FullReads

Do you know, I have often had a dream 780
(Work it up in your next month’s article)
Of man’s poor spirit in its progress, still
Losing true life forever and a day
Through ever trying to be and ever being–
In the evolution of successive spheres–
Before its actual sphere and place of life,
Halfway into the next, which having reached,
It shoots with corresponding foolery
Halfway into the next still, on and off!
As when a traveller, bound from North to South, 790
Scouts far in Russia: what’s its use in France?
In France spurns flannel: where’s its need in Spain?
In Spain drops cloth, too cumbrous for Algiers!
Linen goes next, and last the skin itself,
A superfluity at Timbuctoo.
When, through his journey, was the fool at ease?
I’m at ease now, friend; worldly in this world,
I take and like its way of life; I think
My brothers, who administer the means,
Live better for my comfort–that’s good too; 800
And God, if he pronounce upon such life,
Approves my service, which is better still.
If he keep silence–why, for you or me
Or that brute beast pulled-up in to-day’s “Times,”
What odds is ‘t, save to ourselves, what life we lead?

You meet me at this issue: you declare–
All special-pleading done with–truth is truth,
And justifies itself by undreamed ways.
You don’t fear but it’s better, if we doubt,
To say so, act up to our truth perceived 810
However feebly. Do then–act away!
‘T is there I’m on the watch for you. How one acts
Is, both of us agree, our chief concern:
And how you ‘ll act is what I fain would see
If, like the candid person you appear,
You dare to make the most of your life’s scheme
As I of mine, live up to its full law
Since there’s no higher law that counterchecks.
Put natural religion to the test
You’ve just demolished the revealed with–quick, 820
Down to the root of all that checks your will,
All prohibition to lie, kill and thieve,
Or even to be an atheistic priest!
Suppose a pricking to incontinence–
Philosophers deduce you chastity
Or shame, from just the fact that at the first
Whoso embraced a woman in the field,
Threw club down and forewent his brains beside,
So, stood a ready victim in the reach
Of any brother savage, club in hand; 830
Hence saw the use of going out of sight
In wood or cave to prosecute his loves:
I read this in a French book t’ other day.
Does law so analyzed coerce you much?
Oh, men spin clouds of fuzz where matters end,
But you who reach where the first thread begins,
You’ll soon cut that!–which means you can, but won’t,
Through certain instincts, blind, unreasoned-out,
You dare not set aside, you can’t tell why,
But there they are, and so you let them rule. 840
Then, friend, you seem as much a slave as I,
A liar, conscious coward and hypocrite,
Without the good the slave expects to get,
In case he has a master after all!
You own your instincts? why, what else do I,
Who want, am made for, and must have a God
Ere I can be aught, do aught?–no mere name
Want, but the true thing with what proves its truth,
To wit, a relation from that thing to me,
Touching from head to foot–which touch I feel, 850
And with it take the rest, this life of ours!
I live my life here; yours you dare not live,