SONG OF THE UNIVERSAL. (Commencement Poem, Tuft's College, Mass., June 17, 1874.) COME, said the Muse, I Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted, In this broad Earth of ours, Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, Nestles the seed Perfection. By every life a share, or more or less, None born but it is born-conceal'd or unconceal'd, the seed is waiting. 2 Lo! keen-eyed, towering Science ! As from tall peaks the Modern overlooking, Yet again, lo! the Soul-above all science; For it, has History gather'd like a husk around the globe; In spiral roads, by long detours, (As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,) For it, the partial to the permanent flowing, For it, the Real to the Ideal tends. For it, the mystic evolution; Not the right only justified-what we call evil also justified. Forth from their masks, no matter what, ΙΟ 20 From the huge, festering trunk-from craft and guile and tears, Health to emerge, and joy-joy universal. Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow, Out of the bad majority-the varied, countless frauds of men and States, Electric, antiseptic yet-cleaving, suffusing all, 3 Over the mountain growths, disease and sorrow, From imperfection's murkiest cloud, To fashion's, custom's discord, To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies, 4 O the blest eyes! the happy hearts! 30 That see-that know the guiding thread so fine, 40 5 And thou, America! For the Scheme's culmination-its Thought, and its Reality, Thou too surroundest all; Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, Thou too, by pathways broad and new, To the Ideal tendest. The measur'd faiths of other lands-the grandeurs of the past, Are not for Thee—but grandeurs of Thine own; Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all, 50 All eligible to all. All, all for Immortality! Love, like the light, silently wrapping all ! Nature's amelioration blessing all! The blossoms, fruits of ages-orchards divine and certain ; Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual Images ripen ing. 6 Give me, O God, to sing that thought! Give me give him or her I love, this quenchless faith us, Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space; Is it a dream? Nay, but the lack of it the dream, And, failing it, life's lore and wealth a dream, And all the world a dream. 60 Of ships sailing the Seas, each with its special flag or shipsignal; Of unnamed heroes in the ships-Of waves spreading and spreading, far as the eye can reach ; Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing; Of Sea-Captains young or old, and the Mates-and of all intrepid Sailors; Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise, nor death dismay, Pick'd sparingly, without noise, by thee, old Ocean-chosen by thee, ΙΟ Thou Sea, that pickest and cullest the race, in Time, and unitest Nations! Suckled by thee, old husky Nurse-embodying thee! (Ever the heroes, on water or on land, by ones or twos appear ing, Ever the stock preserv'd, and never lost, though rare-enough for seed preserv'd.) 2 Flaunt out O Sea, your separate flags of nations! But do you reserve especially for yourself, and for the soul of man, one flag above all the rest, A spiritual woven Signal, for all nations, emblem of man elate above death, Token of all brave captains, and all intrepid sailors and mates, And all that went down doing their duty; 20 Reminiscent of them-twined from all intrepid captains, young or old; A pennant universal, subtly waving, all time, o'er all brave sailors, All seas, all ships. EIDÓLONS. Published in "Two Rivulets," 1876. I MET a Seer, Passing the hues and objects of the world, Put in thy chants, said he, No more the puzzling hour, nor day-nor segments, parts, put in, Put first before the rest, as light for all, and entrance-song of all, That of Eidolons. Ever the dim beginning; Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle; ΙΟ Ever the summit, and the merge at last, (to surely start again,) Eidolons! Eidolons! Ever the mutable! Ever materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering; Issuing Eidolons! Lo! I or you! Or woman, man, or State, known or unknown, We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build, 20 The ostent evanescent; The substance of an artist's mood, or savan's studies long, To fashion his Eidolon. Of every human life, (The units gather'd, posted-not a thought, emotion, deed, left out ;) The whole, or large or small, summ'd, added up, In its Eidolon. The old, old urge; Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo! newer, higher pinnacles; 30 From Science and the Modern still impell'd, The old, old urge, Eidolons. The present, now and here, Of aggregate and segregate, for only thence releasing, These, with the past, Of vanish'd lands-of all the reigns of kings across the sea, Joining Eidolons. Densities, growth, façades, Strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees, Eidolons everlasting. Exalté, rapt, extatic, The visible but their womb of birth, Of orbic tendencies to shape, and shape, and shape, All space, all time, (The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns, 40 50 Swelling, collapsing, ending-serving their longer, shorter use,) Fill'd with Eidolons only. The noiseless myriads ! The infinite oceans where the rivers empty! |