Yea, that the unction of its praise, in fragrance well deserving, So thy sons may tell their sons, and those may teach their children, And more than these: there is a roll whereon thy name is written; Then, safe within a better home, where time and its titles are not found, OF THINGS. ABSTRACTED from all substance, and flying with the feathered flock of thoughts, The idea of a thing hath the nature of its Soul, a separate seeming essence: Intimately linked to the idea, suggesting many qualities, The name of a thing hath the nature of its Mind, an intellectual re corder: And the matter of a thing, concrete, is a Body to the perfect creature, Nothing canst thou add to them, and nothing take away, for all have these proportions, The thought, the word, the form, combining in the Thing: All separate, yet harmonizing well, and mingled each with other, MEN have talked learnedly of atoms, as if matter could be ever indivisible, They talk, but ill are skilled to teach, and darken truth by fancies: An atom by our grosser sense was never yet conceived, And nothing can be thought so small, as not to be divided: For an atom runneth to infinity, and never shall be caught in space, Things intangible, multiplied by multitudes, never will amass to substance, portions; The sum of indivisibles must needs be indivisible, as adding many nothings, And the building up of atoms into matter is but a silly sophism; Lucretius, and keen Anaximander, and many that have followed in their thoughts, (For error hath a long black shadow, dimming light for ages,) In the foolishness of men without a God fancied to fashion Matter THINGS breed thoughts; therefore at Thebes and Heliopolis, With mythologic shapes adorn their coarse pantheon; Things breed thoughts; therefore the statue and the picture, Relics, rosaries, and miracles in act, quicken the Papist in his worship: Things breed thoughts; therefore the lovers at their parting, Interchanged with tearful smiles the dear reminding tokens; Things breed thoughts; therefore, when the clansman met his foe, The blood-stained claymore in his hand revived the memories of vengeance. THINGS teach with double force; through the animal eye, and through the mind, And the eye catcheth in an instant, what the ear shall not learn within an hour. Thence is the potency of travel, the precious might of its advantages To compensate its dissipative harm, its toil and cost and danger. Ulysses, wandering to many shores, lived in many cities, And thereby learnt the minds of men, and stored his own more richly: Herodotus, the accurate and kindly, spake of that he saw, And reaped his knowledge on the spot, in fertile fields of Egypt: For travel, conversant with Things, bringeth them in contact with the mind; We breathe the wholesome atmosphere about ungarbled truth: Pictures of fact are painted on the eye, to decorate the house of intellect But in things the one is chastened, and the other quickened, to equality : accident, Still shall the thought be vague or false, if none hath seen the Thing; For in Things the property with accident standeth in a mass concrete, These cannot cheat the sense, nor elude the vigilance of spirit. Travel is a ceaseless fount of surface education, But its wisdom will be simply superficial, if thou add not thoughts to things: Yet, aided by the varnish of society, things may serve for thoughts, Though graphic, these left some unsaid, though true, these tended to some error, And the most witless eye that saw, had a juster notion of its object, Things. OF FAITH. CONFIDENCE was bearer of the palm; for it looked like conviction of desert: And where the strong is well assured, the weaker soon allow it. Majesty and beauty are commingled, in moving with immutable decision, For such an one seemeth as superior to the native instability of creatures: That he doeth, he doeth as a god, and men will marvel at his courage. Even in crimes, a partial praise cannot be denied to daring, And many fearless chiefs have won the friendship of a foe. CONFIDENCE is conqueror of men; victorious both over them and in them; The iron will of one stout heart shall make a thousand quail: A feeble dwarf, dauntlessly resolved, will turn the tide of battle, And rally to a nobler strife the giants that had fled : The tenderest child, unconscious of a fear, will shame the man to danger, Courage hath analogy with faith, for it standeth both in animal and moral; |