Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems.
 "Hail to the Unknown, the Higher Being Felt within us!  "Unfeeling As nature, Still shineth the sun Over good and evil; And on the sinner, Smile as on the best, Moon and stars. Fate too, &c.  "There can none but man Perform the Impossible. He understandeth, Chooseth, and judgeth; He can impart to the Moment duration.  "He alone may The good reward, The guilty punish, Mend and deliver; All the wayward, anomalous Bind in the useful.  "And the Immortals, Them we reverence As if they were men, and Did, on a grand scale, What the best man in little Does, or fain would do.  "Let noble man Be helpful and good; Ever creating The Right and the Useful; Type of those loftier Beings of whom the heart whispers." 

"Unfeeling

As nature,

Fate too, &c.

Moment duration.

Bind in the useful.

Does, or fain would do.

Beings of whom the heart whispers."

This standard is high enough. It is what every man should express in action, the poet in music!

And this office of a judge, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and of a sacred oracle, to whom other men may go to ask when they should choose a friend, when face a foe, this great genius does not adequately fulfil. Too often has the priest left the shrine to go and gather simples by the aid of spells whose might no pure power needs. Glimpses are found in his works of the highest spirituality, but it is blue sky seen through chinks in a roof which should never have been builded. He has used life to excess. He is too rich for his nobleness, too judicious for his inspiration, too humanly wise for his divine mission. He might have been a priest; he is only a sage.

An Epicurean sage, say the multitude. This seems to me unjust. He is also called a debauchee. There may be reason for such terms, but it is partial, and received, as they will be, by the unthinking, they are as false as Menzel's abuse, in the impression they convey. Did GÅ“the value the present too 
 Prev. P 13/303 next 
Back Top
Privacy Statement Terms of Service Contact