SONG OF THE UNIVERSAL.

(Commencement Poem, Tuft's College, Mass., June 17, 1874.)
Included in Centennial Songs, 1876.

COME, said the Muse,

I

Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the Universal.

In this broad Earth of ours,

Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,

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,
Successive, absolute fiats issuing.

Yet again, lo! the Soul-above all science;

For it, has History gather'd like a husk around the globe;
For it, the entire star-myriads roll through the sky.

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,
Only the good is universal.

3

Over the mountain growths, disease and sorrow,
An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,
High in the purer, happier air.

From imperfection's murkiest cloud,
Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,
One flash of Heaven's glory.

To fashion's, custom's discord,

To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies,
Soothing each lull, a strain is heard, just heard,
From some far shore, the final chorus sounding.

4

O the blest eyes! the happy hearts!

30

That see-that know the guiding thread so fine,
Along the mighty labyrinth!

40

5

And thou, America!

For the Scheme's culmination-its Thought, and its Reality,
For these, (not for thyself,) Thou hast arrived.

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
In Thy ensemble. Whatever else withheld, withhold not from

us,

Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space;
Health, peace, salvation universal.

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;
And out of these a chant, for the sailors of all nations,
Fitful, like a surge.

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!
Indomitable, untamed as 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!
Flaunt out, visible as ever, the various ship-signals!

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,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,
To glean Eidolons.

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;
Ever the ateliers, the factories divine,

Issuing Eidolons!

Lo! I or you!

Or woman, man, or State, known or unknown,

We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build,
But really build Eidolons.

20

The ostent evanescent;

The substance of an artist's mood, or savan's studies long,
Or warrior's, martyr's, hero's toils,

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,
America's busy, teeming, intricate whirl,

Of aggregate and segregate, for only thence releasing,
To-day's Eidolons.

These, with the past,

Of vanish'd lands-of all the reigns of kings across the sea,
Old conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors' voyages,

Joining Eidolons.

Densities, growth, façades,

Strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees,
Far-born, far-dying, living long, to leave,

Eidolons everlasting.

Exalté, rapt, extatic,

The visible but their womb of birth,

Of orbic tendencies to shape, and shape, and shape,
The mighty Earth-Eidolon.

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!