, bloomed, on Asiatic soil. "Whence, whose, a bosom with reluctant joy, In resurrected Italy— her throne Squared, to the sabres that cemented her, Italian steel, whet by the rights of man ? She had a Senate in Mazzini's brain, In Garibaldi, rowels for the flanks Of lesser heroes— whence, Italia, whole As to Augustus.— Yet, within those walls Where, Caesar's and where, Pompey's triumph gleamed With the spoils of captured provinces, for Eome, The climax, of her marvels, ought to be A prodigy, of manliood, to the wand Of the arch-juggler freedom— to whose feats* The stones of Eome are sacred.— Liberty, While, not, a fact, of Eome, half, realized, Yet, she divined its purpose, in her laws. Which, as, she sank, she held, aloft, and flung To th' winds of heaven, to rescue, and they did. Italy's freedom lies, in Latium's scorn Of ghostly menace, first, tho' afterwards In reason, fulgent : liberty is like To running water— yet the man must thirst Who drinks, with zest, the sweetest rivulet The fact, of freedom is th<^ act, of light : Wherefore, more light— while, its extinguishers Be these incorporate fiends, for instant pains, Tho', Venice casts no jewel in the sea To wed the Adriatic, nor a quay Groans to her commerce, Venice is as sweet As, in her youthful spousals ; she, a wife With an unfaithful partner in the spouse. Whose vows sank down the deep, what time the waves Swampt the bride's dowry : acd, yet, liberty Seems, but, the glow-worm, of the Middle Age From Venice, to Genoa, as, her mate. Flashing love's signals. Thrice, in seven centuries, was Janus shut. War, late, man's occupation and is, yets 158 A MAMMAL ONLY. With frecLuent truces to recover breath, Inspect and. furbish arms : true, as God lives The peace, of nations, bears no other sense, Than, readings for war. No plea, for lint, Albeit, were frozen, by— whose bayonet? Humanity is, broader, e'en, than, the lust Of power, or conquest : who had, even, said— Should dragons tight, let no leech dress their wounds- No pangs, too, sharp, too horrible for these, Nor, death, too instant?, Death doth not lay mao's purposes, to heart, Nor, ask men— what their pleasure : it is theirs, T' anticipate his ravages and salve Each wou)nd he deals and re-adjust their lives, To changed conditions. Tho', philosophy Muse, nibbing, oft, her pen; tho', faith, her hands May wring, unduly— let u^s sing, of death, As, if, that factor, which, in problems, man's, Hath man, at clear advantage, in the doubt, Of when, and where— less painful, otherwise. Unless, in life, ere noon, stretched, on the bier : As, witness Him born, second, to a throne. Who, born, a yeoman, were, for manhood, crowned, Faint j by the bridal, ere, his vows were said : To Nature's undiscriminating stroke Dead, with the kiss of England on his brow : Fallen, before his Sire; dead, ere Her reign, The boast of Britain, closed: what argument, For years, still, Hers ; for life, in Him, her Son, To reign, tlie pride of Britain's line of kings, For preparation, in a third, to sit A throne, unchallenged.— Isled, to unity, Great Britain hath no option, to repent : Her crown must fit the Indies, cap the Islefl Of the Pacific— e'en, its continents ; Where, by the Pole, men hope, endue its frost. With expectation. Paris, erewhile, was France, but, Frenchmen are: Each olive grove, each patch of GalFc soil, A fortress, whence, French freedom, if, assailed, Had been defended. It were blasphemous. To boast— I am the State, her guillotine If, within earshot: while, to broadening thought, THE REVOLT OF REASON. 159 Increasing wealth and common equity, Not, Anglo-Saxon freedom, tlio', oi kin, i'rance trains to climb tlie willing Pyrenees. France is retrieving what she, erst, did ill, Ere, she her Phrygian cap had quite drawn on. No bat, in Europe, but descries in France, Gains, on the score of freedom— liberty, Late, a conceit, the fact a Frenchman is. France, hers, no word for home, is home itself, To th' eye that greets her landscape, realized ; Home, thrice impressive, axS a nameless fact. —Beyond the Pyrenees, cMvalrio Spain, Who gave to human nature, what she found Challeng;ing Western seas— and Portugal Patienit, four centuries, have ascertained How vast, their stake, in the worlds gratitude. —Helvetia clomb the Alps to liberty : Then, Avith a cable made her Cantons fast. Each, to the other, all, to th' Galenstock. —Belgium, if, Europe's battle ground, hath snatched The spoils, herself, and turns to culture peace. —Norway and Sweden, wed, than, hint divorce, Had, rather, widened, each, the marriage bed. —South, of the Baltic, on th' liistoric plain, Whereof, ^£,eo]ogy had, if, she would, Disclose some curious secrets— politics Demand perpetual genius : policy With pontoon bridges, oft, may span the gulf. Genius had drained, presenting it, the State, Aglow, with harvests. Unity, the key To her K^nown, dawned, late, lest premature. On Europe's fortunes. Germany hath bound In one ripe sheaf, Teutoinic liberties ; An empire, for a feudal monarchy. —Austria and Hungary have joined tlieir hards. One, to increasing freedom, in pursuit Of joint advantage.— As to Eussia's eye. There's not an eagle from the Ural's crags, Pursues his quarry, swifter, than doth it, Slavonic unity. —Bavaria eyes from Munich thro' the bronze, Of captured guns, her peaceful, thrifty realm. —Land, of the Kimri, of the Goth, whereof. History unfolds marvels, Denmark lifts Her Scandinavian genius, to the eye Of Europe, in Thorwaldsen, while, in arms, Her genius reflects glory on the Dane, To industry, who traineth either hand. Her commerce crowding sail, for subjec'} isles. 160 A MAMMAL ONLY. —The Netlierlancls may watcli the ebb and how Of Europe, with composure, sprung, of faith In their own skill to dike the surging sea. In their own sons, to-day, their blood, who tipped The (Scale of battle, at Phansalia. ritness, to reign, is the one right, a king Hath to a sceptre ; birthright, profitless, To argue kingship, home:— for light has cleft The harness of the knight and the monk's cowl Lies interred, with it, in lit sepulclires— Memorials, to man's vision, of his late Bleared, rheumy eyesight.— Europe were con- tent, Hers, peace, with half her arsenals and forts, To spruikle her delight, on gala-days. In harmless salvos— half, her rowels, rust, Her armor, in museums. Light affects A bludgeon, with which, Nature, kindly,, whacks Her stupid products, soundly— who, when sight Shall, thence, surprise them, find their ridgy backs. Betray, how many welts, it costs, to see. Smart blows, with ethics, th' immaculate plume, Worn, in his helmet, stood man, where, he stands. Muscular strength, wherein, the lion plumes Himself, or, python— to a barbarous age. Appeared, in main, the favor of the gods ; Yet, strength dwells^ in his thoughts, less in his thews, Who, mastered, by his thoughts, were riderless. —China preserves Confucian wisdom, so inviolate. She, to the light of its philosophy, Has stood, thro' many centuries and stands, Just, as unshaken, (still— without a vice. In council, or, in function, adequate. To split her fortunes : thus, renowned Cathay Holds, fast, her throne, th' immaculate gift of Heaven, Whose Son doth sit it, with celestial fire Hedging Mongolian unity ; hei- walls Crumbling, before Confucian masonry. China, as the queen of Asia, casts her crown At th' feet of learning ; all her ministers Steept, to the eyes, in vats, of scholarship. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 161 Ere, wielding batons, in tli' eye of tli' crown. Her freedom is the Orient's, wliich, the West, Hatii not conditions, meet for, and declines To liberty, man, several ; in the mass, To th' Western mind, man, scarce, conceivable. The secret of Cathay is to ignore All, not Confucian, and to stereotype Her annals with him, whereby, unity. China affects Confucius, wherein, false. To science, wherein, true— a wilfulness She wields a sceptre, still, unsplintered, to. —Not in religion, In morality The secret, of the rise and fall of power. Kome, to the classic gods had, yet, been Eome, But, that, the morals of the gods, were false : China -endures, in whose, not pleasure smiles, As, in the Latin gods, in virtue's stead. The W^t stares a.t her empire, yet the blush Is not for China, whio astounds mankind In that, each peasant may, in aU her realm. Weigh his own brain against the throne, itself. In her own scales, adjusted, to a hair. The mind of man, preserved, inviolate. Is China's Pallas, fallen, from the skies; Whose honor is, she honors main, the most. Of all the cultured nations of mankind; Whose, if a blunder, 'tis a charming one, To have invested all she hath, in brains. Not, in that States were pagan, did they fail To eternize their fortunes— lost, to lack Of faith, in reason, to effeminate thews ; To both, conjointly. China hatih the key To her longevity, and holds it, fast, Sur^dvor, both of Attica and Eome, Belike, of Egypt— one of every three, Born to the planet, China takes, in hand ; Who, in a temper, of true equity. Which, wholly, human, men may hail, divine. Commits her fortunes, to the intellect. That proves the clearest : numbers do not tell, Not, e'en, four hundred millions against one. And that one, the pariah of her realm, Be he, the wisest, in it.— Even, He, Fabled, from Heaven, who sits her storied thirone. Sits, subject, to the censorship, of men. Renowned for wisdom sa for honesty ; Theirs, to inistruct, or, chide the Son of Heaven. —China is dreaming, on her laurels, had, 162 A MAMMAL ONLY. Wlio should: be plucking fresh ones : hers, tL^ zeal With scholarship, undoubted, to achieve Whatever, reason may : Confucius, hers. Hers, Mencius— but, man, since, with all liis arts. These, hers, to seize and to ennoble, hers, By genius, tho' half proven, unexcelled. —Japan is marching westward, valiantly : In her stirred brain, a pledge of amity, As th' Westerns gauge it; while, her geniug tln-obs With all tlie West would stake its fortunes on ; Art, too, with her, aggressive ; intellect Would, seek, with China, honor, for itself, As, nowhere else, excelled : while, in each vein Her blood, with instinct, ever, insular. Prompts to adventure, to companionsliip With all the Ages, in the Powers, that be. Land, of the Eising Sun, her countless isles. Seem, as, if, lately, risein from the sea, Wlio, in a score, of j^ears, by forward, strides, Her annals, immemorial, puts to the blush ; Training her .sons, to Western Liberty, To Western slavery, the elements. Like Egypt and like China, Persia stood. Conspicuous, when, the annals, of the sphere. To Time's short-winded memory, begins. Persia, herself, the essence, source and soul Of all theology— what hath she left But, the countens of her players ?— She has been Whate'er, of elder nations, coveted, Wlio turns her eyes, as, ever, on the sun Half, fitly, too, for Avho hath, yet, defi,ned That, styled a sunbeam ?— While, no man has yet, Eode, by the sun, but, in a telescope, —Persia waits, Has, almost, bidden Western thrift— Come in: Her mind, historic, hers, ancestral loins Tho boast of Asia.— What, to count«.nance And, yet, retain, traditions, that report To Zoroaster, is her privilege, E'en, o'eT the Moslem, striving for her throat : Since, the arts of locomotion and of speech. By Western genius, Persia would were, hers. Whose future partakes freedom, in the West, When, Eeason boasts an ensign of her own- Flung down the Andes, Alps and Pyrenees, Blown down the Urals and the Apeiminee. THE REVOLT OF REASON. 163 In half his States the Mongol's heart revolves Eound the Grand Llama, while, in all its throbs, Allegiance to his faith ; in half, a prayer, To his innumerous saints : if, gravity Had lost its function, Nature had found here, Its moral parallel. Most cleverly, Eeligion, as a halter, swings men, off. From any scaffold, with a conscience, clear ; Belief, to cowardice, whate'er men fear ; To courage, what, men dare. —If, India Should Westernize her thews and give her gods Convenient exit— hers, the privilege To thrive, to English premises ; a fact Once, she had realized, there had not been Eaoug]i seduction in the lotos, thence, To win her back, to India, as she is. India wafts cheer to Asia in the flag Of Britain, flying o'er her : manhood, grown By the icy North, is so unlike that, dipt. In th' sacred Ganges, 'tis for argument. If, both, could be made one : yet, liberty, In any tongue, is that so pregnant word. Gestation o'er, a babe leaps from its womb : And England to her Asiatic realm Discourses orient problems, scarce, in th' tones, Caught, by the ears of Yorkshire Englishmen. Asia presents her mountains, with their roots As deep as ever, and her valleys, washed By the rivers, her faith bathes in, with a zeal That turns their currents, turb'd— yet, her arts Smack, more, of indigestion, than, of nerve, A wholesome stomach genders : faith appears Eeading time backward, but, a clumsy trick Transparent, as pure water. —Uncultured leisure is but murdered time. Asia, in dreamy contemplation, sits Where, she sat, forty centuries ago, In eremite, in anchorite, in priest. Her nameless vermin, sacred to her faith ; Indolent, pious, thriftless, immobile. Should Asia drop her beads and kill her fleas, Metempsychosis, routed, in the act— A Faith of forty centuries, had set, The Light of reason risen in its stead. —What, tradition is. Behold, in Asia, with a sting, therein, Perpetual palsy. Error, never, dies, 164 A MAMMAL ONLY. Where, truth, has, never, sprouted; sun and soil, With no persuasives, to do, otherwise, Than, make, prolific, each accursed vine, Wliose fruit is poison.— Contemplation means To look facts, in their faces ; pious joy. In stalwart purpose, making, for man's weal. —The flagellant commits the very crime. For wMch his back should bleed, the fact, it- self, Of ha^dng scarified his flesh at all. If, fast and penance could drive Asia, back. To occupy her senses, she has had Of pains enough. What, then, may, yet, re- store The zealot, to her senses, unless, steam, Or, an electric current wliisk her round Her slumbrous continent, till every hair Sprouts, from her shaven crown : in every hair A thought, or purpose, of th' heroic West, In every hair, man's own mortality— The problem, life t' escape, not found, so hard ? Who, even, stirs a rubbish heap, wherein, God may not flash in some uncovered gem? So, thro' man's sacred books, a casual gleam Of wisdom, may liint God, in honoring man. —Make light of fear, as fear makes light of thee. The game, 0, Asia— bluff. Africa, wasting, since, imperial Eome, With pestilent fevers— frantic, cries, for help. From all her jungles ; gold and ivory Casting, ingenuous, at all Europe's feet : Her plea, for light— her soil, itself, for light. Eeflect, 0, Europe, thou wert Barbary, While, Africa had lit, to th' Middle Age A torch, that hath restored thee, to thyself. —What enigma, this E'en Isabella's jewels haste to solve? Spain had an empty coffer, but, for these, Whose flash of scorn, w^ell, nigh, replenished it : Nor, had Columbus sailed, or, not, from Spain But, for the epoch, by her jewels, made. Ten thousand crowns, besides, three caravels- Is not Columbus, mad, and Isabel ? Half, thought so Ferdinand, with Arragon, As, he, who pushing France-ward, on an ass, To Isabella's plea, retraced his steps, tittiiillSBi i^illla--^' ''■'-"■■'- mmmm '"■'''' "■^-■■^^ -;■■...:■-. ■:;J<: • ,. ,V>:'% ||i§§;!^^ ^':'^^^ ''" ::;:• :il:|«*' '.' ■ .' ' ■ '" ■ iiil ^^^^^^^^^^■■v^jfii'^B^BHS^H^^MHnnl^KB^raKa CO -UMBUS, i J J J.i THE REVOLT OF REASON. 165 To snatch a precious jewel, for Spain's brow, She may not lose, to any accident, Its blaze, as constant as the polar star's. Four centuries, ago, Queen Isabel Had pledged her jewels to a mariner's Conceit, of nearer India : thence the crown Of Leon and Castile, flashed with more gems, Than, tears Columbus shed t' ingratitude, Who, neither, found Cipango, nor Cathay, Yet, stood upon the threshhold of a world, Flung, wide, the door, when, in a sailor slipt, And scratched his name upon a window pane. Vext, all the manhood of the ages, since. That, he who died, in iroas, to his zeal For man, failed, of a namesake, in a sphere. Yet, he, whose chains, were with his corse, in^ terred Has slept till resurrection and, anon, Two worlds shall crown the patient Genoese, Who died, unmindful, he had cleft a sphere, Dreampt, he, but, skirted Asia, in the Isles, His caravels had touched at : had he seen The Continent, he sought not, he, yet, found, Wliat mighty thumps, his joy, for th' waning throbs Of his despairing heart, that burst, to chains? Yet, th' hemisphere is his, whatever name. It bears, or, may— Columbia, eternized. By the sailor's footprints, on San Salvador. The smile, of Isabel, pursues each ray Of Western sunshine, while, th' ingratitude Of Ferdinand, toward a brave mariner. Assures, to her, the plaudits of all time. Whose gems had won, if, Spain had not, a world. A sailor, with a lantern, in his head ; A genius, half, discovered— in the role Of fancy, crowned with vision ; in the realm Of reason, autocratic : as, a man. The ornament of manhood, when the worth Of manhood, was debated : fortitude. Pronounced, as was his clemency, contest ; If, sanguine, to a fault, the fault, itself. Surprised new lands ; not, visionary, then. He had not sailed from Palos for Cathay; Persistency of purpose, ardor, zeal, Patience, with shrewdness, hope, dexterity ; With self-respect, an appetite, for fame. That, but, on joints of fair achievement feeds, 166 A MAMMAL ONLY. Were qualities, liis ovvn, by eminence. Columbus, tho' a bigot, to au Age, Of bigotry, prevails iu history, Scathless, against detraction, inlinite ; Sharing a name, immortal, Isabel. —Yet, of thy womb he sprang, Italy ; So, of her laurels, Spain must proh'er thee: Thine, an exacting mother's privilege To swell with the lad's honors, whom, the sea Remarking brave, when age had sobered him, Insured h.s voyage to San Salvador, Commerce, for ports in Asia, underwrit. But, for the Church, on what, yet, earlier day. Some other sailor might have plowed the seas Hoping new lands— for the inveterate foe Of man, in God's name, had denounced a curca On him, had proven the earth, spherical, And, but, the servile liege, of yonder sun. Winds, dead, ahead, with th' devil, in th' hull, Man pushed discovery, with piety. Such as inspired Columbus to have vov/ed To rescue, yet, the Sepulchre of Christ, His cruises, gainful : the Crusader's dream Still, lingered, in the faithful Genoese, The cross, his pennant : in a hemisphere. Unveiled, to Europe, closed the last crusade. Still, had the Norseman glimpst thro' polar frost The icy locks of a huge Continent, Whose feet disport, in waters tropical, Columbus saw not : had the Norseman sv/ani Past Barnegat, past Hatteras and snuft The blown Bermudas, he had spread a tale Thro' Iceland, that had vext the sea with gulls Winging the Norsemen, hither ; e'en to them, In balmy winds, in ever-blooming flowers, In fruit, that craves not culture, but a hand To pluck its bounty, might have proved, a charm To bathe, in sunshine, their frost-bitten l:vc3. Here is that land, the ancient dreampt had been ; Who cocooned it, in fable, which, belike In Atalantis had gone down the wave, Unresurrected— yet, behold ! it risen. The virgin world of romance and of song : Tho' old as Thebes, still, old, when Thebes was young ; THE REVOLT OF REASON. 167 The most mysterious, unmysterious half, Of man's important, unimportant sphere. O, for a dredge had scoured th' Atlantic's bed With the Pacific's for a single hint, Of what, she had been, if a hint be there, Ere, yet, Columbus : life, disguised, by paint Wampum and feathers ; life, in architraves. Buried, profoundly, in a tropic soil, Fragrant, of Empires, gone— is proof, indeed, That but insists on, more. Here, if, unearthed, Man's early fortunes, Egypt had divulged Her own enigma, and her mystery Had. found a solvent, in a hemisphere. The Elder, with such incidents of youth, As palm it off, as, Nature's, newly bom. Four hundred years, in either hemisphere. Alone, in history, wherein, remarked, For man's material vantage, or, wherein, For vision, due heroic surgery ; Wherein, for nascent freedom— fit, it seems. Both worlds partake a common holiday, And on the soil, by Europe's mariner. Devised to sequent Ages, give his fame, A mortal whiff, that hath immortal wing. While, Lusitania, by bold seamanship, Doubled the jewelled heel of Africa, Spain stared at the Pacific, swum the strait. Found half the globe, a waste of billowy seas. Whose archipelagoes arc, even, yet, Withholding data, from geography. To match discovery, by land and sea. Dismissing Aristotle, half-infirm. Arguing the heavens, aright— debating man, Eeason, to units, brought him, at a blow. She, without precedent, for half, she did. Saw, in much driftwood, promise of new land Her canvas strained for : it was seamanship That, often, cast the lead; oft of the skies, Entreating sea-room ; it was confidence In man, as man, untried, put, to the test. To disadvantage, man's, with the test, sus- tained. A vaster hemisphere, of reason, found In th' waste, outlying, than Spain scourged for gold; While, on that hemisphere, ere Spain had done Her search for riches, she enthroned herself, In th' name of Freedom, tho' of later loins, 168 A MAMMAL ONLY. Than, theirs, of Marathon—yet, like, their own, With, for the Isles, of Greece, a hemisphere. With, for an Attica, a Continent. Yet, sprung more freedom, of the Pilgrim's pluck, Than, from his dogmas ; for, his faith, in God, Developed faith, in man, with tomahawks, Arrows and scalping knives, the incidents Of his experience. To his firelock, faith Lent execution : in the Puritan, The dying throb of the Age of Faith, survived. For tomb and holy grail, the knight had fought With, ever, on his crest, as, in his heart, Eeminders of his oath, to womanhood. In her, his heart confest :— the Puritan, God— only, God, his, not a license, man's But, were a penance, to the Cavalier : Yet, his was knighthood, tho' unhorsed, afoot. That had encountered polar frost, for Heaven. Enthusiasm, from a woman's arms. Ventured to Jewry, in the pious knight : Exchanged for zeal, inspired by th' liberty, To think, aloud, tho' in a widerness, The knighthood of the Pilgrim, served the State, Half, by the very errors, due, to faith. A commonwealth, to Britain, mounts a throne With Cromwell's warning ringing in both ears : But, to the acreage, the Pilgrim found, A Commonwealth, into a State, resolves ; Both oceans, heaving vantage and defense, Arguing, the popular will, perpetual. —Of a virgin world, Eurqpe ran on, as, if, an Eastern tale : Then, having sliced it up, she cast the bits Among her courtiers : yet, the liberty Of thought, outsailed the eager colonist, Safe, here, to bid him welcome, as, he set His foot, uncertain, where, he set it down. —Who, in the dreary daybreak, offered fight To th' Briton, by Leonidas were led. Spartan, to broader freedom, where, they fell, Than, at Thermopylae. Courage is the same In every age, but, never, to the blast Of every bugle, equal : valor clings To the dam's breast, a babe, forever, fed. With th' milk, that flushes heroes. Any blade Outranks Toledo's, if, it slash its way Clean, to a throne and force it to do right : THE REVOLT OF REASON. 169 Such valor is an epoch ; such was, theirs, From Lexington to Yorktown, facing odds, "''"'or common justice. 'Tis ours, who have it— theirs, who capture it ; So, runs the doubtful law, time, still sustains; Meum and tuum, with few sanctions, yet, But, smell of burnt gunpowder. Liberty Hath, tlien, the Western Hemisphere, her own, First, in the right, as, of discovery, Next, in her mustering arms, had held it, fast. Yet, if her title lack an element Of strength, she finds it, in the weal of men. Which, once, despaired of— lo ! her title fails, Her guns were spiked, her gallant gunners slain, Her paps, torn, by more arrows, than, yon sun Had quenched, twanged at him— while the out- raged seas Had swampt her Continents. —What shall save Her cities from pollution and her soil From felony and murder and assure Liberty, to Americans ?— her soil To husband, well, for free-born citizens ? Better, her land, a howling wilderness. Than, rocking, to the fortunes of a mob. Majorities may have the ring of gold. Or, the false ring of guineas, counterfeit : Minorities, thus, govern, not, in right. Of the minority, in reason's own, "Wliereby, they govern, who prove competent : It, the same right, that, all majorities "Wield, to intelligence, or, lose, to none. —Where'er opinion sways a State or Eealm, In party-spirit, its palladium ; Of power, that had encroached on th' popular will The prompt corrective; it, to flagging zeal, That would assert rights, yet, unrecognized, Ee-stimulf tion— while, the common mind. To clarify and raise, a forum, whence, Incessant disputation. —Freedom, in capitals, on every page. Of ad captandum volumes proves, how near Eelated, freedom is to printer's ink. In half, the world's esteem— while, platitudes. That, like the music-monger's popular airs, Preserve a cruel sameness, stir the wax, In drowsy listeners' ears. 170 A MAMMAL ONLY. Wliat, these shores expect Is sweat, to till them, not the irony Of labor, the East starvea to : not, a,n eye In search of unearned guineas, but, an arm To cleave the oak, or furrow the fat soil For willing harvests— an American, Ere, he has lost his sea-legs, would, in each, Ere, he has sworn allegiance, hither, come; Latnd, left behind him, thence, a memory. 'Tis treason to America, wherein. Allegiance is half-hearted— while, the gold, Had, from America, were, justly, hers. To build her fortunes, broadening, to more sons. Him, here, to find a pocketbook and stem The ocean ferry, homeward, should receive As many lashes, as half-eagles h's, He would steal off with. 'Tis not Griqua-land, Whence, with, of gems, a handful, to take flight ; A land,, a home, 'tis not a halting-place. Adventure flags, her own, from the Andes' And th' Eocky Mountains : populous, enough, To formulate a destiny, she hath Ignored her antecedents, as a world, Wlierein, the outlaw sought a heritage, Wliich, despite justice and the rights of man, His, to give false direction : henceforth, man's To culture manhood, that vocation, theirs. Who venture, hither. Under what specious guise, did Conscience late, Revive the Phallus and the orgies crown. With plural marriage, till the virgin soil Of Utah, swarms, with saints-in-bastardy ? Freedom, unwary, must have closed her eyes. On half a Continent, while, to the chin. Immersed, in gain, by the Atlantic's roar. Deaf, to the wail, of butchered chastity. And, yet, the Mormon lingers, less, to purge His still, transparent life^ of lechery, Than, to the law, to veil it— and behind Impervious arras, to spread wider bunks. Thus, fitly, maskers, behind leaves of brass Etched, with much drivel, still entice their dupes To slavery, not African, but worse, Thro' a. credulity, that, at a gulp, A coach-and-six had bolted and cried— more! THE REVOLT OF REASON. 171 —Here, if no stage, To Europe re-enact, as Europe was ; A drama, Europe, as she is, had failed. That plague of empire, found in vicinage Perplexes Europe, who each problem solves Thro' ever-swelling fleets and armameints : Analogy, at fault, iju feudal power And power, one step from a Democracy. Men, in the past, were freednien and wherein Born, freemen, yet, to .reason and to pluck. Prone to enact the Eoman— tyrants sweep Man's heart-strings for a \i.ol— give his eye, The gladiator, he commits the State To wanton cohorts. Liberty responds To moral purpose, free to will and do : Is less, conspicuous option to enjoy One's sweat, as one elects ; freedom as jet, Seen, as a larva, to the imago, A lexicon revised some ages hence Had served her fitly— of his thoughts mean- while Eesolving into justice, man, confest. An acquisition of his intellect. Life, here, is tentative, with but the link Of common human nature, to unite Man's fortunes with the past : his, liberty With men and means to do whate'er she would, If, when done, wisely— to light save her own None, safer that the dog star's : liberty In man, la knight to his own chivalry. Is reason against wampum— politics. With precedent against it, but the Crown Meant for a feudal prince, man snatched and wears. Less, in the fact of suffrage, than in th' light That casts the ballot, freedom— argument For more light, never done : in liberty, A highel- scholarship, than had sufficed To relish Homer, to driA^e smartly home. Her golden tent pins ; to instil in toil A craving, next to bread, for aliment Had twisted moral purpose round her thews And in each nook and corner of the brain Had occupation. Not, greater Europe, but America In S5mipathy with mountain, lake and plain. Her regal betterments— their privilege To build who will, with square and trowel, hers. 172 A MAMMAL ONLY. The policy of joint America Eesents dictation : since, in politics, The policy of Europe is her own, So, on the Western Hemisphere, proceeds An argument for power, American. No mirror for America, not wrought Of her own silver ; hers, no threshing floor But th' prairies slie has harvested— her strength In sons and many, who confess the plow, Yet ague freedom; on opinion stood, Unpropt of bayonets, who propt thereby, Had fallen on her sword a suicide. Democracy, with welts, like Attica's, Is the first milestone, past a virtuous State, Whatever, Art, or Culture warrant there. E'en, if her soil be yet the gamesters' stake. Whence, (rules of play but from the game- sters, sat? Their arms had queried. If, a derelict, Who, in mid-ocean, have the craft, in tow. What admiralty, but the better steel Had wrested from them ? —In courageous sons, In gold and silver, subject to her draft, With Nature's seal on half, unbroken yet, In field, in loom, in forge, a trinity Of factors, that to famine, fire and sword, While, heedful, breathe of apprehension, free; In single marriage, with unshaken vows. In maidens, taught the distaff and the stars, In lads, taught how to clamber into men. In fathers, who remember they have sons. In mothers, who had silenced they are wives, In fields of corn thalt ripen into brains, In demagogues as rare as if from God, In patriots \as thick as summer flies, In conscience, with no cast in either eye, In justice blind as ever to who pleads— A Future, for America, or non^^. In th' English language, the North Continent Hath uinity beyond both steam and steel. And th' electric flash on treason's trail. Freedom, therein, not polvglot, but theirs The English tongue, as if vernacular, Unargued, whence met there. What argument Therein, for conscience, in a license, wid« As freedom to no law, but 'each man's will? What plea for rights not native to the soil? While Europe ieyes her scales, discretion there, THE REVOLT OF REASON. 173 Pursues opinion— or to lend it wing— Or, thwart its vantage, when inimical To popular freedom— man, that uppermost, In man, tJie many : in America Of either Ocean severed from the Past, Man, to his intuitions, breathes restored. A nation, if of soldiers under arms, Stagnates to peace and burns for war to let, For freshening throbs in life that had survived. Her own blood freely : in a nation, free, A soldiery of citizens, in peace. Implies not blood to opportunity, A country's power, e'en how invincible, Hers, one estate, Kings, lords and commons, —man. —Courage long bottled may have tturned to air Occasion come to prove it— to the stress Of an emergence, courage raw, defies Oft, odds and weathered files. In men's traditions of a Church and State Propt of each other— in Power secular. With violent presumption against man, Investiture Divine— in the still flow Of that insidious stream, a mythic Past, Perpetual menace to America. Yet, in the Common School, the common mind Hails light enoug,h to urge it to seek more, While the Press winds it in a comet's tail. And Science airs to keep her secrets well. Thro' emulation, from the sculling match To Senatorial combat, leadership Enchanting many narrows to the few Who fill with honor, place. If, ever true, Ambition seeks the honors of the Stat^, The State rewards Ambition : to this day The gladiator of the dexterous steel Is hero, to all peoples, if he fall To shafts of envj?^, in his cutting off. In sight of power, his apotheosis, A nation, prostrate— while, th' incumbent, dead May leave a corpse, so shrunken to the pomp, That waits his burial, as to argue home, He is the throne, who fills it. A race of men, tho' not autocthones, Yet, veritable products of The West, Her soil, her skies, her climate, liberty Photographed in the (humblest countenance Defines that type of life, American. 174 A MAMMAIi ONLY. Freedom of thought forbids intolerance, Yet, Conscience, if a clever mask for shame. Treason, or immorality— what, then? Imperium, in imperio— possible. To a false conscience, were not to one true ; Loyalty to the State 'found broad enough For every creed at peace, and not, at war With human nature: altho' pertinent, Why yet retain the supernatural, A word, for something, men know (nothing of, Who beg the question, if a fact, at all? The State for closes what had thwarted her, In re-distributing to men, the powers, Confided to her— by her seal, thereon, Inviolable.— The future, of all Power, is equity. Or, re-construction : .not a plea is left For Power, an heirloom, as, a guarantee, Against dismissal ; in dynastic blood. But, a presumption, in his favor, sat, To sway a Kingdom. Wliat an impetus To wholesome manhood, were the fall of caste ; Whence, Asia's blight, whence Europe's sal- low fields. Which, well disguised, would cross th' Atlan- tic strait ? Men are, here, fitly, if to ascertain Tlie soundness of that bond, of Nature, sealed, She forfeits, to man's failure to achieve High aims, she fosters, in him— in th' event The earth shall prove his mas+ers'— his reward Still, but, the dole, begrudged a villien's sweat. Freedom appears, but breaches in the walls Of men's traditions; man's, all conquests, hence, In wider breaches— all her riders cast. Who mounts the fleetest steed, e'er yet be- strode. But, most sure-footed— he, with thrice the dash Of Knight, historic : with his mettle, thrice. Time, thrice, las precious, purpose, thrice as high! —Who will, come in— but, let him, at the door, Cast off his sandals, careful, not, to bring The old world hither— his, if accent the new, As, he shall find it : to her pupilage, Submiss, a neophyt<^ of liberty : Here, both his school of morals and of light; Here, and American or, here, amiss: THE REVOLT OF REA^SON". 175 Here, the one flag, his heart must throb with raised ; His life, in peace, found, gainful, to it furled. The Social State is man, with pared nails. Unknotted hair and beard— with face and hands, Pure, to both lye and water, and himself. Wrapt, or, in homespun, or, in broadcloth, sat, T' enjoy the fact of life, with other men, Found, like him, willing, both, to eat of salt. And break their bread, together. There had been No mystery, in life, man had not solved, Its data, laid before him— 'tis, to loss, Of facts, philosophy, is, at a stand. All rights of man and rights of property, If, not, inviolate, no social state. Give men the rights, e'en rodents have, to house And hold it, sacred, their own industry. The world's woof is barbaric, with stray threads Of culture, in the warp, whose tints unite To dominate the glare and hint the eye. Of th' harmony of virtue. —What, a blown rose, to breathe of. Ages, hen-e, Freedom, may, haply, be ? Plaste, vainly, makes An argument, for fi*eedom. that involves No preparation— freedom, slow to learn. How, to, oft, ford the Seine and wash her feet. Quit, of blood, always.— Who, of all men, knows. How, near, he sleeps to freedom, or, how far. From chains, that wait his ankles? Wliat, so lit. As, her slashed flag, to summit, yet, staunch heaps Of putrefaction ?— The concluding act Voicing the drama, dips, th' catastrophe, In colors, fast, as Tyre's.— Humanity Seemed, with the earth, a plane, a horizon Wide, as a nomad's tent— to the earth, sphered, Humanity, resolved into a globe. That savings, the, only, known, celestial sphere Man finds no stigma on him, from his birth. Whose meritorious progress should receive All marks of sterling merit— from the start Who hath not borne a cancer, in his breast, Tho' he hath sought, to medicate a sore. 176 A MAMMAIi ONLY. His fears located there— not on the acent Of expectation, rising, to seek God, But, leaving God, behind him- voluble. —What is truth ? Truth seems, the problem, that experience solves. Religion is not true, because of th' coat Of th' label, stuck upon it— is not, false. In that, it hath no label : piety Hath such an aroma, as, hath good wine, Uncork it, all lips smack. — Numa created the first Pontifex ; Still, in the Sacied College, one survives. Numa, the oracle, of pagan Rome, Spake and that uttered, was infallible. On points of dogma, ritual and faith. As, touching Venus, Bacchus, Jove or Pan. The Western Cult seems pagan, with a veil Of th' charities spun oA'-er it— whose stride Is from the Buddha, to new mysteries. With utterances, final : Man, forlorn, Solaced, but by sheer opulence, of hope, v The upright man boasts all the Christian hath, Rxcept the latter's fancy, and accepts Whate'er a Christian may, except, his dreams ; Hath, sometimes, purer morals, than, the last ; Therein, a better Christian : uprightness, Remarked, as salient, in the former's life, As, in the latter's— love and charity, Man's, ere Christ was, man's, when, Christ may have been : That, supernatural, the last reveres. But, pagan fancy, washed and Christianized. Tho' dead, to faith, in the supernatural, The West were wholly Christian, in so far. As, the term is not cabalistical ; Since, less, of facts, than words, the world de- bates. Religion, seldom, is morality: Yet, morals were religion, if, indeed. No God existed. The West should, kindly, judge the peaceful Jew, Whose honest verdict may, vet, be mankind's. As to Christ's own Mps^iahship, wherein, The only Son, of the Eternal God: Messiah as a cry from Babylon For Israel's restoration, illustrates Half, its significance— tho', when s<^t free. But, straggling Jews return to Palestine. THE REVOLT OF RE^ON. 177 Of guilt, enough, on tlie Western nations, laid— God, man-Mke, personal, to have invoked Fire, fabled, to have licked a Sodom up- Murderous, of the Hebrew, thro' their zeal, for Christ : False, were he God; most cruel, Christ, a man, Past all analogy in history. If, Christ, a man, acclaimed himself, a God, He did, thereby, in Hebrew ears, blaspheme ; To Jewish law, incurred, and suffered death— Unstigmatized, the Jew, unless, indeed. He crucified the God, of Heaven, Himself, In him, of Nazareth : theology Means nothing, or, means this— the very God Bled, to the Eoman spear, on Calvary : Which, reason, in the bud, held, strictly, true, Wliich, she, in flower, so blushes, to have breathed. Why not reflect, that 'tis on hearsay, stands Such facts of history, as fall without Common experience and the Hebrew's breast, Pierced, torn, and lacerated— medicate ? Is it his fault, the eager West accepts Both, what the Hebrew credits and doth not ? The o'er credulous West, on the vainglorious East, Stampt th' holiness, she, rather, had, herself, In frosty morals. It is, wholly, due To th' prestige given th' Hebrew, by the West, Thro' the adoption of his oracles. That, the Jew remains, a sticlder, for his faith : The Western nations, foremost, propping him In his exclusive clutch, on God's own throne. That voice along the Ages, tremulous. With torturing hell has, to a whisper, sunk. That jubilant with heaven, beyond, doth sink Into a gentle w^hisper— heaven is here, When, man hath reared her walls. —A state of things, so strange, it startles one, Eevolving it, within him, had not seemed, Experienced, briefly, as infeasible, But, had appeared to, fitly, fill the void Of an exploded, false economy. Man, as the product, of a product, hatih Nor past, nor future— his expectancy, From sweat and brains— or, false. Lord, of this sphere, Th' economy is man's, in no sense, God's, l78 A mammaIj only. Involving Supreme Wisdom : it would seem, Man hath a lease, and, for a barley corn, Perpetual ol the planet : mortal aims, Man's, ever, to pursue— whose history Proves, only, human purposes, achieved. When, stript of fable, there is nothing left, But, man, whose reason and unreason pen Alike, his annals : a persistent growth, In human nature, all the argument, For main's existence, raw and tentative Kor, had man dreampt of any end, beyond The weal of persons, in the common weal ; A scheme of nature, closing with the grave, But, for his tribal Shastres, Bards and Seers. The scheme of Nature seems, not men, but, man : Men are, both, mortal and ephemeral, Are the collective forces, whence proceeds Each type of manhood, whence, to predicate A type, still, higher: but when Nature means To pause and dub man, consummate, remains Her own state secret. So, should this man die Or, that, untimely, men anticipate The void, thus, left, no living man had filled : Who, indispensable thus, seems, in life. Proves so, no longer— brushing past his bier, Another, in a worthier, than, himself, Argues his memory, brief. —A continent, abandoned, had it not Kelapsed, anon, to savagery, wherein, Man had reclaimed it?— Thence, with lions, pards And serpents, riotous, a million years. Should man avoid it— had that continent Proved not sea-bottom, ere the term had run, To lands, resurgent ?— So, analogy Had proved man's mastership is absolute ; His reign, to last, while, th' earth may nur- ture him. To the assent of Nature and of God. If, th' theory of life is, wholly, man's. Then, to amend it is his privilege. Or to adopt a fitter theory. Of life, than, that one, Asiatic, still : What, man's next conquest? every Senate's theme. Tliink, of the millions, dead, to nious vows. By lions, fire and sword ; of millions, more. Wasting, in dungeons; of the holocaust. *HE REVOLT OF REASON". 179 Bleeding, to Juggernaut, or, in the arms, 01 Moloch, roasted— and what zeal hath laith, In what, men will, to prove their lunacy ? Man, ever, was the dupe of something, past, Of something, that was not; of something, done. Of something fancy dreampt of : mystery, Ever, the poisoned shirt, to wind him in. God is a word, familiar, to man's lips. Who argues toward the fact, it adumbrates ; Whose earlier notions, favored gods, as men. Of monstrous stature, simply— when, t' con- ceive A God, not, personal, impossible. Evidence of tlieir absence, in all time, Authentic, what, of vouchers, now and then. For present gods, in eras, fabulous ? Man's coming to it, strange as it may seem. To rail at his progenitors and vote Man, such, a shameless liar, in the past, Whom what oath had made, truthful, him, none hath? God had not poisoned wells, to punish men ; Yet, bigots had and hailed it, providence. That, providence, intent, t' enrich the knave, And whet the appetites of virtuous men. For garlic, e'en, for garbage ? He extols. In Fortune's bower, a special providence. But, he, on whom, she, never, deigns to smilo. Nestles, the closlier, to impartial law. Who dare conclude, from man's experience, If, half mankind were in the jaws of death, Thro' sheer starvation— by a miracle. Life had been succored?— The economy Of human life, if, consciously man's own, What reasons, for a special provide ace, As, strong, as those against it?— Man's, the reins, Who cracks his whip and the fleet coursers fly : Necessity and destiny, alike. Go down, with fable, as, two rodents had, In a craft lost at sea. Sweat prays and gets an answer in each drop. While, laziness had prayed the season, thro'. And starved, most fitly : neither, sun, nor shower. Hath, ever, sprouted any lazy prayer. All virtue in a prayer, lies in one's faith ISO A MAMMAL ONIiY. That, God may heed it : thus, an answer, Bteept, In resignation, calms a baffled life. Prayers, to the imagination, as to God, Are, oft, petitions, honored, palpably, In life's experience : to the sanguina mind, Fired, to achieve and stirred by diligence, Quite, preternatural, the confidence. Of victory, inspirits. So, of hope. Found it, on what, men will, if, plausible, Imagination fit responses, makes To all her orators. —In morals, as, in physics, not a law, Less, constant, than, is gravity— not one Hath, yet, been known, to swerve to faith, a jot. Him, prayed for, stricken, by disease, restored. Argues, to health, recovered, vital force. Not, yet, exhausted— while, had he deceased No fact, so clear, that prayer did not avail ; Tho' it, weU, proves to reason, vital power. Failed, whea, the clock recorded, he had died; Nor, had the prayers, if, of a planet, joint, Endued his heart to pulsate, once, beyond, Unprayed-for respiration. "So, the result of prayer, has, never, been Compliance, with man's will, thro' change in God's : Its end to reconcile man's will, to God's, Or, to succeed achievement, by the spur Of supernatural aid, the weak and wise Hope, possible, to prayer— tho' science* lays Emphatic stress, on prompt denial, hers, That, God, has, ever, changed, or, even, could. The course, of fixt and changeless law, a whit. Law, absolute, unchangeable, is all We know, of God, and 'tis enough, to know. It proves God, first, impartial, and then, just ; Moved by no plea to kiss a favorite. The West conforms its notions of a God To the Eastern concept, without nerve, to swim Beyond the safety lines of Orient fear. A God and personal is man's conceit Of what, God should be, to accommodate His limitations : of the universe, Wliy not, as just, to, frankly, postulate It shuts God up within it, as, to say. It doth exclude Him?— that, so manifest. Appealing to the senses, why, nofc, true? Why, assume something, men know nothing of. To complicate that something, man perceives? TfiE REVOLT OF HEASON". 181 Nature's mechanics, well, eliminate Volition, as, a factor— every pin. In Nature's gearing, indispensable. To that no fiat doth.— Unthinkable- God, if, a person, yet, no challenge, His, Conspicuous, as tlie Sun, had He desired Such homage, as men argue— no man, bade, To search archaic legends, or, for God, Or for his pleasure : gratitude had swelled Man's heart, unbestial, toward th' Source of life. Peer, of the linnet and the lark— yet, Lord, Consciously, of a sphere. —Dismissing fear, man's reason, at a bound Clears 'all the lines of savagery and fate, Scenting an epoch, as ^a charger— war. So, who would breed a hero in a babe, Toss him Mars' helm, a plaything, with the tip Of Agamemnon's spear. ^ —The State survives, in that, the rights of man, Armed, prove the overmatch of bigotry. Faith is no more, in issue, faith is dead : Eeligion ijiath no rights, but, such as man Elects to grant her— like archaic coin Man minted, yet, may shudder, to remint. That faith, erst, possible, to ignorance. Is possible, to ignorance, to-day : To cultured man, faith is impossible. Save, when, for reason, but the synomym, Tho', to tradition, prodding him, at bay, He feigns surrender— It is never false, That Truth may sleep and sweetly, on a rock, Here, both an empty stomach and a purse, Tho' in a fortress, if the whole world's gold. Let Error sleep, 'twere w4th misgivings then. Faith held a trump in fagots, but 'tis played ; So, in the gag, she held a winning card ; It, too, is played, and man's enfranchised lips Have, now, the vantage : true religion, hence, Persistent zeal to make, discovery Of man's relations, to th' obedient sphere, He rides, so safely ; while in every hair On all his scalp, a mailed, charmed knight^ Sworn, to defend him. To undo man, vain, To make him over ; once undo the world. It were undone, forever ; change man's thoughts, And thou hast changed the atmosphere, he breathes ; Eliminate his errors and retain l82 A MAMMAIj ONtif, Man unimpeaclied : for gallant seamanship Is not so much, to plow the shorter route, Thro' seas, tempestuous, as the safer one, With craft and cargo, neither, underwrit, Safe, in the offing. —To what reformer, hath the world cried— speak ? Its plea was, rather— for thy life's sake, hush, Th' occasion is not come. Not, ready, yet. Is, but, the felon's motto, who would breathe, A sennight, longer, free of the hangman's noose. Decisive battles shall be, those of peace; Grave resolutions, changes, in belief; But, to one challenge, blood be, freely, spilt, A menaced hearthstone : manhood picks its flint While, all the tatters, in tradition's flag. Fail to inspire a firelock. —What, to endure, were, that, which had en- tailed Evils, if, rid of worse, than those sustained : Hence, man arrests a TdIow, when, almost struck For error, oft, is the decajdng trunk, Vital, to still, support th', yet, tender vine. A custom, to do wrong, becomes a law, Quite irrevocable— while, statutes are, And are not, at men's pleasure. Yet, what is. However, false, or rotten, should not fall To fraud, or rapine— to an open purse For instant equity.— To save the State, Anarchy is a plea, by indigence, With wretchedness, gone mad— as rational, As, in the life-boat, to unship the oars, And give the helm, to chance. What heart, with dormer window, in it, beats, Or, ever, has beat ?— So, of secrets, there, That man had asked a Hindoo, of his wife, Who would pry into. Not, a living man, Wliile, true, of every dead man, when, alive. Had turned that organ inside out, a day. Unless a day, of days, exceptional. Man is a pagan as he, ever, was. Only, a better pagan : it is due, Chiefly, that man, to pity and to tears, Moved, gently, with the woman, at his side, Has reached a higher life than, savagery: Equality of sex ensued the blows That made the freedom of one, possible : Freedom, as, th' culture of the head and heart, An Arcliimedian lever, cleverly. THE REVOLT OP REASON. 183 Tilting life's strata, upward. Eelieved, of superstition, all mankind Had, thence, full stomachs : what a simple cure, For human ills, to undo human wrongs ? Wherefore, or, whence, religion— few demand, So many take for granted, it must be. Of all facts, human, that fact, uppermost. The problem is not, if all creeds, alike, To any plea of conscieace, shall enjoy The favor of the State— but, rather, this— Are not all systems, equally, at war. With public policy and the known truths Of human nature— their foundations, laid, In faith, in th' Supernatural, a faith. That proves a sleuthhound, to the scent of blood ? The vices of religion, still, appal The shuddering ages : why not, fitly, close Life's frightful drama, with a miracle. Extinguishing them all, and, thus, sustain, WTiatever power controls man's destinies, Is power, supremely, human— and defeat That strain of savagery, yet, in man's blood, Goading him to idolatry— to Fear : Less ostentatiously, who still repeats Shameful prostrations— and the curtain drop. To such tempestuous laughter, as shall shake Thence, indigestion, from the ailing sphere ? 'VVliat creed is true? if faith be made the test. All creeds are true, or, if sincerity. All creeds are true, to zeal and votive blood : A muddle for man's lunacy and not A topic, for his reason. Piety Is Nature's institution and not, man's, Eeligion, man's own venture. Let us think. Who utters this has prefaced saving prayer. What odium, still, pursues the manliest act Manhood had done— free thinking, thro' the zeal Of bigotry, enthroned, that, late, had thought, Had willed for man; had blest or curst his soul? But, for free thought, alone— what motive, man's To propagate his kind, in him, arrived. In man, arriving, at autonomy? Man, erst, -sold to the Devil, reason, late. Has made re-purchase of and hath paid down Enough to clinch the sale— her credit, prime, 184 A MAMMAL ONLY. With the shrewd goblin, eager, for the sale. The World is learning, when, to hold its nose. With the occasions, when, to blush for shame. Light testifies against his honesty Of motive, roundly, who would play the fool, Tho' all the uses of the fool, are past. The magnitude of Nature is a blow. Dealt 'twixt the eyes of human vanity, And twits man of the savage, he remains, Behind a coat of lacquer. Eegret, to leave the world, not haste to go, Life, to enjoy— should be man's wholesome creed. Who carries too much luggage and goes, bent, Half-double, to traditionary wares. And swamps this life to vainly clutch life, hence : Who, his, a future state, ere this had known Somewhat about it : all have proven false. Affecting knowledge, thence, theirs, not the power To tell what they have seen or may have heard, A ruse, ere Paul's, to Hamlet's day, to ours. Nor is man born to gorg^ and be amused, And drop his playthings, to a life so spent : Fashion doth, by her vices, life such wrong Her leave, revocable, why not revoke? 'Tis not discretion, tho' it were a God's, But, fixt and changeless law that rules the sphere : Man's Supreme Safety, in the arms of law, In Nature's silence, Nature, means man's weal, S(5me pitfall nigh, her warning voice Avere —An accident proves but an accident ; (heard. Its moral argument, more prudence, thence. A casualty, when Nature's science takes In hand, to search for friction, not design. Nature has given hostages to man For common law, unswerving— otherwise, Indifferent toward him— whose success Lies in conditions, harmonized therewith. Death, as an incident of time and space, Quite unadvised, her factor— man therein Plays a bold game against a gamester's hand, Whose trumps he would divine : so manifest A universal providence of law ; A special providence, man's own, or none. If strange, wherein? If nature man eqiiipt With powers to snatch a planet's mastership, She, man conceded further, privilege To build his fortunes, as he may elect, THE REVOLT OF REi^SON. 185 With no suggestion, hers, but ample means ? Man goes to common death with tearless eyes : The living sigh and weep— the dying smile : Nature sits on the pillow, with her salts, Held to his nostrils, faint, and to no pain. Life has expired, gone out, or has been quenched. The fat of all the whales, whose flukes do lash Antarctic seas and Arctic, into foam, Burnt, in one candle, had not half sufficed To lantern one man, dead, across the Styx. Oracles of the dead were popular. In the earlier Ages : even, Cicero, Speaks of one, at Avernus, in his day ; So, Periander, centuries, ere, him Called up his wife Melissa, twice, or, thrice, Thro' the diviner's art, as, once, King Saul Had called up Samuel, to the witch's spell. Yet, the amazing grossness of the tale. In a man rising, bodily, out of th' earth, Vastly enhanced its credibility. With leason, then, a fact so consonant. Knowledge is courage, with her armor on ; No God dare think what ignorance had done. Faith advertising witches, gives to craft Credentials, yet, to juggle with the weak, The credulous, confronting, with their dead. In her, of Endor, seek the lawful dam. Of spirit-raising, e'en in Labrador. The spirit-raiser of this century, With his phantasmagoria, cleverly Evokes a spirit, clad, in ominous white. To th' eager fancy, of the willing dupe. That, in extenso, of departed friends, Advises him, in th' written characters. Of his vernacular : e'en, at the nod Of some unlettered boor, may Socrates, Or, Plato, make obeisance and respond T' interrogation.— In the Pythoness, Of Endor, as, of Delphos, half, her art, A voice, ventriloquous— hailed, verily, A demon, speaking from her ventral parts. With no familiar spirit, with an ob, Mulier habens pythonem, appears The witch of Endor— every pythoness. One by a python, or, an ob, inspired : Spirit, but, a false rendering of ob ; Its meaning, serpent, only : spirit, here, The bald assumption, that it ever is. Both, knowledge of the past and the to be ; All power, both righteous and malevolent, 186 A MAMMAIi ONLY. ^ The Serpent-God is charged with : Voodooism, His vilest tjT)e of worship— Africa's. In spirit-raising and a hannted house, Of life, beyond, if, cogent, evidence, 'Twere proof, at law, had been incompetent, Vice, to have mulcted in a halfpenny. One house, if haunted, one, m ten, were such: Since, possible, to one, to mj^riads, then, To ha^'e re-visited familiar scenes. Wliat pledges, by the dying, to return, And scourge their enemies, have, yet, been kept ? Tho' in what droves, wronged souls had slipt the gaze Of lynx-eyed keepers, to avenge themselves. If, souls survive men, dead, and, somewhere, dwell. With locomotion, hither, possible? Thanks, to the progress of heroic thought, Wlio, now, affects communion with the dead, Tlie law adjudges, quite, incompetent. To e'en make disposition of his gains, A ward, of justice : to this pass has come The evidence, of life, beyond, the grave. Ne'er, of the wise, of childhood, of the weak, Astounding hints are told, of life beyond. In vision, voice, or sign, inaudible. Men hail that, spirit, they conceive to be : Of which conceit, they would a something, make In other channels, baulking enterprise. To deny witchcraft, gives the Bible up, A rare Divine quoth, scarce an age ago : Yet, familiar spirits, that prevail with men. Of distillation, sprang, and, still, must spring, — Ti-ees were, with barnacles, whence, flocks of geese, 'Twas, gravely, writ, three hundred years, ago ; Wlien, hairs, from horses' tails, turned wrig- gling snakes. Tho', still, a devil, to the vulgar, thrives : The dead, as vampires, rising from their graves, To drain the sleeper's veins; with the were- wolf. Death, in the beetle, ticking for his mate. With witchcraft and the royal touch are fled, let, e'en, to-day, are, scarcely, out of eight. Caesar was made a god of, tho' h(^ told The Senate, he was mortal— to which fact. He achieved Caesar.— Pliny, Cicero, THE REVOLT OF REASON. 18? Were of the Sacred College, Caesar, too, With Cato, and divined, thro' the flight of birds, As, in the entails of the strangled beast. Th' will of th' Gods, whereto, Rome, humbly, bowed. Yet, Caesar fought a battle, in the teeth Of all the auguries and won the field. Wliat Augur, with another Augur, met, 'Twas Cato said it, had foreborne, to smile? No greater Pontifex had, ever, lived. Than, Julius Caesar, yet the office shrunk After that Roman's death, till any monk Of Italy, had filled it. —When, late, Olympus shook his snowy crest, Astir, with Attic Gods, who, then, had dreampt Olympus e'er should fall, or, even, could ? While, God may be no mystery, at all, God is the standing problem of this world, Perhaps, in every orb, in all the sky, A problem, as profound : then, let us trim Our torches and stand firm— God must be ours As, well, as theirs, who would usurp His ear. Restoring man to Nature, were to bring Man, back to God, he has departed from ; Man's ablest theory, of God, still, none. Not, to fight God, but effigies of God, Who must endorse what mischief, light had done. —The man who fights a sunbeam a^nd prevails, Shall prove immortal : while the curious wait The day, fixt, by the hangman, to swing oft' A culprit, charged, with having lit a torch, No soul hath power to quench. —Behind phenomena, man's no concern : Herein, a phase, his life is taking on, That severs his allegiance, to the Past, That binds him, to the Future, by fresh oaths. A past, outgrown, is like a corpse, in state, Which, men pass by and pay due reverence For worth had, living. To experience, all Appeal is final, and except, to proof, Judicial, man knows nothing— tho' he seeks Amusement, in conjecture. —Authority, not, guns— were reason, thence; With dicta, open, for re-argument. As, man advances : there is nothing fixt, Unless, in mathematics, past review. 188 A MAMMAIi ONLY. —What uses were religion's, should that proT-e A fable, and most infantile, of th' fruit, Inhibited, man ate of? Should it seem, No devil, then, was dreampt of— nothing, more. Than, a glib-talking Serpent did the act So famous, in man's annals, why, not, pause And raise the question of re-argument? More light were dangerous, only, to the Past, In its survivals. —If, dreary, the earth's dreary to a lie. The sun's eye is not evil ; it is man. To a lugubrious fancy, who sits down And thumps his breast, as down his aching brows He pours, disconsolate— ashes : let him rise, Extinguish Asia's candle and light man's. With wick, as broad as all humanity. When, t'h' hearts of all men throb, alike, what, then. But, a united world, by mountain chains, Eivers and seas, made nationalities. Yet, not divided ?— Every pillow, man's. If, eider-down, still, false to honest sleep, Let him discard, for sleep-inviting stone. That, true to human nature, shall endure, That, false, whoever saith it, must decline, Adjust the world, to fitness, man's, to-day. And by to-morrow's light, review the work : Whatever, man has done, man may undo. Nothing divine in his performances. Knowledge is doubt, pursued to verity ; Ignora