dim THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES INJURESOUL; Satire for Science, BY A. J. H. D U G A N N E. REASON, throned upon the WORLD'S Mixn, shall be the ' King of Kings and the God of Gods." COL. R. J. INGERSOLL. NEW YORK : AMERICAN BOOK-PRINT COMPANY. 1884. WHAT? WHY? HOW? What NATURE shows: Her facts of Evidence, main, tabling BIBLE TRUTH, Why I print: Because I would affirm the Subsistence of Divine LAWS and FORCE, accountant for all things, Howl deal with INFIDELITY personified by INJURE- SOUL: through worse INFIDELITY personi- fied by BEECH ER, THE AUTHOR. Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1884, by A. J. H.DUGANNE, in the office of the Librarian of Congress. INJURESOUL. FYTTE FIRST. An " AGE of REASON" is ours, ye Schools ! Science for sucklings ! Mind for mules ; Faith for a few old-fashioned folks ! Hell but a humbug ! Heaven, a hoax ! An "Age of Reason" incites my Muse ! An Age to "give the Devil his dues !" And, if all claims for help advanced, By Devil to man, since Nimrod pranced ; All bonds he holds on souls, and shares Of stocks, with human "bulls" and "bears;" All mortgages on minds, and liens On lives, for mortal ways and means, Borrowed "on TIME," through all years past, Foreclosed, shall ' 'sell out" Earth, at last, Certes if Devil survive that day Mankind must look for "Hell to pay !" Good folks, they tell me, harbor doubt Of " roaring lion, going about !" 612814 LIBRARY 4 INJURESOUL. Though still your State Attorney prates Of " malice a Devil instigates !". . . So let it pass, for simile droll, If " Devil" I name, for INJURESOUL ! . . . But yet could Limbo lack one limb O' th' law, when Satan wanted him I'd match this one, for hardest "case," Our side, at least, of " t' other place !'' With latest suit in " Chance-ry" gained- By Beelzebub, in rem, tl retained" I'd match him, with his " pal," TOM PAINE, To stand by sinners, back to Cain ; Iscariot's treachery deny ; Submit for Herod an alibi ; And, if appeals be heard below, Plead for his kindred crank Guiteau ; Madman ! and yet no more insane Than INJURESOUL put brain with brain ; And. as assassin, less his guilt, For blood of one poor man he spilt, Than JUSTICE brands on INJURESOUL ! . . . . For never, on earth since Satan stole O'er Eden's flowers, in serpent guise, To kill sweet PEACE in Paradise Has homicide dealt doom, and dole, Worse than this murderer INJURESOUL ! Whose hates all human hopes would blast ; Whose hopes inhuman hates forecast : INJURE SOUL. Affronting heaven with boast of clod \ Himself his REASON ! and REASON his GOD \\ " An Age of Reason ! " an Age of Thought ! Theses rehearsed and Theories taught ! Free understandings loosening Locke's ! Full-fledged philosophers in frocks 1 And, in each Normal School, per viam, Stars weighed, and planets poised -per diem ! What marvel, then, with aids to sight, Like Liebig's lens and Edison's light " Half-Hours with Science ! " Huxley's bones ! Shelley's "Queen Mab ! " Hugh Miller's " Stones !' What marvel, then, that soul in PAINE Flares out afresh, from atheist brain ; And grins at us from Darwin's goal Tom Paine revived as INJURESOUL ! Insensate sciolist ! whose pert, Poll-parrot prate would heaven subvert, And hell suppress ! what time his dim Dark-lantern lights up brain for him ! This dwarf, who stands on tiptoe, lest High heaven should fail to hear his jest ; And lifts, like Ajax blind, his roar : " Give me but LIGHT I ask no more !" Who jibes at Bible Faith, yet looks For all his stand-points, into books; INJURE SOUL. Blackstone consults, for lawyer's brief, Kepler for astronomic belief, Huygens for light, and Huxley's bones For geologic creed he owns ; This dunce of books ! whose mind, awry, Boggles at sunshine in yon sky ; Blinks at meridian beam, which flows With all sweet sense and soul he knows ; Yet, in his arrogance, presumes That his own soul his sense illumes Or, upon soul and sense combined, Stacks up his BOOKS ! and calls them MIND ! Note him ! . . . his "REASON" as "god and lord !' He "doubts," forsooth MOSAIC word; Doubts everything, he says, but "facts," And sells his doubts, in printed tracts : At Eden's joys and giiefs he jeers ; At Adam's apple astutely sneers ; And "doubts the fact" of apple there ; Or if an apple expelled a "pair ;" But when it comes to pippin's fall, Near good Sir Isaac's garden wall, And good Sir Isaac's brains are spun, For THEORY, linking apple and sun Keplerian stock, to graft his fruit on "No doubt of THAT ! " cries Bob "'Tis NKWTOX INJURESOUL. Bob INJURESOUL ! id esi, TOM PAINE I Names never signify ! Tis Brain ! Tom Paine, in Pharoah's day, as this, At Moses mocked, with serpent hiss : And mocking CHRIST, at later date, Bob was Voltaire, with Fritz the Great ; When Reason and Rhyme, for king and sage, Bandied bad wit, with rival rage ! . . . . Tom talked his REASON at Grecian mob ; PAUL heard him, as we now hear Bob ! All years Dementia plays her pranks All nations chronicle their cranks ; Dull dupes, by many a dolt enticed, Have heard the rogue say "I am CHRIST !' ; What odds, if INJURESOUL cry out "I'm Anti-Christ !" while riff-raff shout ? What odds, if devil, in rage malign, Rush out of madman into swine ; And the unclean possession again Headlong shall cast itself? . . . .What then ? He "DOUBTS !" . . And if he doubts, I say Doubt, as you will ! 'Tis MANHOOD'S way ! And if his doubts his ways incline, Higher or lower than ways of mine, So let him walk ! and if his MIND Flap wings, like bantam fowl inclined, Cock-wise, and crow forth barnyard talk, So let him wave 1 "cock of his walk !" 4 1NJURESOUL. So far, so good ! so far, so ill ! As Bob, by REASON impelled, may WILL ! Though Paine be dust, his LIGHT abides, With MIND, wherever its REASON guides ! At one with books, at one with brain Yea, even at one with priest, in fane Yet, from that FLAME, which MOSES felt, (What space on SINAI'S MOUNT he knelt,) Variant as flares of phosphor fumes, From noon-day's light, which Heaven illumes ! Tom Paine is dead ! His MIND, pervert, Lingers in fire-damp fire in dirt ! Malarious marsh-light's viscid fogs, In stagnant fens, and flaccid bogs ; Or, upon grave-yard turf, at night, Corpse-candle sheen corruption's light ! Fire under falsehood ! golden gleams, Where matter inert with poison teems ! Light such as pools putrescent share Gilding dead-fish with ghastly glare ; Light of worm-eaten woods, where mould Punk-fire accretes, with glister cold ; Yea, the dread FIRE-DAMP miners fly, Or if their hearts inhale it die ! Yet is it LIGHT, no less, for BRAINS While phosphor-fire their pulp retains ; Phosphor of mackerel, carp, or cod ! LIGHT but no love-light, given of GOD ! INJURESOUL. TOM PAINE is dust ! . . . .But cureless pains Return, where cancerous core remains ; As fangs of snake, in reptile head, Retain their roots, though skin be shed ; And the old dust ophidian food Revives again reptilian brood ! Tom Paine is dead ! . . . His days of doubt, Like a " brief candle/' soon snuffed out ; Fading with REASON, in fitful glare, As phosphor flickers, in VAULT-AIR ! Let the play pass 'tis Nature's pun, Grim, like her " sport," when Gallic sun Rose on that wretched birth VOLTAIRE And his MIND made itself "fixed air !" Wherein, and whence, for human hurt, Light was to lurk, like fire in dirt ! Not sweet, electric LIGHT, which flows In ambient airs, with heavenly glows ; But scant, obscure, senescent rays, Reek-fed, from rots, where life decays ; Where life on death-dews feeds, and earth Travails, with seeds for monstrous birth Twin-seeds, empoisoning Nature's womb ; Twin-offspring, cradled in her tomb ; Sweet AIR ! sweet HEAT! for evil amerced, Bob's Light to bear FIRE-DAMP accursed 1 Such Light for INJURESOUL abides, Whose " Reason enthroned " his GOD derides ! ) INJURhSOUL. Such LIGHT perverse, Tom PAINE, poor fool ! Adored as REASON, in Gallic school ! Poor PAINE whose words, in MAN'S defense, With white fire burned for "Common Sense !" Ere his bright brain, from Light divine, Shrivelled, in lees of Gallic wine! Wine such as MIND, in Paris mud, " Drunk as a drab," commixed with blood ; When Robespierrean REASON, enshrined, " Goddess " was hailed of Gallic mind ! Crown'd as she reeled with Phrygian Cap ; Clasping VOLTAIRE, on shameless lap Stark-naked, drawn by drunken mob ! Throned on a cart ! your REASON ! O ! Bob All History notes these BOBS and TOMS, Since dust was dust, in catacombs! 'Twas Tom who sneered, when Satan hissed ; Twas Bob, who smiled, when Judas kissed ; Nor less, like Bob, for Egypt's gods, Egypt's magicians charmed their rods ; To hiss like Bob as snakes empowered ; At Heaven at MOSES till devoured ! . . . . BALAAM was Bob, when jackass bray Told him an angel barred the way! And Balaam's REASON, in '' moral suasion,". Abused his ass for REVELATION ! INJURLSOUL. ii Yea ! in all days, like Balak's priest, Blaspheming Bob bestrides his beast ! And, always baulked, at NATURE'S pass, He coaxes, cuffs, and kicks, his ass : Dumb ass ! by prideful MIND bestrid, And ruled as fitful sense may bid ; Yea, in all days, as MIND cajoles, Their REASON is ridden by INJURESOULS . Till the truth dawns on rider blind His ass, betimes, may teach his MIND! Ah, well for MIND ! if REASON, alert Like Balaam's ass, with Bob in dirt Flung from his selle might cry out now : " What have I done to thee, that thou Hast smitten me thine ass ?".... Alas ! This talking ass ! this atheist ass ! This mongrel ! sired by DIRT, and damm'd By DOUBT ! and ridden, all days, rough-shod, By INJURESOULS against their GOD ! He doubts my FAITH,! O ! mother of mine ! What sweet, old-fashioned Faith was thine 1 When, on our knees, in childish prayer, We voiced it " GOD is EVERYWHERE! " When, in our MINDS, with childish thought, Thy creed was OURS nor else we sought ! Sure of one hope from Calvary given ! Sure of one friend Our FATHER in HEAVEN ! s INJURE SOUL. THY creed, my mother ! all creeds above ! " Love one another ! GOD is LOVE ! " 8 Nought else we sought ! nor ever abjured, For school-taught lore, that LIGHT assured By CHRISTMAS lamps, at EASTER swung, And by those STARS, which DAVID sung. When, in his poem of JOB, he said '' His CANDLE shined upon my head !".... Nought else we learned ! nor ever inclined, With brains or books, to c *make up MIND''; Till, from my mother's grave out-sped, On variant lines our ways were led ; Lights of our ingle-side went out j Faith fled, and REASON arrived with DOUBT ' Book-light was mine, all joys to sum ! Book-light my drink my pabulum ! Nor recked I yet, ere "teens" were reached, What teachers taught or preachers preached ; All worlds for me, when chimney nook Held me enchained, o'er each new book ! New books ! old books ! light care I felt, Though must and mould on leaf I smelt ; Or, if what books I sought gave forth Thy mind, thou "wizard of the North !" Thy mind, Le Sage ! or thine, Froissart ! Cervantes, thine ! or thine, Des Cartes ! INJURE SOUL. 13 But why enumerate books I skimmed, Boy-like, till twilight daylight dimmed ? Full oft, indeed, till morning lights, Book-bound, by fond " Arabian Nights !'' Nor REASON ignored ! In sooth, my mind, Bob-like toward skeptic lore inclined : And, to make up my MIND, from brain, Voltaire I read and eke TOM PAINE ! And, in those days, no sage, no seer No INJURESOUL in MIND was freer ! All sorts of brain pulp mixed with mine ; " Precept on precept line on line ! " No chains of Calvin, nor John Knox, Held mz in thraldom orthodox ! No fierce rebound, from fierce control, Freed me, as MIND freed INJURESOUL ! And yet, wit'i books and brains o'er fraught, Free, as Bob INJURESOUL, for THOUGHT ! Free to eat pulp and ink to drink Scoff at high heaven, like Bob and THINK ! KEPLER my architect of stars Angels dismissed, with antique LARS ; Some little faith left, in some CAUSE, Anterior to KEPLERIAN laws ; But the old FAITH my sisters wist, And the OLD BOOK my mother kissed, " Well ! they were childish dreams,'' I said " Fairy tales !" . . . And I shook my head ! 14 INJURES OUL. BOB knows it all ! His manly goals Were mine ! and mine Bob INJURESOUL'S ! His ploughshare mine, for fallow brain, His out-crop mine, too husk and grain ! . . Bob knows what wide-eyed Reason arraigns ! What low-down knowledge MIND disdains I Lessons for women-folks and fools ! And love-lore, learned at nursery schools ! Bob's noble nature craved, in sooth, PURE LIGHT, as mine did spotless TRUTH ! PURE LIGHT, star gazers find, with looks, Cross-eyed, at heavenly ways, and books ; High truth, some seer of fire-damp gains, From Huxley's bones, and Darwin's brains ! Yea ! in my day with mind matured, From books but with no Faith assured ; Earth bounding me, as shell of snail, I ate, drank, slept, in flexile mail. Life among men I liked nor latched My heart from hearts my liking matched : Nor shut mine eyes, when devious light, This way or that way, wooed my sight ! Accepting life as worm with worm And for all else a pachyderm ! Content, if sins to folly snared, To think that all to heaven were bared ; Quoth I, "By Heaven my lot is cast ! I leave to Heaven my lot, at last !" INJURESOUL. 15 Loose creed ! loose life ! . . . and all my LIGHT Summed, in " Whatever is, is right ! " " Broad Church" was mine ! no pew-door locks Kept me on springs, like "Jack-in-Box ; '' No boys I "chummed'' were ground to lobs, By Presbyterian sire, like Bob's ; Nor by their prayerful mother made Haters of GOD to whom she prayed. And if I smiled when SPURGEON raved, Or MILLER'S " dark day " lightly braved ; If meek-eyed PARKER'S wrath enthused, Or BROWNSON'S pomp of words amused ; If CHANNIXG'S gracious grace enticed, Or CHAPIN'S "fire-escape"' I priced All shrines I sought, but set up none : More apt, from " rapt up " EMERSON, To quote his quibble of tongue or pen " I pass ! re-pass ! and turn again ! " 9 BOB knows it all ! His head he shook, Doubtless, with doubts, of ways he took ; But. with his Reason alert to sway, Fillipped his mother's faith away ; " Whistled adown the wind," her prayer ; And, with his high hat cocked, in air Spurning all " Orthodox " control Quoth he " I'm Bob ! I'm INJURESOUL! " 1 6 INJURESOUL. Childhood no longer lifted hands Full of white shells and silver sands, Wrought into crystal cones and cubes f MANHOOD saw LIGHT through Herschell tubes ; Where Herschell heavenly quarters kept. And their blue floors his sister swept ! I8 High over pebbly pearls and spars, Bob raised his FAITH on rays of stars ; And fixed it (REASON a little "mixed") On SPACE ! where sundry STARS were " fixed ; " Space ! fixed by Laws no Kepler shows ! Space ! fixed forever, in grand repose ! While every other concern, in heaven Peg top, whipped up THROUGH SPACE is driven ! u Not loosely I with light word said '' Rush in, where angels fear to Iread ! " Not mine, at " Reason," in astral light, To dash, like stupid moth at night : My joco-serious line befits, Betimes, as foil to fire-damp wits ; Yet do I flirt no ink to smirch Lustre of Science, or Light of Church ! Flame is my WISDOM ! honey of bee I eat because 'tis good for me ! And if I find it sweetly celled In modern hives, or hives of eld ; Gathered by Greek, by Roman stored ; Where Heathens waste or Christians hoard ; 1NJURESOUL. Or seek it whither, in secret combs, Wax-light or rush-light tricks up tomes ; Though in all murk my mint may shine ; If it be NATURE'S Light, 'tis mine ! Bee-quest is mine for sweets in flowers; Whereso they bloom in beds or bowers ; Whereso they scent surrounding airs ; And, if malarious flows be theirs, Let me one fragrant current find, Void of all virus 'tis my " mind ! " Yea ! though, from reeks of Rabelais, Or rank Petronius one white ray Fitly were won, for worthier use, I'll mix it with my honey-juice ; Then, with my MIND in sweet control WISDOM, as REASON, instructing SOUL Light of my Lord shall softly thrill, And my SOUL say : " THY Will ! my will 1 LIGHT of my LORD ! and is it afar ? For souls to seek in sun or star? LOVE of my LORD ! is it not near, When eyes are wet with Pity 's tear ? When lips are bright, with smile, to win Poor, lonesome souls to human kin ? What is it to me if seers of stars Tell us that Deity swung out Mars ? 1 3 INJURESOUL. And what to me, if worlds ye pile, As a High Church ! and pave each aisle With orbs ! and fling up altar flames, From central suns ! yea, fashion frames Of arch-ways and of architraves ; Cloisters and chancels knobs and naves ? And what, if pompous priest be there ? Yea! priesthoods ! hierarchs at prayer ! While in our grave-yards, here below, Sad MARIES kneel, in 'wildered woe ! Clasping their white, cold hands, this day, O' er tombstone never to roll away ! And all their faith in God estrayed, And all their HOPES of HEAVEN bewrayed ; All human loves, for human mates; All homes beyond these grave-yard gates ; All solacements that here sufficed In a Sealed Tomb . . . with a ' ' DEAD CHRIST !" While Bobs and Toms polemic bridge on RECONCILE SCIENCE with RELIGION ! BOB ! did I say ? with TOM ! as peers ! Bridge piers astride exchanging jeers ? Yea ! priest with priest ! . . . computing " weights And " bulks," of lamps on heavenly gates ! And measuring transit trips of rays, From "lunar" beams, to "solar" blaze ! Nicely exact! that " he who runs May read" their " facts" of stars and suns : INJURE SOUL. 19 Yea, their old " Mother Earth" inspect, And, by her teeth, her age detect ! And if they reach not Darwin's pulp All ante-Darwin " facts " they gulp ; Compactly pressed with stellar pacts , Till "minds" are all made up from " facts!'' While " Desk " with " Pulpit " makes exchange, And " minds advanced " get broader range ! Ranging from BIBLE of Peter and Paul, With "spread" so broad ;t ends in sprawl ! So PAUL as SAUL with Bob behind, Back to Damascus gate goes blind ! And Tom turns up, with cock crow lies) Where Peter, again, his Lord denies ! . . . . Yea ! by each church-flock jumping bars, Light-lured, by " aberrate rays '' of stars 1 Shepherd intent on Darwin's book And Bob behind with shepherd's crook! Yea ! by each priest forsworn, who spouts " Fire-damp " on tongue which "Moses " doubts ! Proffering poor SOULS his SOLE reliance : "RELIGION ! " " RECONCILED" to "SCIENCE 1 " '* INJURE SOUL. FYTTE SECOND. I grant you, KEPLER lifted scan From knees of prayer, as Christian man ! NEWTON, no less, in star and sod, Confessed their MAKER as his GOD ! Each sought, on brain and books, to print " God's word," through life's long septuagint : And yet when heaven and earth they trace Mindless of GOD, they call it SPACE ! SPACE ... as if MOSES seer of GOD Knew not, when Sinai's Mount he trod, What " DEEP " by flaming heats was rent, Ere GOD ordained yon " firmament ! '' Yea ! ere HE bade His LIGHT'S advance All moistures melt for Light's expanse ! Yea ! when His WILL decreed His PLAN By LAWS which Heaven and Earth fore-ran ! LAWS like HIMSELF of DUAL existence By which through which dwells ALL SUBSISTENCE I blame not Bob ! . . . With REASON'S ken, I scan the ways of women and men Ways of our days, when churches sit, With shaking sides, at pulpit wit ; ".Star" preachers, "drawing a house," like players, And a clown's jokes enlivening prayers ; INJURE SOUL. When the same crowds, of age and youth, Beechers and Bobs beset for "truth ;" Critics of "truth" from tongue or book And their criterion "Black Crook ! " GOD! who art GOD ! though impious creed, Or impious doubt, our souls mislead ; GOD ! who art GOD ! though impious hands At martyr's breast pile up their brands : What word of thine, by WISDOM weighed, What laws of thine, by souls obeyed, What church of thine, by NATURE built, Shall pretext make, for human guilt, In aught that heaven or earth contains, Save in this REASON of human brains ? Save in this MIND, bestirred for WILL CAUSE of all crimes their MOTOR still ? I3 Anon ! . . . not yet . . . but farther on, My Reason her word shall speak ! . . . ANON And, in my ways of REASON, inquire, What "candle shined," for David's lyre ; What LIGHTED SPACE, ere earth was made ; Or ever in heaven a star displayed ! And, in my light of stars uplift, Where heavenly airs diurnal drift Ask of our star-seers, whence and when, Planets were rolled toward earthly ken ? INJURE SOUL. Why, as they tell us, in air afar, Systems stretch, endless star on star ? Why such unnumbered worlds in SPACE ? Yet but one earth ! one dying race ! One Adam, in grief o'er woeful loss ! One Moses !...and one Calvary cross? All worlds ignored for EARTH ! all orbs Godless while EARTH their GOD absorbs ? Yea, on this EARTH for MAN, ill-willed God born ! God suffering ! and God killed I And, in his stead o'er dust and dole FIRE-DAMP Arisen ! with INJURESOUL ! Far is my Reason, as ways may wend, From ways which down to Darkness trend ; But more remote from ways I tread, Is man or woman, who shares my bread Yea ! shares my shew-bread and my wine But slurs their Substance Love DIVINE ! Christians or Jews my soul deplores, BIGOTS ! who shut SALVATION'S doors ; And, on each Difference and each DOUBT, Fling fire-damps of DAMNATION out ! Nor zeal, nor faith, nor truth atones For creed which cruelty condones ! Whoso shall tell me, prayers uprise From blood-stained hierarch he lies ! Whoso affirms, JEHOVAH'S WORD Toward acts of rapine Joshua stirred INJURE SOUL. 23 Or ever in witness Moses bore Enjoined or authorized LUST or WAR ! Or, for Judea, was different word, Than JESUS gave " Put up thy sword ! " Or ever a curse pronounced on soil Or ever a license spake, for spoil Whoso at CHRISTIAN shrine shall bend, Nor feel that God is " Father " and " Friend "- Nor feel, as voice of brooding dove, That gospel JOHN said "GoD is LOVE !" I count such Christians far from LIGHT, As Bobs and Toms, in atheist night ; I count their prayers as wasted breath I count their lives as " life in death ! " Yea ! as JEHOVAH lives, I swear Creeds are but coins, and impress bear ; Impress of "reasoning minds, " which stamp, On Christian church or Moslem camp, On council, conclave, synod, sect, Whatso " superior minds " direct ! . . . And in an Age not yet, but still Not so far distant MIND, as WILL, Guided by Church, may conclave call ; Churches to bind and councils thrall Canons, and creeds, and " minds, " to change Till " Minds Advanced " have broadest range ; And a " Last Christian Church/' at odds, Bow down to REASON as "god of gods ! " u tl INJURESOUL. " Doubt ! and you die ! " So Greeks ordained, And Socrates his death cup drained ! " Die, doubter !" Saul of Tarsus saith, O'er righteous Stephen, stoned to death ; " He doubts our gods !" the Roman cries ; And Paul must bleed and Peter dies ! Jews doubt MESSIAH, and straitly burn ; And MOSLEMS, doubtful, roast, in turn ; Yea, for his "doubt," your Christian drops At Smithfield "stakes," or Tyburn "chops I" Priest ! Presbyter ! yea, Puritan ! Kills, for his " doubts," some fellow-man ! And still base BIGOTRY'S red wraith Rises, with " We defend our FAITH !" So, in OUR years, might fagots blaze, Could "Age of Reason" its altars raise ! For in this day, mine ears have heard BIGOTS, as quick with atheist word BIGOTS, as furious for " Free Thought," As ever a monk, with " faith " o'er-fraught, In Torquemada's days, was quick, With "racks" and " screws" for "heretic !" And if an "Age of Reason" anon (Bos INJURESOUL still "marching on") Shall witness " TOM" and " BOB" enshrined, With " REASON enthroned on the world's Mind INJURESOUL. What think you ? Will no Fire-damp flare, For REASON and MIND, in blood-red air ? GOD pity EARTH ! if ever its clods, Be ruled by REASON, as "god of gods !" FREE THOUGHT ! O ! hark ! how Bob exhorts ! " Minds" he would manumit from torts ! Chains he would break, from human souls ! And souls uplift, toward MANHOOD'S goals ! All gods, all altars present and past Bob geeks at ! Grand Iconoclast ! No bolts, no bars, his course control ! No bobstays for BOB INJURESOUL ! He turns to MIND alone for rules ; And finds his ruling MIND in " schools !" Carps at convictions FAITH conceives Tears up an "Old Book " SHE believes ! While, from his own "old books," he draws FAITH, for his REASON, in Newton's laws ! And struts, with high-head bearing weights, (One stone to each square inch ! he states !) " 43 And that stiff neck of his, ox-yoked, Goose-yoked as if by pillory choked ! Eyes cocked, on high, in stellar stocks Back braced, by ' ' eocine age " of rocks ! Silurian swamps around his legs ! Strata ! to hatch forth Darwin's eggs ! 26 IXJURESOUL. With "miocene" trails, and "pliocene"' tracts, To seat Bob, solid, on " bottom facts ! " And as he cocks his eye up, sunward, "I'm in the stocks ! '" he cries . . . ' Let's onward So, Bobs and Toms on hobbies climb, To map off worlds, and count off Time ! . . . So, tons of wasted brains, all years, And wasted books, on whirling spheres, Reeled off, like sewing-silk, on spools, Thread swaddling-clothes for pygmy schools : Pygmy, because these MI.VDS of men (Dwarfs, in their highest quest or ken.) Cut loose from NATURE'S " leading strings, " And each on favorite hobby springs ! So, Science mounts, for see-saw course, Booted and spurred on rocking-horse ! Firm in her saddle she lifts her war-word ; ' ' Follow me, friends ! she says ..." Let's forward White Light of WISDOM ! bathing brains, As birds are bathed in aerial bains ! Bithed, and upborne, while wing obeys Impulse of mind, in NATURE'S ways ! How had thy FLAME'S omnific force Led mankind, on material course ; INJURE SOUL. 27 Led arts, led hearts, led lives, led lands, If minds of schools, from swaddling bands, Had risen, on earth, as minds of MEN, Banded to gain MAN'S rights again ! Leaving yon heaven its heavenly host ; Seeking, by nights, no aerial ghost ; But broadening Reason, and widening Mind Helps for all human hurts to find ! Alack ! for Reason ! All airs it scans, And stars it counts, and space it spans ; And sorts all airs for gaseous kinds, And, in all air-flow, substance finds : Nor yet one FACT of Science shows Where, whence, or why, MALARIA flows ! Ah ! if 'twere only BOB, whose breath Benumbs poor souls with chills of death ; Ices worn hearts with callous crust, And tramples hopes of hearts to dust ! If the old chancery suit, he jobs, No pleas could count, for fees, but Bob's ! > Bob, in my tracks, might air his stings, And gold-dust lap, to gild his " rings ; " I'd simply say, or shrewdly think Tis the Old Snake back, link on link ! Tis Bob who talks ! 'tis INJURESOUL ! He tells his tale, and takes his toll ! 28 INJURES OUL. And if mistakes in talk he makes, He makes no miss in tolls he takes ! Retailing tales, where'er he goes, His Bob-tales every skeptic knows ! Shelley's wild wickedness, "Queen Mab," Good minds would blot, but bad ones blab ; Bayle's balderdash, and vampyre Hobbes, Blood-bloated by all buried Bobs ! . . . Still croak your crows, when rook exhorts : And when Bob sneezes, skeptic snorts ; Even as some churches, souls to win, Sing pray and then "the laugh comes in!" When jocose pastor's quips amuse, And puerile puns appreciate pews ; With digs at "dogmas, "clips at " isms," He stops all schisms, by witticisms ! Like base-ball sport, his play of wits, His "innings'' helped by timely "hits;" Till, some dark day, beset by doublings, Church splits .... and " innings " end in " outings. Hear, now, O ! Reason ! and hear, O ! Mind ! Frays are for me, where foes I find ! Bold INJURESOUL his brows may ruck, And, in his wild ways, " run amuck !'' Whereat my " mind made up " for fight- Bob, in his loose career, I smite ! . . . INJURE SOUL. 29 But, as I've said and still repeat At Christian church-doors foes I meet ; At Christian shrine, on bending knees, GREATHEART, this day, my sad soul sees : In his " whole armor of Faith " arrayed ; With shield of truth and gospel blade God's Word his castle-wall ! . . . . and yet, When prideful foes their battle set, He whimpers, at each fresh defiance, " We '11 reconcile GOD'S WORD with SCIENCE ! " ls Skeptics ! we know them ! . . . Toms and Bobs May hiss hot hates, like scoriae scobs ! Satan may stand, as erst he stood, And yell forth : " EVIL ! be thou my GOOD ! " Who recks, if well-known snake shall hiss ? Or, if an unmasked Judas kiss? Judas ! go hang ! . . . 'Tis PAUL I dread, And PETER, in ways of MIND mis-led ! . . . * Bold Simon Peter ! alert with blade ! And yet by rabble of louts dismayed ; Skulking from Christ, with craven lies . . . Till, at one look from those sweet eyes, Touched to his heart again, he creeps Toward shadows of the night and weeps ! Meantime, by whip's and thorn's appliance, Jews reconcile GOD'S WORD with SCIENCE ! 30 INJURE SOUL. Mischievous Bob is ! . . . That I grant ! Mischief's his trade-mark ! . . . Eyes aslant, Like a lewd wench, at watch with lure, And quick with looks, where looks assure ; So saunters REASON, on mischief bent ; For ruin of mind with mind's consent ! . . . Small harm for sense such harlot stirs, Till a lewd heart shall follow hers ! Unchanging laws, with Nature knit, Fitness decree, where fittings fit ; Bell-wether leads, where sheep will go And where they MIGHT go whether or no ! Bright Bob ! ... he girds at Scripture faith ; Yet Scripture tales he makes his staith ; "Your Bjble books are frauds ! " he jibes " Fables and fancies writ by scribes ! " And yet these books, by mortals writ ; Oft-times " revised," by mortal wit ; Oft in dispute, by Christian "mind" These " tales " which sundry " canons" bind, Yet bind no Christian's heart nor Jew's This to accept, or that refuse ; BOB gulps them all ! from Jonah's whale, To Tamar's tricks, and Tobit's tale : All Scripture words, all Scripture acts, Our skeptic lawyer notes as " facts " INJURE SOUL. 31 And thus to show his legal fitness He credits an " opposing witness ! " Down with your BIBLE ! . . . Wait, Bob ! wait ! What PROOFS are yours, of things you state ? Ogling the sun, you shout, " Absurd ! To think it stopped at Joshua's word ! " Scanning the shade Isaiah saw, On dial reversed, you cry out, " pshaw ! " So, then, your book-made learning pins YOUR faith to Kepler's word, and spins Your suns and stars by Newton's chart : But, when MY faith, from Christian heart, Sees heaven, beyond yon starry dome Sure, as my soul's eternal home YOUR CREED you claim ! you back YOUR hobby ! But won't let me ride mine ! . . . Eh, Bobby ? Scripture you quote ! your strident breath Jeers, when you quote those words : " GOD saith ! " Just are your jeers ! and tears were meet Blotting those words from Scripture sheet ! For ne'er was atheist utterance made, Nor ever a falsehood souls bewrayed, More dark, more dire, with damps of death, Than those two lying words "Goo saith ! " When, as their context, words we read, Charging on GOD some rueful deed ! 32 INJURE SOUL. Or, as dim lights of earthly mind Toward wrongs, or hates, or hurts, inclined, Daring, with mind's presumptuous reach, EVIL, in the name of good, to teach ! " God never spake, for human creeds, One word which human soul misleads ! God never voiced, by priest or seer, One word, which souls might doubt, Or fear ! False are all creeds, however based, Where aims and ends of MEN are traced ; Inhuman ends self-seeking aims Set forth, as heaven's exalted claims ! No ! Thou ETERNAL ONE ! whose WORD Made all things by Thy ONE LIFE stirred Made all things by Thy OXE LIGHT known ! Ne'er didst Thou abdicate Thy Throne ! Sunk were my reason, in errors worse Than dupes of Modern Mind rehearse, Could soul of mine accept conceits Which SCIENCE oft by rote repeats, And preachers prop, for pulpit prinking, And your pert polemist calls THINKING ! THINK ! what is Bob's brain, that he THINKS More than a mule's brain or a mink's? 1XJURESOUL. 33 If it be only dust enwrought, For a man's brain to yield his thought? If, on each brain of dust reflect, " Will-power " ALONE, makes ''INTELLECT" What is Bob's brain, which mink or mule May not co-mate, with Reason at School ? But the man knows what no man doubts " Mind " is but "Sense " for lords or louts ! While flesh may feel one thrill of pain, MIND is that thrill made known to brain : Bob lives ! five senses owns ! or ONE sense I Bob dies ! and all his MIND is ... nonsense ! Yea ! the man knows ! And, if he rail, Let him make haste toward " Bloomingdale ! " Where " lights put out'' are flaring still, \Vith wildered force of madman's WILL ! Yea ! let those " dead-lights' " Reason advise, How minds of mankind " think out" LIES ! Let maniacs there, with king-like strut Lears in their rags make Bob their butt 1 Insane philosophers their " facts " Cram, for his use, in " free thought " tracts ! Crazy inventors Bob's own kind Ready to match him "mind " for " mind " And, for this earth, so " botched," when made, "Think out" a new one with BOB'S aid ! 34 1NJURESOUL. FYTTE THIRD. " PRIESTHOOD ! '' this priest of Baal exhorts "Hirelings ! each blind-fold church supports ! PAID for their preachings all and each !".... Well, Bob ! who paysj'ow, when you preach ? When your " new church " hangs out its lights, And a full house your Reason invites ? When, like those " walking gents" your peers- Lusty of legs, for dusty cheers, You tramp your saw-dust ways, for fees ; And with their word "go as you please ! '' Your lungs distend your lips orate 'And your " gate-money " shows your gait ! 18 I lift no word for recreant priest, Whose bulk, like Bob's, by flesh increased, " Lards the lean earth," what hours he sweats His " holy oil, " for gold he gets ; Gets, for no gospel preached of yore When BOANERGES gospel bore ; But for some sops-in-wine, from pyx, " Doctored," with secret sins to mix ; Sweet-bread simonious, crumb by crumb, And "Dead Sea grapes," his wine to stum ! .. . INJURESOUL. 35 Nor for that priest, whose gilded brass, Amalgam base, for gold may pass : Pretentious priest ! by " reasoning " known, Whose crimes his " reasoning" friends condone ; Meshing their souls in "yams " he spins, Of " heavenly grace " for fleshly sins ; His GOD so good, so pure, so fond All souls invoicing " spirits in bond " " Duties " paid on them all " church dues ! }> Charges defrayed by " auction'd " pews ! Soft seats, for earth and heaven secured ! " Free grace !" . . . " life-policies" assured ! . . . " Paul plants !" Saint Peter flings his nets, World-wide no odds, what " haul " he gets : Shark, shad, or shrimp or octopod All to be cured preserved for GOD ! . . . So sounds that " sounding brass !" so rolls That sounding voice confounding souls ! That bulk of Mind ! . . . affronting CHRIST ! With Calvary's blood, for all shops priced And, for all rogues, REDEMPTION wide . . . Cheap ... as hot cross-buns . . . Eastertide ! Whilome, when classic Clement donn'd His bishop's crown, for popes beyond, Men worshipped GNOSIS, and enshrined KNOWLEDGE as god-head " throned on mind ! " . . . 36 IXJL'RESOL-L. "Searching/' to " find out GOD," theyguess'd A HEAVEX, in space, by MIND possessed- - Girt with "emissive light," and girt, Likewise, outside of Light, with dirt ! Dirt, breeding demi-gods ! who form'd Earth, and yon skies, from dirt light-warm'd ; Made mankind, bifold light plus clod- Each, as his light lured, fiend or god ! . . If he liked light best, light was his- Or dirt ... or both . . . might share his kiss ! . . . So dwells this " Plymouth pulpit ' sage " GNOSTIC " of our "Agnostic " age Whose prideful light wooes LOVE DIVINE, Mormon-like, for his concubine ! Sleep, LYMAN BEECHER ! Erst was heard, O'er Shawmut's tri-mount spires, your word : When "Park street church," by FAITH upreared, Fools, as your " Brimstone Corner," jeered ! Fools helping rogues their ways to win ; Rogues helping fools on ways of sin ; Till in yon halls of HARVARD helped "GNOsis" and "Nous " Agnostics whelped ; And, from Socinian lair, leaped out, Wehr-wolves of Darwinism and Doubt ! . . . Wherefore, these days, with bale for men, Beechers and Bobs "give mouth " again ; IXJURESOUL. 37 And Beecher's mouth, by Bob is kiss'd As " CHRISTIAN EVOLUTIONIST ! " . . . Fit finis to finesse ! m eet end For priest foresworn and faithless friend ! End of his MIND ! . . . . with caudle-cup, Still, in old age. for " sweets " held up ! Held for some drops this world may squeeze, And fancying life's red wine, in lees ; God pity him ! this dying preacher ! Dying unshriven ! Sleep ! Lyman Beechei ! 19 Enough ! let priest be judged as priest ! Bread may be soured by acrid yeast ! And church, by priest ungodly fed, May, haply, share but bitter bread ! Whereat your Bobs and Toms condemn Trunk, roots, and boughs, for blighted stem ! But dumb is INJURESOUL, when tongue Inquires why Sabbath bells have rung, All Christian years ? why Moslems, yet, Kneel, under voice from minaret ? Why Greeks and Romans, in their days, Bowed, as they witnessed priestly ways ? Mute are your Bobs and Toms, on cause For " mind enthralled" by priestly laws ! No hints they give, of church-light old, Warming poor souls, in slaveries cold ; 3 8 IXJIRESOUL. Of priestly precepts lifting hearts, O'er toilsome fields, o'er greedful marts ! Of chorals voiced, and incense burned, What hours, full oft, toward temple turned, Child walked with sire, in pious ways, Even in those old-world heathen days ; When all sweet virtues beamed in stars, And hearth-fire light illumed its lars ; And even a foe such light might share Protected by PENATES there ! . . - 20 No ! INJUSESOUL ! . . . not hierarch First fettered MINDS in thraldom dark ; But Bobs and Toms, with swords in hands, Bound manly limbs in servile bands ! When CADMOS rose, and snake-teeth sowed, And gift of BOOKS on men bestowed ; And MIND, as REASON, in lawyer brains, Made title-deeds for slaves in chains ; Made bills of sales for stolen soil, And kingly claims to fruits of toil ; And lordly rights o'er rights of men ; Till hearts were pierced by sword and pen ! Lawyers made laws, by bullies backed ; And " thinkers " thought, while heroes hacked, Till all your " Schools" from Stoas to Sorbonnes Left " minds " and " bodies " bowed by BOURBONS ! INJURE SOUL. 39 Build me up MANHOOD'S CHURCH my way ! Build me up " Church and State," this day ! Merchants and marts, with shops and farms, And MINDS made, for all ARTS save ARMS ! And, in God's Name ! this Church of Man Sharing His earth ; on NATURE'S plan With children's hymns, and woman's prayers Chasing MALARIA from all airs ! One LAW all Governments above " Love one another. . . God is Love !". . This Church shall stand as Man's reliance ! Smiling at INJURESOUL and Science ! Would INJURESOUL such church commend ? MANHOOD its AIM and HEAVEN its END ! . Would Bob confess this Church sufficed ? . . . . Then must his REASON accept his CHRIST ! For, if I read my BIBLE aright, Its end, its Aim through heavenly LIGHT One plan interprets Nature's Plan ! CHRIST, as His CHURCH ! this "Church of Man !" CHRIST, as His WORD all Creeds above " Love one another !. . . .Goo is LOVE ! " Greek bards, of SATURN'S "Golden Age" Left their "ideas, " on classic page : Of sinless maids, and simple swains, So quick with hearts, and slow with brains ; 40 IXJURESOUL. Love-books they share, with lambs and kids, Sweet eyes they read, with kiss on lids ; When Strephon sighs, in Chloe's ears, Soft syllables she faintly hears Conning her " books," what hours she spies Their lights in Strephon's loving eyes ! Tiieir married lips, preluding priest, Make virgin vows for marriage feast : Nor courtships close with nuptial rite From years to years their vows they plight : Undreamed that day, by swain or maid, Of Bob's or Tom's post-nuptial aid Aid such as, now-a-days, makes love's course " Run smooth " toward lawyers. . .and "Divorce With heart-strings twined each tender troth, Love, in each heart, made LIFE for both ; One hope, one faith, their fond decision Love-lives to live in "Fields Elysian ! " Well ! was it nonsense ?. . . moonshine mist ? ENDYMION dreams, by DIAN kiss'd ? Let censors carp ! ... My Reason assents ! Where FAITH confirms what LOVE contents, Still, in this world, and world beyond, Fond hopes shall reach Fruition fond ! Nor gospel books in vain I search For Saturn's Age, in Christian Church ! INJURE SOUL. 41 Love-life on earth, for mortals best, In heaven shall make immortals blest ! Old Heathen hope. . . old Christian trust ! If it were banished ! . . . welcome dust ! Greek gods were thoughts ! . . . . Some human thought, By bard express'd, by sculptor wrought, Gleamed, as a marble shape, from gates Of Athens, down to Sunium Straits : Virtues, as gods, to goodness wooed ; And sculptured vices vice subdued Impulses, passions, faults, and fears, Desires, contritions, prayers, and tears, Joys, griefs, and graces all wrought out, For eyes to gaze at all save DOUBT ! Tom jeered, and Bob ('tis likely,) scoff'd, With cynic hard, or Sybarite soft ; But the "plain people" bowed their hearts, In fields, in shops, in ships, in marts ! Minds led by Reason, on by-ways plodded HEARTS, in yon broad blue Heaven, saw GODHEAD 1 ''Humbug !" says Bob . . . But kneeling Greeks Are awed, while Voice at Delphos speaks. ''That oracle was false !" cries Bob ; " And the whole ' racket ' a ' put-up job ' ! " 42 INJURE SOUL. But if those ancient Greeks were stirred By Delphic Voice, as Deity's word ; And by their Greek religion moved, Repentant, when that Voice reproved ; What, then, if Greek religion, given By Cecrops, hailed from hell or heaven ? Let it be judged by things it taught Whatso on human lives it wrought ! Tell us what prayers at shrine were prayed, For earthly peace for heavenly aid ; For all good things which Right may share Yea, and for patience, Wrong to bear ! Tell us what precepts priesthood gave ; What helps for poor what hopes for slave ! Tell us what Truth, from Orphic lyre, Rained upon souls, as heavenly fire ; Truth, with its deep, mysterious pith Concealed in geode of rugged myth : Tell us as light from IRIS tells How fires are stirred where moisture swells ; What "facts of science," in Labor's murk, Shine out of VULCAN'S wondrous work ; When with his Force, all things to tame, He halts like human laborers lame ! False was that old Greek polytheism ! . . . Yea, Bob ! . . . but never AGNOSTICISM ! INJURE SOUL. 43 ' ' Agnosticism ! " No verbal coin Nonsense to sense did e'er conjoin, Like this new word, which lures, to-day, Souls from all shrines of Faith to stray ! . . . " ATHEIST " at least, to corpse-like wit, (Like Hamlet's graved igger's, ) might fit; And a poor dolt, who bears the name, May "reason " allege, to found his claim ! But, for these " Know-nought " prigs, whose prates Patter like pence on pewter plates (When to church-air their sound laments, That sound can add no worth to cents !) Agnostics ! . . . wherefore dwell such dudes ? Skin-less, like eels, which knife denudes ! Squirming all slime-ways lamprey squirms, Yet still denying their epiderms ! Human conundrums, Bob ! past doubt "No fellow, weally, can find out ! " . . . Glass-eyed, doll-faced, in wax designed- Stiff at their loins, but caoutchouc-spined ! Their " mind's eyes " blind, with amaurosis, And each snub nose turned up at GNOSIS ! Agnosticism ! as if man's wits, Wind-blown, could bridled be, with bits ! When WILL itself on SENSE awaits ; Sense, entered through ten thousand gates ! 44 INJURE SOUL. " AGNOSTIC !" yea with sense subjunct, Nerves atrophied, desires defunct ! But not while life shall light retain, Imprint on " volume of my brain !" LIGHT, by an idiot not less wist ! Wind-woven light, by senses kiss'd ; Fire-illumed air-flows, unconfined, Yielding all sentient things their mind ! Mind, for yon troutling, lured to fate Mind, for that writhing worm, its bait ; Mind, for this protozoan alert, With cilia yea, this lymph inert, Which stirs beneath my searching sight, Sentient, in microscopic light ! . . . . "Pah ! 'tis unconscious life which stirs !" Quickly your quibble of books avers ! What shall rejoinder be ? not caustic ! Well, then ! let's call our worm " AGNOSTIC ! " 21 Greece had no glass eyes ! Grecian sage Saw stars, as Grecian babe, that age ; When seers, with Nature's mind like Job's Pleiades named, nor dreamed of "globes ; " No glass retort's malarious lees Showed " gas " for Anaximines ! No " eye-piece" posed, in " object glass," " Atoms " for Anaxagoras ! . . . " IXJURESOUL. 45 Yet, in good sooth, our modern lore By many a Greek was pondered o'er ; By many a Roman was dismiss'd, As ' ' cranky " . . . . with good reason, I wist ! Greek brains or Saxon brains what odds ? MIND makes your cultus makes its gods ! Show me those ancient Greeks, agreed, In their own Greek way, on ONE Creed ! In their Greek way, on one Idea That Jupiter was born of Rhea, And Jupiter was GOD ! . . . . who cares If Bob his doubts of " godhead " airs ? Who recks, if Jove and Rhea be myth Less proved than Smithson born of Smith ? Still, o'er Olympian hills, and higher Than sun and stars, shall Greeks aspire Their ZEUS to claim, and name, and frame ; With all "god-attributes" the same ! And tribes of Greeks shall offerings bring ; And tribes of Greeks shall poeans sing : And the ALL-FATHER, o'er each shrine, Shall answer FAITH with LIGHT DIVINE ; Shall answer HOPE, with REST above ; Shall answer CHARITY with LOVE ! Yea ! I believe ! . . . And "Golden Age " No seer has limned, on brightest page, 46 INJURESOUL. No bard has sung, in sweetest lays, Might come, for these, our modern days, Could Christian souls, all creeds above, Break bread together, in Christian love ! If souls as souls, and hearts as hearts, In homes, in streets, in fields, in marts ; Minds in each other's eyes to read Hearts by each other's lips to lead Might live that loving life which waits, For a few weeks, on married mates ; Till the poor souls, from mutual- thrills, Turn to " make up their minds !" as WILLS ! Wills making ways, till heart from heart As REASON allures it walks apart : With WILLS of women, and WILLS of men ! So the world wags its ways again ! . . . Love-lights lit up, for transient glints, Quick-won, quick-gone, as sparks on flints ! ' ' Ashes of roses ! . . . " ash-fire " tame ! . . . Sad sequels left, of sacred flame ! Wherefore poor Hymen croons his dole, For altars reft of burning coal ; And his pure torch-light soon expires ! Wherefore we lose rare opal-fires, Sweet human souls might shed through MIND If lives were lived, as LOVE designed ! Bob says his " REASON enthroned " aspires To make such lives, and light such fires ! 1XJURESOUL. 47 Give him carte blanche, he'll soon control " Free Minds " to THINK like INJURESOUL ! He'll kill all creeds, and shame all shams ; Sweet-hearted wolves shall wet-nurse lambs ; Lawyers file pleas in courts of Love ; Pot-politicians brood like dove ! . . . BOB says he'll do it ! by CHANCE or Mis-chance ! . Bravo ! Bob ! ... Do it ! ... We'll all be CHRISTIANS ! Oh ! man of REASON ! His hand on heart, And his tongue tuned to sophist art ! He talks of home-love ! wife love ! joys ! Felt by fond sire of girls and boys : He vaunts yea, in his atheist haunts Of his own skeptic children, vaunts ! . . . Brags of his boys, by Reason illumed ; And of his girls, as flowers, perfumed, With all sweet scents, which Bob's parterre, Under Bob's light, may yield for air ! Kissing his rose-bud babes, who sip Fond love, from skeptic mother's lip ; Love, such as lips of woman impart, With never a prayer to stir her heart ! With never a whispered hope, to say : " Please God ! we'll kiss in Heaven some day ! '. . . All the old gods have gone ! . . . Men made Greek gods like Greeks ! . . . God-making trade 4 INJURE SOUL. Is aptly learned, where forgers lurk, By fire-damp forge, with REASON at work ! Four thousand years ago, Joe Smith Had thought out gods from Mormon stith ; Five thousand years ago, when Bob In Yemen dwelt, he thought out OB ! And, at posterior periods, Made Syrian, Grecian, Roman, gods ! All wrought by " THINKERS !" Bobs about Scheming with Toms ! to stir up DOUBT I Doubt of their father's patriarch claim, On household shrine to kindle Flame ! Doubt of their mother's trust, untaught ! Beyond her husband's prayerful thought ! Doubt of their sister's faith that FIRE Made all pure things toward Heaven aspire ! Her silver lily lamps lit up ; Poured red light in her rose's cup ; Her jasmine cressets nightly filled. With fragrant shine, by stars distilled ; And, with all hues of sunset tinge, Tinted her tulip's turban fringe ; And, with all glows of morn-light, kiss'd Her violet's lips of amethyst ; And all bright stars of azure skies Reflected in her daisy's eyes ! . . . " Child-fancies !" INJURESOUL may say ; And why should Reason her reign delay ? INJURESOUL. 49 When Bob was there and Tom ! wise louts ! Flirting at FLAME their fire-damp doubts ! Tom says to Bob ; "I THINK I'll drop Connection with the old man's shop ! See the old fool, Bob ! on his knees ! Not any prayer for me, Bob ! please ! . . . I'm a FREE THINKER !" Soh ! ' twas hatched ! EGG, out of Reason and Mind co- matched ! Bob's crude conceit from Tom's " idea !" Egg of an " Isis," " Nox," or " Rhea !" And Rhea plus Saturn ! Mother and Sire ! And then why, then .... to HELL with FIRE ! To HEAVEN Apollo ! Juno ! Zeus ! Pluto below (to " play the Deuce ! ") Bacchus for Tom ! Venus for Bob ! Hesiod historian of their job ! . . . . A New Religion based on DOUBT ! . . . And the old FIRE-GOD " down and out ! " . . . Yea ! Bobs and Toms ! with " minds advanced ! " Played the old god-game, as they "chanced ! " PRIEST never cast off coals from shrine Priest never quenched his Flame Divine : BOB made those gods of sticks and stones, His work " played out" he now disowns ! But, when he " thought out" marble and wood, That old FIRE FAITH was ne'er subdued ! 50 INJURESOUL. Priesthoods he named, and shrines he built, Ox-blood and sheep-blood widely spilt ; But the OLD FAITH in FLAME survived ; Where nomads roved, or nations hived ; Bob's " mind " for each new god found name But on each shrine dwell SACRED FLAME ! And ever, as men their gods adored, With flames upsoaring, souls upsoared ! And wheresoever dwelt worshipper, FIRE, and its emblems, worshipped were ! 23 INJURE SOUL. 51 FYTTE FOURTH. How grandly low I how broadly bright, This arch-way, under walls of Night, Whereunto bows fond mother's heart, When cradle's lace her lips dispart, And on her sleeping babe's repose, Her prayerful breath like fragrance flows ! Gateway of faith ! this cradle's arch, Where infant thoughts begin their march 1 Well were it willed by manly men, If childly minds were theirs again ! Well, if our lofty LIGHT might know LOVE like a mother's ! grandly low ! FIRE FAITH of old ! . . . How simply taught PRAYER in ascendant FLAME its thought ! That FLAME which erst Pythagoras felt, When with Egyptian sage he knelt, And in Crotonian shades concealed, His " Central Flame 7> by Heaven revealed ! Oh ! not for nought, from age to age, From clime to clime, from sage to sage, From cult to cult, from pen to pen, Descends and dwells this LIGHT with men ! Oh ! not for nought, o'er earliest shrine, Spirals upllamed, as tongues divine : 52 1XJURESOUL. Tongues without words ! nor words required, When souls, with mounting flames, aspired. Diverse as minds, have human clans Made " gods " for blessings and for bans : But with ONE FAITH o'er all ! that FIRE Ascends, where HUMAN HOPES aspire ! Skeptic ! with fire-damp on your lips, You mould your mind to quibbling quips ! You paint your pottery with all hues Bright sunshine sheds on tinted dews ; And, with ceramic skill, all days, You fire-gild, under fire-damp blaze ! Yea ! with your mental heats, you print Fire-damp on rhetoric, till it glint ! But, Bob! . . . that phosphor of your brain Rocket-shot, for pyrotic rain Whence is it, when you call it wrr? Whither its way, Bob ? . . . Follow it ! ... And with your brain-pan upward turned, Show me what no man yet discerned Pathway of LIGHT, by nerve or brain, Aught than by wire's electric vein : Path out of brain, for MIND it makes, Aught than for likeness limner takes ; When, with an ink of iodine, LIGHT prints your features, line by line ! . . . 1NJURESOUL. 53 Follow your brain-light Bob ! and if Like photograph or logogryph Your l< reason enthroned '' some NEWS would write, Tell us why every atom of light, In all yon heaven of air, still floats, A ' ' common carrier, " Bob ! of motes I And, if you question why I ask, I'll answer, that no mote could bask In beam, nor ever an atom of aught Save heavenly LIGHT, subsist in THOUGHT, Till Bobs and Toms, at THINKING trade, In yon pure heaven MALARIA made ! Poisoned all airs, by poisoning breath, All quick seed sowed with germs of death, All soils, all seas, all AIRS, to smite, And FIRE-DAMP make, from HEAVENLY LIGHT ! Tom Paine is dead ! " Poor Tom's a-cold ! ' But his light lurks o'er grave-yard mould ; His corpse-light, saltant still, from crypt Of " dead men's bones," to glare in script ; Or print on brain so dark that ink Its murk illumes those words : " I think ! " " COGITO ! ERGO SUM ! " .... Sad psalm ! Sad summing up. ..." I THINK ! I AM ! " Bewildered thought SPINOZA spoke, Ere his poor heart, mind-ridden, broke, 54 INJURESOUL. When from Cartesian ink he made All the " white light " his Reason arrayed : Then, like DBS CARTES, of DEITY reft, Doubted, and died ! his MIND still left, Aslant, with blurred, strabismic glint ! Through German mind, and German print ! So dunce in gown may boast he thinks Long words, by nouns, like sausage-links ; And bursch, bestriding beer-keg, leer Through ground-glass eyes, and shout " More beer ! . . Free thinkers we ! For TRUTH we fight ! >er Slftenfd) ift ott ! . . . More beer ! More LIGHT ! ' "Who drinks beer, thinks beer !". . . Cynic's word ! Nor without reason of cynic, stirred ! When Mind, acclaimed as "German Mind," To axis tied, like mill-horse blind, Drops from its nose-bag corn to plant, From grist, as old, and sour as KANT ; While the old mildewed mill-wheel drips Bavarian beer, for burschen lips ; And the old bursch (betimes Herr Graff, ) Still drinks his corn, and thinks his chaff ! So much for " GERMAN MIND ! " What, then, sir ? What's English Mind ? Ask HERBERT SPENCER ! Yea ! ask ! . . .and if, to help your sight, ' In boastful "Nineteenth Century Light," INJURE SOUL. 55 Bob INJURESOUL shall thrust his torch Through shadows of some temple-porch ; Flirting his fire-damp, till it drips On pulpit where some skeptic skips Well ! 'tis but bartery ! Bob shall send Fire back, for fire which pulpits lend : When, with their " New Lights " flaring far, Fire-damp they flaunt at Bethlehem Star ! Fire-damp they fizzle at Sinai's Flame Tuum est, Bob ! Fire-damp ! File your claim \ Ask Herbert Spencer ! Huxley ask ! From English " Free Thought " tear each mask ; Featured in fashion of modern church, Pinning its FAITH to pulpit perch ! . . . Yea ! of your parish priest inquire, What baleful blare, of doctrines dire, Frightens poor souls, as yet unsoiled While monstrous things, which erst gargoyled Only an outside wall, now grin, Ghastly, your Christian church within ! Doctrines in heaven's affront extant This day, out-mouthing atheist rant Out-brazening, in oppugnant war, On Scripture questionless before, All atheist slander, sent to jag us, Since Bob wore mask, as SIMON MAGUS ! 56 INJURE SOUL. God help us !. . . Sixty centuries count Lost years, from Time's primeval Fount ! And, in their runs and races, brains And minds have bred ! . . . but, with what gains ? Brains breeding books, in minds of men ; Books breeding minds from brains again ! Brain unto brain, breed unto breed ; An ' ' Age of Reason ! " at last, to lead ; And our poor Race, on race-course sod, Brain-ridden by REASON astray from GOD ! And never an Age was known, I wot, Riper than ours, for ruin and rot ! And never a race-course, run for gold, Was staked, like ours to be OUT-SOULED ; When its last limping league is lapped ; And its last man lies handicapped ; And its LAST JUDGE awards, one day, " The Devil his dues," and " Hell to pay !" Race-course of REASON ! Arena wide, For race with race to wriggle and ride ! Monkeys and men, for equal stakes, Entered, abreast with toads and snakes ! All flesh, all fish, all creeping things, Matched, for this race toward Psyche's wings : Each, when its legs shall goal afar win, Promised BOB'S MIND, and SOUL of DARWIN ! INJURE SOUL. 57 SOUL for such Race ["evolved " from brute ! And in brute kinds kept involute ! Soul, that in shell-cell of zo-oid ; Soul, that in embryo spermatoid, Soul, that from no primordial source, Save slime, self-seminate, drew force ; Unless to seed down SOUL in worms, GOD entered embryo zoo-sperms ; GOD became larvae sex and sex And venomous insects, multiplex ! Of His Own Will to make this earth His Anima Mundi ! . . . .birth on birth, Procreate to die yet, from its grave, Resurgent with a SOUL to save ! This the New Word, by Beecher wist Our " CHRISTIAN Evolutionist ! " ** SOUL ! for that draggle of DARWIN ! chipp'd From eggs in vapory void, and slipped Through seas of sjime, toward genesis : To crawl in snail in snake to hiss ; As owl to hoot, as wolf to bark ; And to devour, as swine and shark ; Till, with a leap, from crouching ape, Beast enters man, in DARWIN shape ! Matter, from mire and mollusk wrought, DARWIN " evolved ! " with Darwin thought ! 58 INJURE SOUL. " Progress!" and " March of Mind !" from flux Serose GOD help us ! ..." FIAT Lux !" " Progress ! " through spume, and spoor, and spawn, Self-sprent, for bestial bone and brawn ; Self-shent, for heats of pulsing vein, From saurian spine to simian brain : Till the last laps gorillas ran, And the last beast "evolved " was MAN ! Man ! by all-procreant pulp designed, To "eat, drink, love ! " and breed New Mind ! DARWIN ! What protoplasm of mud Corpuscles gave, for Calvary's blood? What bestial broods, through DAVID'S line, " Developed," arose as MAN DIVINE? " GOD-MAN ! " whose WORD for us was said : "This is my BODY ! 'tis your BREAD !".... So now, good souls communion make Bread-sharing for their SAVIOUR'S sake ! Yea ! with His sweet WORD understood Sharing His EARTH in BROTHERHOOD ! Is it " MATERIALISM " I note ? Is it " MATERIALISM " I quote ? When, with Saint PAUL, mine eyes are seeing : " In HIM we live ! MOVE ! have our BEING ! " Darwin is dead ! In dust he sleeps ! His dust a Christian church-pile keeps ; INJURESOUL. 59 All that is left of him, good sooth ! If gospel that he spake were truth ! Dean STANLEY, o'er the dead man's dust, Recalled his FAITH his "Christian Trust !''... But if he owned a SOUL, which owned GOD-HEAD, o'er heaven and earth enthroned ; If before all his seas of slime, And all their spawn of grume and grime, And all their monstrous progenies His Faith discerned Divine Decrees ; How could his REASON escape from thought More monstrous than the shapes he sought ? That the OMNIPOTENT WILL had shent His God-Soul into slime had lent His God-Life, to make monsters live ? Yea, His IMMACULATE LIFE to give Birth unto Matter of bestial life ; Life to devour, in dreadful strife ; Till the last saurian shape dies out ; And Huxley heaps its bones, . . . and DOUBT Handicaps REASON at Darwin's goal : And the Devil appears . . . . as INJURESOUL ! Doctrine for Christians ! Doctrine sped From clime to clime, these days, and spread, From church to church ! . . . and yet no schism Voices that word " MATERIALISM ! " 60 IXJURESOUL. That word so dread for tender souls, Whose wings of bats, and eyes of moles, Flop up to stars, squint into mud ; Whose lips salvation preach, through blood ; Preach CHRIST INCARNATE ! yet, with fright, Shrink back from flash of gospel light! Shrink from that LIGHT for blinded eyes, Which erst were oped in glad surprise When CHRIST anointed them with clay And MIND its MAKER knew that day ! . . . Blind BARTIMEUS ! your Christian trust Is mine! . . . My GOD I see through DUST ! " DARWIN " (" Dean Stanley " sighed) " is dead ! '* Dead is Dean STANLEY ! . . . Seals of lead, Haply, may press down pulp of brains ; But REASON arises, above all chains ! Wings out of lead she plumes, and pipes Phoenix-song, with her printer's types ! Bob "sized" his job, when "Reason enthroned On the world's Mind/' as god he owned ! Shrewd Bob ! who cocks his eyes at books Which Christian preachers quote and looks, Askance, at skeptics on their knees ; And winks. . . (like Mephistopheles !) . . . And if Bob sneers, when Christian pews Tenantless, here and there, he views ; INJURESOUL. 6 1 And if he smiles, when Christian book Helps him, with slurs at Pentateuch ; And if he grins, when Christian priest Accepts himself half-man half-beast ; Laugh, ATHEIST ! and your REASON extol ! . . . Skeptics ! exult ! . . . . Laugh, INJURESOUL ! 25 Race-track of DARWIN ! widest course, Lapp'd in all years, by man or horse ; " Pedigrees !" " books ! " and " field !" fore-stalled : " Studs " in full start, ere TIME was called ! What, now, if REASON of his escaped From flesh survive, in MIND he shaped? Shall it race on, with life's intents, Hot-pressed, as foolscap filaments? Their fungous sporules apt again To breed fresh MIND in brains of men ! . . Sooth ly I say ! , . . Who says me nil, Denies Darwinian progress-mill ! All-procreant PULP its ways may wind Subsuming moulds, subtending mind : Pulp to conceive, and Pulp to plan Mud and Mammalia ! Mind and Man ! Donkey and Darwin ! . ..why not ink Pens paper ! and some pulp, to THINK ? Light badinage ! for subject sad ! Yet in this light age not so bad : 62 INJURE SOUL. Bad light for sad light still shows way ; As foetid fumes precede decay : Sad light enough is ours from wombs To graves like moonshine showing tombs ; Moonshine from cloud-rift gloom and gleam- Till earth like moon-lit grave-yard seem ! Wise minds are mirthful ! Griefs enough, With frowns of brows, our joys rebuff ! Wherefore, with sense, might INJURESOUL, Make his wit wise not less than droll ; Forefending doleful day forenenst him ; Hell- fire no joke ! and " laugh against him ! Light versus dark Life against Death ! "Eat honey ! " wise king Solomon saith : " Eat of it, son ! because 'tis good ! " . . . So, by the bees well understood, Seeking for sweet-bread makes them wise ; So, with white wax, they thicken thighs, And sip up serous flows of flowers, Featly effusing sweets from sours ! Wherefore wise wits resemble bees Wooing bright WISDOM on their knees ! . . . And, if my words, light-laden, lilt, As flimsy foil, on lance in tilt And if I lightly poise my lance Yet is my FIGHT still "a I ' outrancel" INJURESOUL. 63 FYTTE FIFTH. Wolf-eyes in wolf-den, dimly seen ; Lynx-eyes, in greenwood, softly green ; Eyes of all seers of light may gleam, Repugnant, or with winsome beam ! Eyes are but orbs, for man or lynx ; Tis brain, behind them, throbs, and THINKS ! Yea ! in each lynx-brain, as in man's, 'Tis LIGHT by brain reflect, which plans ; Plans and preludes or, with quick thrill, Lightning-like, " makes up mind " as WILL ! Brain lobe and brain lobe, batteries twain ; Twain every nerve-pair, coiled in brain ; Twain, as in twins of SIAM, each pair Yet, as two, woven in one, they bear Glows of electric heats their LIGHT ! Quick, as when steel on stone you smite ! Even as quick heats, from acid fires, Burn, with an unseen light, on wires : Or, from discarded cinders, pass Through leagues of tubes, to gleam as gas ! 2 * Tell me, ye " minds advanced ! *' . . . Discourse, FARADAY ! and make answer, MORSE ! 64 1XJURESOUL. If, now, as SOULS OF LIGHT, ye live Whence are these unseen heats, which give Light, to make words on wires outspeed ? Light to make prints of thoughts we read ; Light of our music and light of art ; And light, from veins, to stir each heart ; And light from nerves, when vein and vein, Heat-kissed, distend, with mind and brain ? When eye-balls shine, and arteries throb Heart swells ! and. . . " BRAVO ! well done, BOB ! Bob did it all ! . . . His force of WILL Power of ideas ! forensic skill : Mind-making heart-throbs ! Reason on high, Enlightening brain, and lightening eye ! This MORTAL ! dying as dust, to-night He makes his LIFE ! . . . he makes his LIGHT ! . . . And the man's REASON, in grand reliance, Says it is BRAIN-POWER ! ... So says SCIENCE ! Power 'tis a word so easily said ! Light ! 'tis a sheen so softly shed ; Beaming by days, on door-sill bright, Nor welcome less in beams by night ; Nor, when it gleams in shining stars, More distant than in fire-grate bars ! . . . One Fount, exhaustless, yielding spires, For lambent heats, and fulgent fires ; IXJURESOUL. 65 ONE SOURCE, all circling, shimmering rays For sapphire's glow, and bonfire's blaze ; ONE INFINITE LIGHT ! Eternal WOMB Whence Life, Love, Power, all things illume ; And whence His Universe to frame HE came, who spake from Sinai's flame ! STARS ! in your courses ! and thou SUN ! Circling, to shine all climes upon ! Might ye your astral mysteries write, For seers of stars, with SINAI'S LIGHT ; How would this Light of ours, from ink, Vanish, and all our book-pulp shrink ! . . . Then would sweet childhood's Faith make wise ; And Reason, as WISDOM, heavenward rise ! Child-eyes, once more, in old-time ways, See dancing suns, on Easter days ; While GRAVITY by jokes upset Kissing " Cohesion " (sad coquette !) And kissed by her, with wifely love, Might leave sweet stars to laws above ; Nor, with confused, inconstant action, Divorce " Repulsion " from " Attraction ! " Well ! is it quibble or quirk of wits Tike Bob's I write, and cry Bob quits ?. . . 66 INJURESOUL. Shall I my jingling coins of words Flip up as Bob at SCRIPTURE girds ? No ! gracious LIGHT! . . Ifliltofmine Turn, but one step, from touch of thine, Weak were mine eyes, and faint my heart, Conscious, through FAITH, of ALL thou art ! For though my humor, as reason avers, May game-cock spur, when game-cock spurs, My ways, from Bob's, are wider apart Than earth from Mars, on stellar chart : And if, with wanton will, these days, Snake-like, he coiled not in my ways ; If, by his sibillate breath eject, . His froth had not my pathway flecked, Ne'er had I written, as cap for scroll, Name of ill-portent ..." INJURESOUL ! " Tired of some playthings Manhood drops, As children throw down dolls and tops ; Fond of some other toys men keep, Like children, till they drop to sleep ; Heedful, some hour, of hearse which pass'd, Or of " dead march " with " flags half-mast ; John Doe observes, to Richard Roe : " Well, well ! THAT road we ALL must go !" And Richard nods, with visage glum, And mutters, " Yes ! OUR turn will come ! ' . , IXJURESOUL. 67 And the next thought these " thinkers " think, Is, " John, suppose we have a drink ! " Then, with a drink their night begun " Let's go hear INJURESOUL for fun ! " 'Tis an old story ! Bob with Tom "MiND making," in all Christendom! LIKE unto LIKE still quickly draws ; All things subserving Nature's laws. Dick, without John could scarcely think ; Tom sings, with Bob, like bob-o'-link! "Like unto like!" .... Tis PRIMAL LAW! Caw ! croaks your rook, and crows all caw : Each " reasoning " crow conclusion draws Yet none, for croaks, assign " first caws !".... So your sly raven, alert with " mind, " Gets himself cawcus'd by his kind ; Cocks his wise eyes, with sidewise head His "nest well feathered," crop well fed Croaks o'er his crony crows, by night, All hours, till cock-crow welcomes LIGHT : And your poor bat-blind birds, with blink, " Make up their minds " to flit and THINK ! . . . Self- same effects from " cause " are BOB'S ! Crows and f r ee-thinkers croak in mobs ; As cats, by nights, on out-house flats, " Makeup their minds, " and make more cats! 68 INJURE SOUL. Shape me some curious clock-work thing ! Like human nerves, make spring with spring : Fire-force give heart, and breath give lung ; Give cunning hands, and craft of tongue ; AIL helps for organism designed Could you endow that thing with mind ? " Brightly on burnished brass, all days, Even wintry sunshine seems to blaze : But when through airs no light-rays pass, What sheen shall shine on front of brass ? Shut Bob from books his memory marred His mind from all SENSATION barred Where, then, those LIGHTS, his brain to prink ? Where would be Bob's brave boast " I THINK ? When copperas, in your battery burns, With zinc-bloom and your SCIENCE learns To write out thoughts, in sulphide fires Connecting brains by cable-wires Tell us what makes " ideas " for Watts, Morse, Fulton and all other " thoughts ? " Are sulphide fires, from vapory rift, Shot suddenly as lightning swift ? What is this Power of Mind which stirs " Great men, " and great men's wurshippers ? INJURE SOUL. 69 What motive-power, on student's brain, "Like lightning, " makes his problem plain ? What is it, upon this mind, or that, Thrills, as musician's " sharp" or "flat" Quivers, as painter's shade or light? Flashes for bard some image bright, Or, for a child, makes queer conceits ? Is it from sulphides ? copperas heats ? In heart, lung, liver, and pulsing brains ? So that, while HEAT glows, MIND remains ? Tell me, if ever an arctic chill Could cramp a traveller's homeward will ? Or if an ice-cold shiver of death, While it yet spared his lapsing breath, Could quench in brain this mental spark, Conscious of LIGHT till all grows dark? Why is it, on dissolution's brink, While conscious life remains you THINK ? And your last thought or prayer or scoff Stops with your final breath choked off ? What makes ? what takes ? and why do breath, Pulse, heart-beat, brain-light, wait for death ? Instant their lapse all gone, together : Gone ! and your REASON exuded ! . . . . Whither ? 70 L\JURESOUL. Men's minds! .... Six thousand years, or less, Have cocked up "Inner Consciousness!" Perked up and prankt out minds of men, With tricks of speech, and tricks of pen : And still from MIND'S ideal deeps- Greek "NOUS" or German "GEIST" up creeps; Pedants entwisting thoughts on brains, As worms encyst their silken skeins ; And still each dying brain- worm weaves, With leaves of books for mulberry leaves ; And brain-worms crawl from mind to mind, And still their silken shrouds they wind : From lands to lands they leave their trails ; Devouring their own dead like snails ! Grey pulp of brain lobe lapping lobe! Come, with your skill, O ! surgeon ! probe These ganglia of a brain-pan cleft ; And tell what tracks o( thoughts are left ! What prints of Caesar's mind remain ; What quips and quirks of Yorick's brain ?. . . Adown that gland your scalpel glides ; This optic nerve your fleam divides ; Your lens is laid on turgid mesh Of knotted nerves and flaccid flesh ; Your mind intent, your searching gaze, Patient to pierce posthumous maze ! . . . 1NJURESOUL. Labyrinth of Brain ! . . . But where is Mind ? What trace of Thought, by Thinkers lined, From books to brain, from brain to books ? . . . Ah ! you may scrape these cranial nooks ! But by what blind-man's noctograph Read you the brains of man or calf ? All their electric fires are dark ! Mot even one feeble phosphor spark Hints of those telegrams, which told Of heats, in batteries now cold ! Surgeon ! step back ! Withdraw your blade ! No messages are hence conveyed ! . . . Nor all inquisitive eyes of men, With glass-eyed Science, in aid of ken ; Nor all concentrate lights of Art, Flashed upon brains, by book or chart, Shall steer mankind, o'er darkling deeps, While REASON its old "dead reckoning" keeps! 28 72 INJURESOUL. FYTTE SIXTH. Be SCIENCE honored ! Hand and tongue Mark mankind only ! . . . Bells are rung By hands for birth of hands ! Man's breath Makes known to men his thoughts till death ! Mollusk is moved by SENSE . . . and apes, Standing erect in men-wise shapes, Tongues have, and mow at us ! yea, birds, Apt with both mind and tongue, make words ! Mind moulds a commonwealth for bees ; And your wise beavers like Chinese Raft-houses build, and " pay no rent ; " ( Example shrewd for malcontent ! ) But, of all minds, I pray you, ask, What beast has ever, in task on task, Varied through lives, and thought with thought- Broadening its ways, in works it wrought- Made soils and seeds, and ores, conduct Through toils, through arts, toward usufruct? What paws, what claws, what apt antennae, Move, like man's HAND to " turn a penny ? " Hand for all Handicrafts ! and Tongue, Taught by no human MIND but hung INJURE SOUL. 73 Like an eolian harp, in airs, Thrilled, as by angels "unawares ! " What " power of mind " what "reasoning " will An infant moves its tongue to thrill ? Making one word ! one prayer-word rather ! " AB-BA ! '' a child's first utterance ! . . . "FATHER ! " 89 Be Science honored ! . . . MIND OF MEN ! In order of battle, as tongue and pen ! And if it fight for fustian cause, Claiming to stand by NATURE'S laws ; And, on its shield of LIGHT aloft, Bar sinister be borne full oft, Still in its wars I recognize Fair fields of fight, for brave emprise ; Though on its flags, uplift from sod, Fire-damp I mourn, affronting GOD! . . . Still, as its pageants pass, I see Full many a chief on bending knee ; And prayers I hear, from foremost men, Inspiring feats of tongue and pen ! Kepler's clear trust in GOD, TRIUNE, Plumes his false faith in magnet-moon ; Newton's high hopes, when dying, he felt All prides, like wings of Icarus, melt ; And his reliance alone, that hour, " Attraction" of an Unknown Power : 4 1NJURESOUL. Power of that " UNKNOWN GOD," whose thrill Greek felt, with Hebrew, on Mars' Hill ! Power which, in atom of earth or sky Power which, in feather, or cloud on high Power which, on MIND and REASON, awaits ; Nor ever aborts, nor ever abates : Yet, in its unseen, unsought FORCE, Unknown to NEWTON as to his horse ! Mind of Mankind ! . . . What seer or sage Shall think out THOUGHT'S initial page ? Seers of all stars ! what star-shine bright Shall flood for you such realms of LIGHT, That, with your MIND'S omniscient span, Founts of all star-beams you may scan ? And find, beyond all "gates ajar'' Epiphanies for sun and star ? . . . SPACE is your theme ! Our minds you daze, With thoughts of worlds in endless maze ! Space you conceive, which swallows bounds ; And Space you crowd with circus-grounds ; Worlds upon wheels, for wild goose whirls ; Axle-turned orbs, in swaying swirls : Systems built up, with LAWS to aid them ! But where, O ! SCIENCE ! is HE who made them I ask you this ! . . . My MIND would learn What SOUL should seek as soul's concern ! IN JURE SOUL. 75 Where is my MAKER of stars, ye seers ? Ye show me plans ! . . . and planispheres ! Show me His HOUSE ! ye sages bright ! God's House, of Scripture ! ' ' DWELLING in LIGHT ! Good minds I reverence ! REASON and MIND ! When made by MAN, as GOD designed ! Made of white light, from Heaven that came, Ere Mind or Reason knew earthly name ! When WISDOM dwelt in Light "with God " Ere Adam and Eve their Eden trod ! . . . Yea ! on adoring knees, my soul Looks up, where lights in heaven out-roll : Moon, stars, and sun, diurnal, borne, On ambient airs, from eve till morn From morn till eve ! their force, their laws, Those which all earthly movements cause : Laws of which Newton inferred no more Than seers of stars had guessed before ; Than seers of star all days have guess'd ; What years, from brain-pulp, books were press'd ; And Mind made Reason, and SENSE re-ground Mind, in all mills, with wheel-horse round : Wherefore, I say of stellar force, NEWTON no more knew than his horse ! Canon COPERNICUS, at Rome, Low knelt, beneath St. Peter's dome ; 76 INJURESOUL. Haply, to mark, with mindful scan, Church built by Buonarotti's plan : Wonders out-wrought, from crypt and coign, Upward, till vaults with vaults conjoin, And the Great Dome, confounding sight, Dwells in it own mysterious light ! . . . Canon Copernicus, from knees Rising, went forth by Tiber's leas ; And, in his prayerful ways, perchance, Eyes lifted unto air's expanse ; And, from horizon of midnight Rome, Saw church-walls rise toward azure dome ! Lamps lit ! so many, their rays were shent, As a bright camp-fire lights up tent ; When its flame, flung on banners, throws Reflected and refracted glows ! Lamps lit ! for heavenly vesper rites ! Lamps borne by unseen acolytes ! High, over Rome's three hundred piles Of church-walls, with their sounding aisles : High over earthly lamps and lands, Hung in that " church not made by hands ; " Whence earth was framed, from -lights in airs ! As crucial FIRE bright witness bears, When its alembic heats proclaim TRUTH such as MOSES knew through FLAME. INJURE SOUL. 77 Star-seer COPERNICUS from Rome, Favored and famous fared for home : But if his laboring mind recalled, Church of St Peter's roofed and walled ; Shut from all vast expanse of SPACE, As a huge tent is pitched in place ; All its lamps lit ! ... and yet so dim, Its high-groined vaults grew dark to him ! Why stirred not Reason, in quick remark, That, if Saint Peter's dome was dark, Cause might be sought, for shadows there Where CAUSE for all things dwells in air ! Cause for all flows of sunshine bright ; And cause, no less, for shadowy light ; Cause for all hues in light that dwell, And cause, for midnight marks, as well ! .'. . Yea ! as I trust on this my scroll, Some words may light even INJURESOUL ! When, in my ways, with ways of LIGHT, WISDOM, anon, shall help me write ! Stirring my brain, my hand, my pen As, for all works, all wills of men, Light flows in heaven, by self-same laws Which sun-shine make, and star-shine cause ; Launch lightnings, and when MAN demands Speed them, as thoughts, from lands to lands ; 78 1XJURESOUL. From minds to minds, from marts to marts ; Asking " more Light ! " for trades and arts " More Light " on whirls of wind and tides ; But asking not what LIGHT abides In mystic words, from DAVID'S lyre : " His ministers .... a FLAMING FIRE ! " 80 Canon Copernicus, at Rome, Saw stellar fires in heavenly dome ; Saw spires of fires to sun-shine lent : And in Jehovah's out-spread tent Sat down to speculate like BOB ! On his MIND'S architectural job ! .... Yea ! by those beams of heavenly lights, Bob-wise, looked out for building sites ! And, on celestial trestle-board, Way-marked his REASON, as " God and Lord ! " Vain REASONER ! . . Had his WISDOM stirred, Scripture was his, with JOB'S low word ! "Things have I uttered as MY THOUGHT Too wonderful ! I knew them not !".... Then, when his Mind, with dying breath, Lost REASON, on airs exsuct by death ! SOUL of Copernicus had known Vision sublime, at PATMOS shown ; " New Heaven ! " " New Earth ! " for MANKIND fit ! " For the Glory of God did lighten it ! " INJURESOUL. 79 Oh ! Infinite and Eternal LIGHT ! THEE I exalt, on page I write : Though my worn wits, in wrestling strain, Must match with THINKERS brain for brain ! . . . . And as THY LAWS of LIGHT and LIFE Truth against lies, impel to strike, Be Thine my Light, and Thine my Laws, And Thine, O ! Father in Heaven ! my CAUSE ! Thy Light ! Thy Laws ! all answering! yet, So simply just Thine arcs are set So grandly strong, Thy keystones bear Vaults of yon minster, built with air No porphyry heights, on Afric shore,. Towering Arabia's deserts o'er ; No ice-bergs, built on Arctic snows, Reft of their heats by ocean-flows ; More firmly bide, more brightly shine, Than heaven's expanse by LAWS DIVINE ! Laws TWAIN Laws TWIN ! .... no laws beside ! Whence and whereby ALL THINGS abide ! . '. . Nor aught, in seas or airs, was known, Nor aught, from seeds and soils, was grown ; Nor aught, for earth or heaven, enwrought ; Perceived by sense, conceived by thought ; Save and except, with dual force. These TWIN LAWS helped sweet Nature's course ; 8o 1NJURESOUL. Or when ignored or spurned by MAN- FIRE-DAMP enforced for human ban ! And there was never, in air or earth, Without these LAWS, one insect's birth ; Nor ever existence known in air Nor sights, nor simulacra there ; Nor weights of bulk, nor weights at all More than a school-child's air blown ball ! . . . . Nor ever a comet, in transit driven, Has compass'd wider ways, in heaven, Than Chimborazo's fires, on airs, Are blown remote from Hecla's flares ! Adjust your tripod ! tilt your tubes ! Transect your quadrants and your cubes ! Lens unto lens align till curve, Concave or convex eye-sight serve ! Deflect " rays aberrate "till they shine, Extrinsic, from your " mind's eye " line ! Then, in your wise ways, watch by night, Peering through achromatic light ! Watch, with your earnest hearts, not less Than eyes, upcast, in sleeplessness ! Watch, with your prayers ! as knights, new-made, Kept vigils over shield and blade : INJURE SOUL. 8 1 When stalwart men, with childly eyes, Saw stars, as lamp-lights hung in skies ; Nor in that simple, childlike trust Set lowlier lance for quarrel just ; Nor feebler fared, fierce fight to dare, Crying "Goo HELP 1" Sir Hilary's prayer ! "God help !" sweet orison ! . . . 'Tis prayer Turks, Jews, and Christians breathe on air ! And if with faith such prayer implies MEN, to help MEN, with WORKS would rise ; Then such Saturnian years might come (Without one nitro-glycerine bomb !) As erst "Saint Brandon's Isle" forecast, Or RASSELAS, in his valley, passed ! 3l In vain shall " Fresnel's rhomb " suggest That nature knows her own ways best, In vain shall rays, rectangled, pass, As "aberrate rays" through prism of glass ! What boots it? Blind eyes blink with blind ; Mind muddled mates with muddling Mind ; Tom crooks his light, through Fresnel's rhomb ; And Bob squints back his light to Tom ! So, with ten thousand light-rays mixed, Your optate optigraphs are " fixed ;" Ten million sparks, from aerial spars, Glint, and you posit a million stars ; 82 1NJURESOUL. On boundless space your glass eyes turn ; And in your tubes your "systems " burn ; Congress of orbs, each system swings (Like earthly " Congress, " girt with "rings ; "Star-routes" assured, by plans approved And your whole bright machinery moved, According to Kepler, magnet-driven, According to Newton, poised in heaven : While we, poor laymen, marvel much, If lame man lends to cripple a crutch : If Reason adventures first her LAWS ; And then, as reason of laws her CAUSE ! "So mote it be !" ... So system swings ! So force centrifugal out-flings Star from its sun and then, with spang, Centripetal like boomerang Star to its sun springs back .... nor swerve Their courses from concentric curve ! . . 32 "So mote it be !" . . . But if, with deft Machinery, woven as magic weft, And with such subtile force, as draws Needle to pole or by all laws Known in our earth, our air, our fire Balls ye can spin, with ceaseless gyre, And curb, without confining groove ; . . . Or if one globe ye straitwise move, INJURE SOUL. 83 On lines, impelled by magnets twain And hold your globe by unseen chain ; Well ! . . . in " Swift" ways, I'll seek, for "school," ' ' Laputa's isle " my reason to rule ; There may my SENSE no more to err Exalt her horn like " Gulliver :" 83 Considerate MIND ! Convenient FORCE ! Constraining stars, toward alien course ! And helm-wise then, like ships coerced, ' ' To bearings " brought, by force reversed ! . . . :( Attraction " here ! " Repulsion " there ! Like FIGARO, answering, everywhere : On lank ellipsoid, bulgent sphere, Comet cirrose remote or near ; Yea ! on all cones and polygons, See-sawing still with pros and cons ! . . . Well ! . . . Could my common sense, bewrayed, Conceive of WORLDS, thus driven and stayed, Still should my simple SOUL inquire, WHEREFORE, in SPACE, such ceaseless gyre ? When with His calm, all-swaying WILL GOD, to each world, might say " BE STILL !" 84 84 INJURE SOUL. FYTTE SEVENTH. Crypt echoes crypt, when Science strides Through Egypt's tombs, by torch-light guides But when Belzoni's tramp disturbs Mummies, in mouldered swaddling-curbs ; Piff-paff! five hundred cerements burst : And the poor seer, in dust immersed, Nor sees nor knows, but only hears Mummy-cased Copts explode, by tiers ; Till, with spent breath, he sinks, like lead, Through centuries of old Egypt's dead ! Athlete Belzoni ! from that splurge, Dust-choked, your laboring lungs emerge ! This lesson learned that centuried dust Bad foot-hold makes, for human trust : Lesson which yet our MINDS may humble, When bubbles burst, and " systems " tumble ! Electric lights ! . . . what sight may trace Your ways when summer-heats ye chase ? Or over Iceland's arctic steeps, Climb upon skies, with saltant leaps ? Electric sounds ! what force repeats, Their bruits, in thunder's rolling beats? INJURE SOUL. 85 What mind may guess, through sense of sound, Whence are those peals, from airs profound ? Why muffled moans, in throbs uprise. Till crash discordant rends the skies ? Ask Bob ! ask brains ! ask books ! No word Instructs our minds, how airs are stirred, When lightning-bars those key-notes blazon, Which swell to thunder's diapason. Yet on these airs, confounding ears, Depend all sights of planet-seers : Airs of such wanton ways, they whirl, Like the loose hairs of dancing-girl ! And with each zephyr twined and twinn'd, Star-beams as light, enwoven in wind Lilt out of twinkling eyes, with wink, Quicker than seer of stars can THINK ! Science knows this ! . . . Her " reasoning Waited till ART should lenses grind ; So, then, bright Art her glass purveys Convex and concave kissing rays ; So kiss with kiss, through crown-glass given, Lifts up poor loving " minds " to heaven ! Angles of crown-glass first collect Angles of crown-glass then correct ; So, then all " aberrate rays " aligned Light flows, rectangled, into mind ; 86 INJURESOUL. Nor ever a doubt shall seer perplex, To hint how wanton beams may vex ; When, with each kiss of air, they pass, By air-curves even in FRESNEL'S glass ! . . . Who contradicts ? SPINOZA burned For truth and, straightway, falsehood learned ; Glass-grinding, till, with failing eyes, He sought for ground-glass light, in skies ; And lost like blind Des Cartes, in dreams Day-spring of LIGHT'S perennial beams. Dreamer DES CARTES ! for that his " mind " Visions beheld, by WISDOM lined While his dim REASON, in fitful gleams, Flashed fire-damp on his heavenly dreams : When, in glass eyes of blind compeers, His " lights in heaven " he viewed as "spheres Saw " worlds '' recede, and " orbs " advance With stately march, like minuet dance Yet failed to find some " ball "-room rule For a mad comet's queer pas seul ! S5 RULE did he reach for? laws for "balls" And laws, no less, where comet sprawls? While yet on WISDOM'S ways he trod, And with high heart, looked up to GOD ? . . . Why paused he, on his " Vortex " brink, Owl-eyed, with seers of stars to think ? INJURE SOUL. 87 Why, with his soul by LIGHT impress'd, And LAWS, half-learned, at NATURE'S hest ; Why, when he climbed etherial cliffs, Way-marked for him with hieroglyphs (Which never, in all man's years before, By seer of stars were pondered o'er,) Why did he pause ? . . . Oh ! dumb Des Cartes ! Voicing not LIGHT which bathed his heart ! Yea ! in his SOUL showed heavenly LAWS FORCE with EFFECT . . . Effect from CAUSE ! 86 " Keplerian Laws ! '' . . . " Newtonian Force ! " " Sidereal Science ! " . . . In glib discourse, Mind echoes mind ! grim atheist, ' ' Ball-playing " with prim polemist ! . . . FAITH flies from David's heaven, and Job's To "think out " heaven, with whisking globes ; Weighed, measured, poised, by chits and prigs, And capering in celestial jigs ! . . . Cause ruling Laws ! Laws causing Cause ! Tell us, now, INJURESOUL ! what Laws Ordain " Newtonian Force ! " . . . what power Lifts watery floods for thunder shower ? Tell us what laws make whirling skies, When clouds on clouds in gyres arise ? 88 INJURE SOUL. Why whirlpool rides on seas and strands, Or a wild whirlwind sucks up sands ? Why fierce tornado's coils convolve, While clouds o'er drowning soils dissolve ? Why hot sirocco's weights consume, Or swells typhoon from sourde simoom ? Or, on Sahara's blasting breath, Samiel goes forth that wind of death ! " " WHIRLWIND ! " O ! when did Science make Laws which my LIGHT from " Whirlwind " spake ? Laws of supreme, unyielding stress, When listening JOB saw ' ' VORTICES ! " Yea ! in that image of power on earth : " BEHEMOTH ! " giant ! of whirlwind birth ! 38 "BEHEMOTH!" . . . O ! ye "reasoning" men ! With weakling words of witling's pen, Tongue-tying GOD ! to phrase out thus Cayman or hippopotamus Or sea-cow, swollen to mammoth size ! Or an " unknown beast " ' ' Barnumize !" . . . When, by that figure of wondrous speech, FORCES of AIR their MOVEMENTS teach ! When, in that parable, NATURE says : " Behold ! my whirlwind VORTICES ! " . . . 89 " Behemoth ! " Yea ! ye wide-eyed "schools," With " minds made up," as REASON o'er-rules ; INJURE SOUL. Why scan ye not yon heavenly heights, As " Laws of Matter " assure you lights ? Why seek ye not sidereal sways, As matter is ruled in earthly ways ? Not in some "guess'd out" occult force But " MOVEMENT ". swayed for CENTRIC course ! Force of fierce AIRS, as "navel" and "loins ! ' ' ' Sinews of stones ! " which HEAT conjoins ! Pent heat ! like column of spinal steel, Whirling as frantic fakirs reel ! " Bones as strong pieces of brass ! " and " tail As a cedar ! '' threshing earth, like flail ! . . . ' ' He drinketh rivers ! " . . . Yea ! in his drouth, " Jordan can draw up into his mouth ! " " Whirlwind ! " . . . His wild way onward breaks !- Sea-ward he strides ! and WHIRLPOOL makes ! " Behemoth ! " . . . Mark those cloud-like walls, Imprisoning heats ! . . . those flaming balls ! Dropped in their trail ! those lurid glares : Fire-power's enforcements, in all airs ! Learn, from that WHIRLWIND, fierce for hurts, Heat-force, which fire-damp rage perverts ! Learn, from those fire-fraught MOVEMENTS there, That LAWS of LIGHT are LAWS of AIR ! So ! shall BEHEMOTH show you cause For EVIL and GOOD by self-same LAWS ! 90 INJURESOUL. Science I honor ! and mind I trust ! . . . And lift their lights o'er skeptic dust ! No cause of quarrel is ours, to-day, Whose wives BELIEVE whose mothers PRAY So long, O ! SCIENCE ! as wine you make ; So long, O ! MIND ! as thirst you slake ; Nor tempt poor souls, with fire-damp light, Venomed for hearts, like dipsas bite ; Nor, from your " Dead-Sea grapes, " distil Poison, my household veins to fill ; Nor lure my little ones my babes, (Pleased with your glittering astrolabes,) To taste your black wine, drink its lees- Sweetened for them with honey of bees ! Go reel with Reason ! on reeling earth ! At Pentateuch make pedant mirth : Fling out your geologic jeers, At Moses, and Six Thousand years ! Compute, for dupes, what ages pass Ere Mercury's rays shall reach your glass ; Coax, with your " Laws of Light," all stars, From Saturn's moons to moons of Mars : Toss up your skull-caps ! . . . Yea ! fill up, With heavenly light, each ground-glass cup : " Drink deep, or taste not ! " . . . Pledge all god; Toast your star-goddesses ! . . . What odds? INJURESOUL. 91 One passing cloud-puff dims your scope ; And, in the dark with Bob you grope ! Meantime, in lamp-lit lecture hall, Helmholtz, or Thomson, calls up all Yea ! all your suns, and stars, and moons ! Air-whirls uplifting like balloons ! Till, in his lecture-light, he swings Stars upon stars orbs, belts, and rings : Nor need he " mind " much, when you joke Telling him that his worlds are SMOKE ! . . . Quick repartee his REASON assures : " If MINE be smokes pray, what are yours ? ''* Yea ! what are yours ? when pipe-stem draws, From soap-suds, by sweet Nature's laws, Air-bubbles, opalesque with beams Brilliant as sun-like Saturn seems ; Gleaming Orion, or crimson Mars ; Great Jupiter . . . yea ! all your stars, On disc discerned, what hours you've spied, Through object-glass full two feet wide ! . . . Eye-bubbles ! air-bubbles ! round on round ! Puff-balls ! ensphering pride profound ! Pride of Man's Reason ! . . . and I admit Claims for that PRIDE yea ! share in it ! . . . Pceans I'll join in ! strident songs ! Voiceful for praise, where praise belongs! 9* INJURESOUL. Fame unto star-seers ! craftsmen bright ! Builders of worlds, in realms of NIGHT ! Scaffolds they stand on iron and brass : Trowels they lift up gleaming glass ; Mortar, of star-lime, they prepare ; And on yon trestle-board of air, Trace their stupendous building-plan : And my soul says" Hail ! Mind of Man ! " Labors of Love ! my heart allows : Vigils of Faith ! my reason avows : For that our seers of stars with prayers, Full oft, ascend their shining stairs : Priest-like, in LIGHT from altar shed Blessing and breaking heavenly bread ! But why obtrude, on faithful eyes Faithless conceits of crude surmise ? Chimeras, wrought from rifted rays, By glass converged for optic gaze ? . . . Still, as your glass more rays collects, More worlds ideal its disc reflects ; Each as a bubble of mental paction, Globate and gibbose by " Diffraction ! " 4l Sweet LIGHT I Shall Reason in shadows grope i Bring me my babe's kaleidoscope ! Toy thing ! wherein, with rays combined, Light groups strange images for Mind ! INJURESOUL. 93 Chromic illusions ! optic cheats ! Light rays, which tricksy glass discretes ; Certes these forms we spy are frauds ; Potsherds and flints, prinkt out as gauds ; Air-bubbles all ! ... and yet, good sooth ! Far worthier helps in quest for Truth, Than all those tons of molten brass, And all those lights of crystal glass, Babel-like, built toward heaven, by ROSSE, O'ershadowing his Christian cross ! . . . 42 This pasteboard cylinder confines All that your telescope combines : Mirrors and lenses flint-fine sights All save your "acromatic" lights : It kills no rain-bow tints, that eyes May count on truth, to sum up lies ! It shows us works which NATURE makes, When by her LAWS, from lucent flakes, Halos she fashions aureoles bright, Enwoven in air, and limned with light. Yea ! in this tube through glass refract Rays meet, rays kiss co-mate, co-act Till scraps ofdelph, and shreds of clay, Kiss, and are kissed, by each light-ray ; So shapes, from kiss with kiss are born, And gems of air each shape adorn. 94 INJURESOUL. I turn this tube, with gyrate jars : All air it holds glows bright with stars ! Yea ! like yon heaven, on starry nights My mirrored " space " reflects its lights ! Tell me, geometer precise ! Or limner, wielding pencil nice What mind or hand could chart prepare, To match these STARS, all made of AIR ? Go, now, O ! Science ! and sort your rays : With lens correct their " aberrate " ways ! And tell me, then, if airs are aught More substantive than LIGHT has wrought, When, with your chemic fires, you show Metals and salts in serial flow ? What ! Is your " mind made up," that Laws, Which rule all earth, in air must pause ? That rays of stars, which streamlets break And moon-beams, marred by rippling lake ; And lights of lamps, in vaulted hall, Which flare and flicker, in windy thrall, And wax or wane, with passing mist That all these "common facts" exist ; And yet, forsooth, when once you raise Your tripod frames, and fix their stays Select your camp-ground, lift your brass, With liquid lens, or lens of glas s INJURE SOUL. 95 Mirrors, and lens, and disc a-plomb, And rays re-made by ' ' Fresnel's rhomb " Straightway, you think, your heaven is sure : And, as your zeal for LIGHT is pure, So heaven to bless your " watch by night " Must grant you what you seek PURE LIGHT ! Alas ! . . .when " lights in heaven " were young, Ere sins of men their shadows flung : Ere deeps of airs, and deeps of earth, FIRE-DAMP exhaled, in all their girth ; Haply, this heaven of ours had then PURE LIGHT purveyed, for earthly ken ! But never again, on earth, I ween, Shall heaven's meridian light be seen ; Till all this lamp-lit " Space " of ours, And all our " world of minds " it dowers ; And all these " blue, etherial skies," With all their " facts," and all their lies, Shall, in their own grey ashes, fade And a " new heaven and earth " be made ! Kneel, NEWTON ! lift your thoughts above Those LIGHTS you sought, with prayerful love ! Bow, KEPLER ! with your FAITH sustained, In stars by SINAI'S GOD ordained ! . . . Exult, COPERNICUS ! nor mark, How " aberrate rays " leave angles dark ! 96 1NJURESOUL. Let SCIENCE exult, no less, with charts Of wondrous works, to stir our hearts ! But, in His NAME, who Calvary trod, Let Heaven be childhood's " House of God ! " Let stars, and moon, and sun be ours, MADE FOR MANKIND like fruits and flowers ! So may we walk our earthly sward ; SCIENCE with GOD in calm accord ! Lift up our souls, with seer of star ! And mark sweet heaven, with " gates ajar ! '' SCIENCE ! descend ! yet rise ! . . . explore These airs you breathe, to learn their lore ! Unlearn your guess-work. AIR is yours, To glean, for human helps and cures ! Unsay your twaddle of " burnt-out " moons, Dead rivers sunk from lunar dunes ; Comets careering, meteors hurled Millions of miles, from world to world ; Ignore your books ! obliterate lore ! Your theories new your schools of yore ! Yet shall your works, by LIGHT imprest, Burn on yon heaven's blue palimpsest ! There, in all ambient airs you breathe, LIGHT waits your threads of thoughts to wreathe ! So may all manly souls, erect, On mysteries of AIR reflect : INJURE SOUL. 97 Still, as in dream which JACOB dreamed, See heaven, as over JOB it beamed ! See stairs of stars still grandly rise, In splendors drest, of dazzling dyes ! All tender tints of moon-lit airs, All shades of gold which eve-light bears ; Rose-flush of morn, and sea-shell hues, Polychromed, as when heats infuse Lime-light, in glass : and sunshine paints Casements of church, with pictured saints ; Ceintured and robed, as limnings rare, When MARY mounts on stars in air ! Sweet-hearted Myth, for simple soul ! Shining on WOMAN, in deathly dole ! Hushing her, while those words she hears : "And HE shall wipe away all tears ! " . . . 98 INJURESOUL, FYTTE EIGHTH. Huyghens instructs of lucent rills Rippling adown etherial hills ; "While Newton writes of molecule rays, At " bo-peep " games, on stellar ways ! . . . Nor sage nor seer, with science fraught, In all this wide world's years of thought, One TRIUNE TRUTH makes known which I NATURE-TAUGHT lift, this day, on high ! No utterance void from brain-sick wight, Flaunting DEMENTIA'S fire-damp light, By doleful doubts, or faith absurd, Prompted to lift his weakling word : No vain surmise, from dreaming mind, Book-taught, by blind men leading blind : But " plain, blunt " words I write, good sooth ! For that my WILL declares them TRUTH ! One Triune Truth ! .... My pen may pause ; Pause, ere it writes repealing clause ; O'er-ruling laws by mankind made, For LAWS DIVINE, on God -head stayed. For well may MIND, with earnest ware, Halt, on this march, which soul must dare IN JURE SOUL. 99 Mounting on Light, until her sight Sees GOD in Mysteries of Light ! Laws co-eterne with GOD ! WHO WAS ! WHO Is ! .... Himself His own FIRST CAUSE ! Laws for all things He made ! . . . . nor less, Laws for His Own High Consciousness ! Transcendant thought, for seers to write : " Dwelling in Light !" . . . yea ! "God is Light ! " Translucent thought, in childhood's prayer : " God sees me ! "... " God is everywhere ! " Why, then, when MIND for LIGHT inquires, Through seas and airs, with woven wires And finds it, in each sand-grain smit, Each atom of air, by candle lit ... Why, then, shall I mine eyesight glaze, Peering for sparks, in aerial maze, Through sand and air, as glass, combined So LIGHT may bless mine eyes, my mind When, in each unit of matter, I learn More than all seers of stars discern ? I lift my heart I poise my soul, O'er glittering glows of girandole ; O'er dog-eared leaves of lectures learn'd, What years my sense for Science burned : DO INJURESOUL. My lights I see ... my lights, as LAWS ! LAWS of my INFINITE FIRST CAUSE ! I ask no " Schools," with SCIENCE fraught, No books, to trace my TRIUNE THOUGHT ! It shines in hearth-fire beams in sun Telling me ..." LIGHT ! HEAT ! AIR ! are ONE !" LIGHT is GOD MANIFEST ! with clasp On BIBLE page, this Thought I grasp ! HEAT is FORCE MANIFEST ! . . . Endorse This Thought, O ! SCIENCE ! . . . All HEAT is FORCE All AIR is MOVEMENT MANIFEST ! . . . And here my point d'appuil rest ! 44 Tom doubts ! Bob laughs ! ... I but remark; Asking what bears electric spark ? What bears through air, these pictured traits Of faces, forms, toward metal plates? Are they not PASSED, from place to place ? Shadowed, unseen, each form, each face ? Some FORCE transmits, some FORCE completes, Your limner's work, through acid heats ! SOMETHING, as lights and shades, must PASS From face, from form, toward camera glass ! POWER must control this Force in air MOVEMENT these lights and shades must bear ! What dwells in all for COMMON SENSE ? My FAITH cries out .... *' OMNIPOTENCE !" INJURE SOUL. 10 MOVEMENT ! and FORCE ! through swerveless LAWS Swayed by my " INFINITE FIRST CAUSE ! " Yea ! as I write these words, I know, His MOVEMENT makes my senses glow : LIGHT, to my Mind, His LAWS fore-send ; My thoughts, my words, His FORCES lend ; Still, in degrees my WILL demands, FORCED for my working brains and hands ! Till, as my final page I fill, SENSE whispers "Print ! " and REASON : " I WILL ! Pondered my words ! my FAITH to prove : That never an atom in SPACE may move Nor molecule stir, as atom is thrilled, Until the ETERNAL MIND has WILLED ! " Give Light ! " roars AJAX, blind with fight ! " Light ! " dying GOETHE moans " More Light ! " " Light ! " Bob demands ! . . . And yet all airs Bear light for jibes, and light for prayers : And light on every brain-lobe waits With imprint as for picture plates ! . . . And every whispered word, which thrills On air-flows, as its utterer WILLS ; Let it be falsehood Bob declaims Let it be fiction Beecher frames 102 INJURESOUL. Let it be woman's dying appeal, That Heaven may hear, and man may feel : All utterance made, in ambient air, LIGHT shall imprint as LANGUAGE there ! . . . Oh ! INJURESOUL ! . . . . May WISDOM thrill, Responsive even to atheist WILL ? Yea ! . . . . For those fires which MOSES felt, When under SINAI'S VOICE, he knelt, Still, by Eternal TWIN-LAWS live Patient, all earthly helps to give ! 46 Still, as yon MOON her radiance sheds On murderers, crouched by dreamers' beds ; Yea, as yon SUN his beams bestows On lifted swords, for tyrant's blows ; So WISDOM waits . . . her heart-heat throbs, For saints and seers for Toms and Bobs ! . . . Waits for each SENSE, to ask for LIGHTS Lends them, at once for wrongs or rights ! . . . Hers not to " reason " on Good or 111 : Hers but to yield constrained by WILL ! Yea ! by ETERNAL LAWS constrained, SENSE to subserve as GOD ordained ! So SENSE, as MIND so MIND, as WILL, " Free thought " may frame " Free Agent " still ! , IN JURE SOUL. 103 Yea ! INJURESOUL ! .... so dwells your MIND FREE ! ... as your MAKER'S WILL design'd ! And your own WILL, which REASON you name, Flows with His AIR and fills your frame ! When ventral heats make heats of brain, And thoughts, as WORDS, in ' ' lightning train, " Speed, as upon electric wires, Nerve-born from Nature's ambient fires ; Fires in all airs, which " battery " draws, Where battery works by NATURE'S LAWS ! Fires everywhere ! This man, who lights My gas-jets, and my coals ignites : Yon savage man, whose sticks attrite, Till mutual heats a flame ignite , Shall tell how occult airs, in all Molecules of matter, wait but call ; Wait, with inert but instant fires, Till contact stirs electric spires ! And it is mine to tell, that LIFE, In every sentient structure rife, Its heats receives from aerial heats, Its sense but aerial sense repeats ; And all its glows and thrills are given, In flows and thrills from airs of heaven ! LIFE for all hearts ! and LIGHT for brains I AIR feeds all flows ! all heats maintains ! 104 INJURESOUL. Deftly your " DEMONSTRATOR " probes These coils of nerves, and terms them lobes , Tissues divides, and traces curves Of thread-like skeins, and calls them nerves ; Spire-woven, as silk, on soft cocoons : And then quotes " BELL," or " MOTT,'' and croons His gentle jokes, perhaps while showing How " dead men tell no tales " worth knowing ! "Blood circulates! "... Smug surgeon's guess ! Three hundred years gone questionless ! . . . And this my Common Sense debates How blood, self-moving, " circulates ! " Upward and downward, flux and ebb ; Through valves, and veins, and visceral web ; And tints a child with pink-white flush, Or cheeks of youth with rosier blush ; Curdles with fear, burns red with rage ; Boils in hot manhood, creeps in age ; Expands in heat, contracts in chill, Yet drips as RED blood RED BLOOD still ! Yea ! Common Sense ! ... If Harvey's plan, Blood-flows presumes, for beast and man, If artery's blood more purely glows, By chemic test, than venous flows ; And if, surcharged with noxious gas, All venous blood through air must pass INJURE SOUL. 103 How is it, then, when veins are bled, Their flows are always SALT and RED ? Yea ! though tney traverse sanious humors, In leprous lymph, and turgent tumors ! 1 ' Blood circulates !" From cardial veins, Flush-tides of blood, toward toes and brains ! Swiftly to ebb so SCIENCE saith Back to your heart-lobes, breath by breath ! Almost as thought itself might reel it, Blood floods your frame . . . nor do you feel it ! Heart-lobes 1 our " gates of life ! " Not mine To trench, unlearned, on surgeon's line ; Nor, with trite tropes of speech, discourse Of cardial engine's laboring force ; Of ventral furnace-fires below, And food-coals for combustion's glow ! Enough for me, this heart-in-halves Now opes, now shuts, with flexile valves ; While light-hued tides flow forth, to flood My veins, and vivify my blood ! Enough to know that cleansing force, Still sucks up foulness, with each course : Until this air I breathe, each bout, Lung-driving, drives malaria out And still, my REASON inquires, how flows May dribble in drops from fractured nose ? 106 INJURE SOUL. Or as a whale spouts blood, with brine, Per sallum, under harpoon line How blood arterial makes its way, Through artery squeezed by tourniquet ; My sense inquires how heart-pump sends Blood-currents round, from ends to ends Way-speed required, by " foot-pound " reckoned, Ten thousand horse-power force, per second ? Valves open ! . . . Ventricles expel ! . . . Gush follows gush swell urging swell ! Now, hold your breath ! count sixty ! What ? No fret no flurry of surges hot ? Pulse calm and in your veins no rush ! . . . Count on ! . . . now feel your heart-beat ! . . Hush ! How faintly falls that engine throb ! . . . Steam-guage at zero ! . . . DIE, poor Bob ! * Doctors, from wise Hippocrates, To dubious Dioscorides ; And doctors, following Galen's track, To Paracelsus sage and quack ; Who " cupped " for cancers, " bled " for bile, And purged, as " humors," chyme and chyle ; All were content with ways they saw, Exampled by some NATURAL law ! Where currents flowed, with rippling curl, And eddies caused concentric swirl ; INJURESOUL. 107 Their simple sapience ne'er divined That " circulating " streams could wind ; Now out, now in by self-same force Till Doctor HARVEY'S droll discourse Showed Charles the First how valves, by shutting, Sent blood upon your toes abutting ! Vain SCIENCE ! . . . Bob with Tom again ! Nature still misconceived by men ! . . . King Charles believed it ! so 'tis said ! . . . Well ! the poor king soon "lost his head ! " icS INJURE SOUL. FYTTE NINTH. He nobly erred ! . . . . Not mine to shred Leaflet from HARVEY'S laureled head ! First of all minds, from LULLY'S days, Clue-lines to catch, through Learning's maze ; Though his own threads, from outer air, To labyrinth lured, and left him there ! 4? " Food-fuel ! ". . - Yea ! your stomach fill ! And, from alembic heats, distil " Food-force ! " " Kinetic force ! '' Thereafter, " Life-force ! "... for joys, pains, tears, and laughter ! This is^our^cjENCE ! . . . . Upshot of all Men's minds have learned, since " Adam's Fall ! " . . . Since Adam and Eve felt force to kiss, And BOB, the SERPENT, force to hiss ! But whence, O ! BOB ! " combustion's " heat, Ere Adam's jaw-bones moved to EAT ? And before eating what ? When first, EVE, upon ADAM'S glad eyes, burst, Lifted she not her own sweet eyes ?. .. Felt she no impulse of surprise ? No life-breath, and no pulse to stir Till Adam plucked some FRUITS for her ? . . . . INJURE SOUL. 109 " Food-force ! " "food-fuel ! " and then her heart Drove life-blood towards each vital part ; And her pure body, at once alas ! Distilled . . . . " carbonic acid gas !" ! Thou All-Making " SPIRIT OF LIGHT ! " Shall Christians doubt, when thoughts I write, Mindful of words, with meaning rife : " " Into man's nostrils breathed HE life ! " Plain Scripture words ! No force but BREATH ! From infant's birth, to dotard's death ! Force of all airs, all winds, all waves ! Yea ! of all fires, from volcan caves. Blow, from your shoulder, fells an ox ; Round-shot, from cannon, sunders rocks : Breath, from your lungs, makes bugle blare 1 find ONE FORCE for all .... 'tis AIR ! 48 Yea ! and from AIR alone these words, These thoughts of mine, like trills of birds, Or bird-wing's flash, or smile of wife, Borne to my heart, on breath of life Borne through these auricles, which close, And open, as life-breath, ceaseless, flows ; And, from this battery-fire which beats In ventric cells, with centric heats, io INJURESOUL. Nerve-borne, like lightning- flash, to glint On plates of brain my thoughts to print ! Brain-plates I . .why not? With chemic bite, Metals ye grave, by force of Light ! . .. Instant, when chemic fires ye mix, Yon flying steeds on plate ye fix ! . .. Through convex lens, with centric rays. Light ye converge, for fiery blaze : . . . . Light, out of lime-light battery, glares, With instant flame, on midnight airs ! What if my MIND exploring seas, And airs, and earth, for " facts" like these NATURE'S analogies ! shall catch True light, from even a "friction match?" LIGHT, for my soul's untutored reach Lessons, my heart's quick pulses teach : Match-light, of yore, which Grecian wit Struck out, like tinder-sparks, to flit ! Lessons, half conned, from age to age ; Dim doubts rehearsed, by page on page : Till gleamed, at last, CARTESIAN word By FAITH ignored by Science blurred ! Master-word ! lost ! through sad compliance Of Christian minds, with REASON of Science ! " Vortices ! " HELMHOLTZ now declares All which DES CARTES conceived in airs ! INJURESOUL. Test after test one proving finds Vortex still veers where fluid winds ! And in each atom of air we breathe Vortex with vortex " rings " enwreathe ; Atom with atom, in ceaseless course, And in each atom an unknown'force : SCIENCE now sees it ! .... Helmholtz ! Gould ! Thomson ! and Stokes ! By Science schooled ! Force in each atom of ambient airs ! SCIENCE this time-worn truth declares ; And in each atom of earth, she shows, Carbon abides, for igneous glows ; And in each atom of water, as well, Force, as in ambient airs, must dwell ; And in all animal natures beat Pulses, by life's combustive heat ! Heats, in BEHEMOTH, woven as wires, Scourge seas and soils with stormful gyres ! Yea ! on yon ' ' seas of ice," we mark, Flame flashing up, through winters dark ! . . . . What more ? LIGHT, HEAT, and AIR ; I name- TRIUNE ! my three-in-one ! my FLAME ! Atoms make molecules, Newton states ; But whence, for atoms, are " ultimates? " What lens shall help scrutative Mind UNITS, of unseen flows, to find ? 1 2 INJURESOUL. As fractions flowed, for Hahnemann's brain, Down to decillionth parts of grain ? Cut bono / J . . . .Science on quibbles dotes ; Dissecting hairs, and measuring motes ! . . . . What boots it, if, through microscopes, Bee-hairs appear like hawser-ropes? Or if, beyond all glass-eyed ken, Life dwells in spores of tHallogen ? This have we learned, of Nature's course Each atom of air is atom of FORCE ! Each atom distinct, with power per se ! And that one fact is Science for me ; For that my wits one sequence draw " Concourse of atoms ! " is NATURE'S LAW ! :0 " Concourse of atoms ! " Old heathen guess 1 Back to its truth we come, no less ! Sunward, these days, our Light we seek Towards ANAXAGORAS, the GREEK ! Greek of all Greeks ! whose reason intense Worshipped " SUPREME INTELLIGENCE ! " God ! the " All-shaping Spirit ! " whose MIND Made all things, as His WILL designed Ruled all things, as His MOVEMENT stirred ! " Life ! Light ! and Love ! "His WILL.... His WORD ! ' All making FLAME ! all-mastering FLAME ! Creation's Fount Creation's Frame! INJURE SOUL. 113 Thy realm as fixed, by LAWS DIVINE, As arcs are fixed in spheric line ; Thine the SOLE ORB, SOLE SPHERE, in Space ! Its bound defined assigned its place ! 58 All stirring FLAME ! whence motions are, For spears of grass, and spires of star ; For heats of airs which lights reveal, Nor less for lights which airs conceal !. . , . Thy welling life thy swelling love, All deeps beneath, all heights above ; Nor atom of earth, nor atom of sea, Nor atom of air, untouched by thee !. . . . O'er Reason estrayed, o'er MIND perverse, NATURE still walks her UNIVERSE ; Still, for Mankind, her bosom fond ; Golden with fruitage, green with frond ; FLAME, as her earthly garment's hem And FLAME her heavenly diadem ! O ! SCIENCE ! astute art thou, as erst, When Chaldee seer their lore rehearsed ! Book-lights reflect thy lights of Brain ! Book-prints thy myriad thoughts retain ! . . . . Bulk upon bulk, of crude conceits ! Platforms and stagings cleats on cleats ! ( Books bricking Babels up All tongues Telling their " minds," from ladder rungs ; ii4 INJURE SOUL. And, on your topmost transom bars One eye cocked earthwise, one at stars TOM ! as Contractor ;" "squat, like toad ! " With jokes to crack o'er laborer's load ! " And BOB ! with " REASON enthroned ! " . . . yea ! BOB " Bossing " an ever-unfinished job ! Speech in all minds confounded ! Thoughts, Summed, in some units, countless aughts ; While Christians, Turks, and Jews wax wise, With this conceit, and that surmise ! Minds of poor children, minds of men, Made up by twirls of tongue or pen ; This man all creeds decries, but one ; That man all creeds alike would shun : SCIENCE can brook no GOD like Job's ; Yet prates of LAWS for whirling globes ; So INJURESOUL, in "trial of cause," Appeals to judge, for rule by LAWS ; But when he dares his GOD to doubt, LAWS he would quote with JUDGE left out ! ' ' Back -bone ! " says Bob : " No bending knees ! Onward ! Quod libet ! 'As you please ! ' ' " More LIGHT ! " cries John to Dick ..." More beer ! All that we know is we are here ! Priest knows no more than Bob and Tom ! To DUST we go, as dust we're from ! ". . . . INJURE SOUL, 115 All the " old gods " of Grecia's boast Are dust ! . . . Now, then, that " greatest GHOST " " God of the Bible " is bound to go ! 'Tis COURTLAND PALMER tells US SO ! Voicing his " mind," from "Century Club ! " Pan-sophist, for Beelzebub ! Rid us, O ! Reason ! of " POWER ABOVE ! " Quod libet, then !...." Eat, drink, and love ! " " Eat ! drink ! and love ! " he said " the rest Not worth a fillip ! " . . . and then caressed By woman, who shared his wine, and way SARDANAPALUS died one day ! Finished his bier so legends tell Took his last "smoke " and went to BEL ! Torch-light and ashes ! Flame, to guide Guilt to its goal through suicide ! Thus, in all cycles, " mind made up " With kiss of woman and dregs of cup Mounts unto doom, and, with some flashes Of flickering fire-damp, falls to ashes ! Pass, INJURESOUL ! Your Gorgon shield I've struck, because, on fateful field, Its horrent snakes, in shining guise, Coil where my Christian gauntlet lies ; That gauntlet which my FAITH has cast At SKEPTICISM, in all the past : n6 INJURESOUL. At ATHEISM, and all its jeers, Belittling human hopes and fears ! . . But well I wot, no Gorgon dire, Nor dread Chimaera, belching fire, For gruesome Graee, nor Harpies foul, Nor shapes of nameless things, could scowl, With angrier hates for human kind, Than SCIENCE frames, from DARWIN'S mind ! And without doubt, that DARWIN'S brain Repelled all phosphor fires of PAINE, Yet do I trace, from DARWIN'S search Through ways forbidden, an abject CHURCH ! And, without doubt, that HUXLEY holds Toward Christian creeds, of modern moulds- Yet, under fossils Huxley heaps, I track the trail where serpent creeps ; Creeps to my Christian church, and glides Within its open gates, and hides Concrescive coils, in chancel shade ; Till, for its hiss receptive made, Poor men may listen, and women hear, And their young babes, with eager ear, "Knowledge of evil and good " obtain Under the "corpse light" of Tom Paine ! What marvel is it ? And why this moan, That seeds of weeds bv Bob are sown ? INJURE SOUL. When monstrous things, unmatched by worst Of skeptic lies, by Bob rehearsed ; Things that are nameless things extrorse From wombs which blasted nature's course Are dragged, this day, from sunken sod, To testify against my GOD ? Scripture belied, for Christian flocks : Bible contemned, for "books of rocks !" Fossils, exhumed from charnel pit, Witness against all Holy Writ ! 5 * Witness that years by MILLIONS ran, Godless, ere MIRE created Man ! What marvel is it, if church is reft Of even its few dear doctrines left ? Your old-time altars razed, to raise New piles, for match with modern days ; Old hymns new-rhymed to suit new times. And a new CHRIST to suit new rhymes ! What marvel is it, O ! Christian hearts ! If WORKS remain, while FAITH departs ? Or if within your temple-gate "Corpse light" and church light miscegenate ? 55 O ! bat-blind seer ! and owl-wise sage ! Blow out your lamp-lights ! blot your page ! Affront not " lights in heaven," with glares Of glass, transecting glints of airs ! n 8^ INJURE SOUL. Seek for your lights, where fire abides, All days, all nights, in aereal tides : Even as it flames on waters dark, In phosphor flash from beak of bark ! . . . Seek, where OMNIFIC LAWS impel Molecule with molecule still to dwell ; In atoms of air, heat atoms pent Lights, airs, and heats, inseparate blent ; While kind and kind, through NATURE'S course, MOVEMENTS accept as heats enforce ; HEAT, AIR, and LIGHT ! their units ONE ! In MOVELESS EARTH .... in MOBILE SUN ! . . . Yea, Bob ! with arrogance of LIGHT, Star-seers may prop their globes by night ; Forth from our shadowed earth to peer, At SOLAR worlds, by STAR-LIGHT clear ! Guessing, at midnight hours poor men ! Why their own SOL should hide from ken ! . . . . OUR Sol! with bulk eight hundred fold ! Miles off ! some ninety millions told ! But never one small, periphery arc, To bless our eyes, in earthly dark ! . . . Save only what " Eclipse" discloses, When glass we crock, and crock our noses 1 5o And MIND, with "stellar facts " full fed, Accepts this mundane mould we thread 1NJURESOUL. 119 As a "small orb," quite lost in Space ; Scudding its annual solar race ! And REASON is told that orb so small Shadows all beams from solar ball ! . . . . So that no glass, nor naked sight, Can catch one ray from realms of light, Even as if shades of mountain grot, All sunshine from all cliffs could blot ; Yea ! as if hay-cock, reared on meadow, Could shade all fields beyond its shadow ! Powerless yon priest, of Afric stock, While witlings jeer, and magnates mock ! Powerless, that Christian priest, to prove What his FAITH feels that " Sun DO move ! " But feebler far in LIGHT'S defiance "Religion RECONCILED with Science! " 1 20 INJURESOUL. FYTTE TENTH. Bad work is wild work ! . . . . Skeptic hits His hearers where there's lack of wits ; Where cranks consort, with softening brains, And Vice veneers venereal stains ; And atheist women, ashamed of sex, Men's morals to their own annex ; When POLYANDRIA wails her woes, And slips her husbands, like her hose ; And sleek MALTHUSIA shirks her cares, While " Science " shields her lord from heirs ; . So be it ! .... Let worm with serpent wed ! So be it ! .... and DUST make marriage bed ! Enough ! As INJURESOUL, I name All Bobs and Toms ! . . . . with fame or shame ! While scent with scent, on mildewed airs, Malaria makes malaria shares ! For, as I said these Bobs and Toms Ate dust in Egypt's catacombs ! Sneered at Osiris belched at Bel ; Doubted if Pluto reigned in Hell ; Always old creeds at variance with ; And quick with change for novel myth ; INJURE SOUL. Till, in our days, as divers "cranks" Still at their immemorial pranks " WILL- POWER each "willing" mind discovers : God of "Free Livers ! ". .. and " Free Lovers ! " WILL- POWER ! as power of steam ye state ! By horse-power dynams foot-pound weight ! . . . Why not ? .... No brute-force acts, to shake Sound earth, with fierce, collapsing quake, Worse than relentless powers of WILL With ways to waste, and means to kill ! Striding o'er earth, with dreadful tread ; By MIND illumed by REASON out-led ! WILL- POWER ! . . . Yea ! Science shows to us, Will-power of Turks, o'er trod by Russ ; Will-power of Germans, grinding Gaul ! And the same FORCE empowering all ; Blind Force ! By TRUPP, from NATURE riven ! Fire-force in AIR ! . .. Yea ! Force from Heaven ! I muse on MATTER ! on matter stirred : As nerve moves pen, and pen makes word ; As leaves, on autumn winds, are borne, In heaps, beyond all standing corn ; Or whirled as if by concert held Toward roots of trees, by FORCE impelled ; And sea-sands heaved, on sea-side sands, And sea-shore sands toward barren lands ; 22 INJURE SOUL. And trickling rills, and devious brooks, Sea-trending still, by countless crooks ; Nor barred by hills, nor swerving back ! Save for fresh FORCE, to break their track ! Now lost from sight now risen again ; Yea ! as if ruled by REASON of men ! Plunging in Dead Sea's brine, to make Ways under earth, their floods to take : Until beyond yon Afric surges JORDAN, in RED SEA'S waves, emerges ! Will-Power ! And whence ? . . . Your mid-night dream With words, thoughts, vivid acts, may teem ! Yet, when your startled senses wake, No retrospect shall MEMORY take ! Is it your WILL your MIND benumbs, When thoughts are marred by rattling drums ? Or jangling bells make mind distraught ? Or is it WILL, which harrows thought, When mind, with jealous doubts o'er-run, Still "makes the meat it feeds upon ? " Or is it WILL, which harbors fears, When hungry WANT your threshhold nears, And mindful SENSE, with cares o'erfraught, In drowning " drink " would STIFLE thought ? . . . . No questions these for flippant pause ! Their answer waits in NATURE'S LAWS ! INJURE SOUL. i 23 WILL ! and you call it REASON, O ! Bob ! Will 1 whirling on your angry mob, Firing obnoxious church . . . .until, With " Catling guns," comes COUNTER WILL ! What's FEAR, but WILL to run ? what's PLUCK, But will to fight ? . . . WILL "runs amuck," When mad Malays their " minds " release, Will-power sustained by powers in CREESE Cut, from that creese-hilt, finger-grip Your madman flies from lifted whip ! MIND, on his brain with instant thrill Bids him be off ! . . . .and that's his WILL ! Dispute it, Bob ! . . .Tell us, that brain Softens and makes these MINDS insane I Well, then, what faculty perpends, In madman's brain, misleading friends, Or baffling foes, with occult skill Till " mind made up " shall work his WILL ? IDEAS like wavelets, gathering force May wind their ways, with unknown course ; But if, to ACT, their force impel, Tis MIND which wields them sick or well ! Fancy, with fitful force, may thrill VOICE it, or ACT it ... 'tis your WILL ! T24 INJURESOUL. And " Reason enthroned " is WILL ! What more What less ? what else ? " Two twos are four ! " SENSE tells you this ! Your EYES perceive : These numbers, as your THOUGHT, you weave Your creed your reason ! and you may still Conceal or utter it as you WILL ! . . . So, Bob's high REASON as " god and lord " Is Bob's OWN WILL ! by. Bob adored ! Bob leads all " self-made men," by odds : HIMSELF he makes his " god of gods !".... Thoughts are but WORDS ! to make up mind, As beads upon a string you bind ! But whence are WORDS ?....! ask not Watts, Locke, Boyle, or Reid, what makes your thoughts : Since SENSE, alone for beast or man Makes mind, to feel, seek, find, or plan ! . . . . Max Miiller ! astute philologist ! For Oxford grinding "Aryan" grist Miiller his prompt opinion perks, That words were made for mind, by jerks ; Spit as " popt-corn " when sense (by springs) Heard, saw, smelt, touched, or tasted things ! . . . . So much for Miiller and divers wits Scrap-booking SPEECH, by ' ' bric-brac " bits : Cow-moo, and sheep-bleat, dog-bark, goose-hiss ! With "bow-wow theory " Max abuses ! INJURESOUL. I25 WORDS ! what are lexicons of words, But bleats of lambs, and trills of birds, Till SENSE associates word with THOUGHT, And MIND, with serried words, is wrought ? Cat caterwauls, and terrier yelps : They voice their WILLS for hurts and helps ; And SENSE, for beast, for bird, for fish, ' ' Perception " gives for WILL for WISH ! " Instinct " it is ! my BOOKS explain ! "Something within 1 " says book-lit BRAIN ! But will you POSIT its force " within," Which stirs a worm, impaled on pin ? . . . , Is it in brains of squid or slug ? Is it in belly of headless bug ? If brain of bird impels to sing, What moves your jelly-fish to sting? O ! fine-spun REASON ! O ! subtle MIND ! Your "introspect," how bright ! how blind !. . . . Some " power within " (you think) occult Makes a flea skip like catapult ! While MAN, poor biped ! hardly speeds, With WILL to chase down millepedes ! . . . . Flea skips some sixty times its length ! Mosketos buzz with bag pipe strength ; Ambush they lie in ! blood they scent ! Dodge blows by " reasoning " MIND well-meant 126 INJURE SOUL. 'Till a man's brain for sleep inclined They addle ! . . . And yet you doubt their Mind ! So Science sees poor insects quail, Retract their legs, when pins impale ; Antennae clasped, like hands you fold, Helpless, when heats of heart grow cold ! Science sees fish from nets out-flop, And birds, pursued, toward shelter drop : SENSES (stirred first) sensorium smite ! Cause queried guessed WILL, then, and flight !- Self-same such sequences of thrills, For men, for mites ! . . . . their MINDS ! their WILLS ! GOD sways by LAWS ! . . . . His LAWS ordain That WILL alone o'er earth shall reign ! Whatso Man WILLS, in all his ways, FORCE " backs" him in all nights, all days; Force, in all grains of soils and seeds, Helps when he WILLS, for harvest needs ; Force, in all veins, all nerves, all thews, Helps him all faculties to use ! Force, at his WILL, waits everywhere ; And, wheresoever it waits 'tis AIR ! AIR everywhere ! . . . . And if its powers Comprest, or in expanse be ours ; Engines to urge, until their force Transcend all powers of ox or horse ; INJURESOUL. What, then, if AIR we breathe, to live, All MOTIVE-POWEK of life shall give ? What if these complex frames we wear, Are ENGINES moved by FORCE of AIR ? Dynams of air, like steam-force drawn, For veins, and nerves, for thews and brawn ; Heat-force, ELECTRIC, fed by thrills For hearts, and brains, and minds, and WILLS ? Yea ! if unseen, unfelt efflux From a man's face, through air, conducts His facial traits for phototype, Touched, as by master-skill of CUYP Wherefore not flows of unfelt air, Pictures of thoughts, for BRAIN, to bear ? SOMETHING must reach receptive sense Substance must TOUCH with power intense I If it be only AIR, which thrills, By " pressure-points " as reasoning wills Whence is its force ? and how may brain Such myriad shades of thought retain ? And when we pause with memory blurred Whence, at our wills, come thought and word ? WORDS make IDEAS ! From birth to death, Words upon words we make, with breath : What now, if breath,- propulsive, mould Each utterance of our lips, and hold i 2 8 INJURE SOUL. Impress of words? as facial traits, Air-borne, are etched on photo-plates ? Is it less wonderful, to trace These transcripts of your pictured face Passing through flowing air, commixt With flowing lights, till ART has fixt NATURE'S true semblance ? is it, O ! MIND ! Less marvellous, that words, are lined By lightning-sparks, from WILLS to WILLS?... And why not sparks, for THINKING thrills ? . . . . When our low lip-words, tone by tone, Make audible AIR through telephone ? Why should we halt for guess-work ? There, O ! REASON ! are ALL your WORDS ! .... in AIR ! Air ! Were it LOST, what else remains ? What is there else, ALL ELSE contains ? What is there else eludes all quest, When crucial heats enforce your test ? Fires cannot search out AIR Ye fill Retorts ! MALARIA ye "distil ! Naming its poisons class by class So be it ! Eliminate each gas And, as your red alembic beats Potential with consuming heats There, at its core electric there, In its white heat flows NATURE'S AIR ; IN JURE SOUL. 129 AIR, as it flows for us when breath ( Freed in our hearts from seeds of death) Kisses all ducts of blood, with stress Of strength, and whirls those VORTICES Men have named CORPUSCLES, which bear Force for all functions .... FORCE of AIR ! . . . Force in each breath we breathe ! . . . Yea, Bob ! Swell your big heart, with pulsive throb ! Flash your IDEAS out ! roll each word Stentorian, as your lungs are stirred ! . . . GOD help you ! . . . If 'twere yours this night, To feel that flash, on blinded sight, SAUL felt, what time DAMASCUS gate Opened for him, on " street called STRAIGHT," Haply, ONE breath of bracing breeze Might cast you on your trembling knees ; With your brow bright your bosom bare ; And your heart drinking LIGHT from AIR ! 130 INJURE SOUL. FYTTE ELEVENTH. Men die for CREEDS ! . . . But never an age Wrote MARTYRS' names on sceptic page ! Men of all lands their gods have zoned, In heavenly airs, nor gods disowned ; Alike for JOVE alike for Joss Dying, by faggot, scaffold, cross ! But never, I ween, with loyal trust, Has atheist REASONER died for DUST 1 Death is your goal, Bob ! Dupes of " CHANCE " At a rope's end may end their dance ! Some bloody MINDS by priest are shriven, And KETCH cries " All aboard, for heaven ! ' While others, Bob- wise, kick the rope, Without one prayer without one hope ! But, if your " world's mind " marshals out ONE atheist MARTYR, dying for DOUBT And chirping " CHANCE ! " with choking throb- Tell us what DIRT he died on, Bob ! I cannot reckon how stubborn WILL May check-rein hold on dying thrill ; Or muzzle a man at dying pass, Cutting his throat before a glass ! . . : UtfVKSSOUL. 13 r Nor do I reckon it -pro or con What death-bed proved, for ADDISON, More than it proved for THOMAS PAINE : For WILL may tug, with stoic strain When savage chieftain, girt by foes, All tortures bears, nor tremor shows ! From Darwin's dust his breath might pass, Sobless, as breath of ox or ass ; And Beecher's brawn his brain may brace, With dying thoughts of " saving grace ; " And RENAN, dying at ease, may sigh " See how IDEALISM can die ! "... "Agnostic" even ere brain succumb May say, with sickening WILL. ..." Sic sum I" While Death shall damp an ATHEIST boast, When COURTLAND PALMER sees. . . his " GHOST ! " 58 But, if, your ATHEIST calmly stand, With " mind made up," and razor in hand And tender eyes on tearful wife His infant at her font of life ; And if he THEN says " Honor bright ! 'Tis but a " short cut " wife ! good night !".... "Game " he may be ! So much I'll own ! But " game " we COUNT, when " dice " are THROWN ! No, sir ! Your play's not yet " played out ! " You're not yet DEAD ! my man of "doubt ! " 132 INJURES OUL. Nor, when your eyes, on woman and babe, Close and your earthly astrolabe, Whirls all its rings, as rings run round, For a man bludgeon'd, hanged, or drowned ! Yea ! though your frame fall, prone to earth ; Blood-wet your chamber's carpet-girth ; Still must you THINK ! with quicker mind, Than ever before, in life ! nor blind, With DOUBTS, at that LAST HOUR supreme ! LIGHT shall be yours. . . .with LIGHTNING gleam ! Ah ! INJURESOUL ! .... If WILL so loose From NATURE'S laws, for MIND obtuse ; If HEART, estranged from love and life ( Albeit the dolt might " love " his wife) Could, for ONE INSTANT, thrill with LIGHT, Which burned on MINE, one dying night ! Yea ! burned upon my dying heart ! When, with such throes and throbs as part Body from soul and with my MIND Conscious of all each sense defined, I sank, like wretch by hand impelled Toward yawning chasm and o'er it held ! Supine my soul suppressed my breath ! Dying through deadly fear of death ! . . . . And at that mortal hour Oh ! GOD ! Feeling all ways my walks had trod INJUKESOUL. BASELESS behind me ! ... .even as his, (Lured through Egyptian mysteries,) Who scaled ascending stairs each round From foot-hold lost, in gulf profound ; Till death-grip, at abysmal brim, SAVED him. . . .all crumbling under him !. . . 39 Yea ! 1 rehearsed that hideous dream ! Whiles, in my LIGHT'S electric gleam, All MEMORIES, of my LIFE returned : Record, by fires of CONSCIENCE burned ! Record, each passing SOUL must read, Ere MIND, from earthly SENSE, be freed \ Dream-Sense ! . . . And yet no poppy-flowers, Wimpling DE QUINCEY'S poison'd powers ; No hasheesh, eaten in Eastern land No nodous nerves, in skull trepann'd Did ever, as mortal MIND, combine Such " michen malicho, '' as mine; When " will-o'-th'-wisp " my senses led, And all my mind with fancies fed ; And whereso'er its dance I traced, Phantoms I imaged, phantoms chased ! By wildered WILL, in wildered ways, My MIND impressed, through nights and days, And yet my REASON invoked, to guide All movements, and all ways decide ! . . . 134 INJURESOUL. " Reflection," at my call, subvened ; Books brought to bear, where bias leaned ; Calm cogitation, pondering acts ; Slow dubitation, measuring "facts ;".... Enough ! my MIND a "skeptic" made ! . . . My SOUL was on my Saviour stayed ! " LIKE unto LIKE! " and " kind with kind ! " And fire-damp LIGHT for faithless mind ! No WISDOM shines for ' ' skeptic " brains, Where REASON alone o'er SENSES reigns ! Let grave -worms creep to grave-yard goal ! Pass, TOMS and BOBS ! pass INJURESOUL ! What ails our MIND ! It lacks not wit Nor "facts "like " proofs of Holy Writ ! "- That AIRS we breathe all bases yield, By stress of heats, to FORMS annealed ! And that with TIME allowed our wills Might mould out meadows, rear up hills : Yea ! by man's means ! -nor " buts " nor " ifs " Pile Pelions ! Ossas ! Teneriffes ! And yet, yon TenerifTe abuts On soils which AIR from Science shuts ; MALARIA'S Nessus shirt, which eats Poor Human Strength, with AFRIC heats ! . . . . What REASON is this, your TOMS enthrone ? Your BOBS, by ground-glass lens, make known ? INJURE SOUL. 135 What worlds are these, we hoist in space, With never a world for MAN'S poor race ? With never an aidful thought for toils, Forefending doom from seeds and soils ; Forecasting helps for human ails, When fell MALARIA'S force assails ? Force of impoisoned wind, which flows Wherever, on earth, a heat-force glows ; And germs of death, all oceans o'er, Bears to New York from Jassicore ! 80 Yea ! as your chemist blindly boils Converging AIRS with blow-pipe coils ; And gas with gas attempts to guage ! Yea ! as his fires concentrate rage ; Till vile MALARIA "beats retreat," From CARBON flows of HEAT pure HEAT ! NATURE off-casting foes, to pass By chemic names, of GAS with GAS ! While SCIENCE smugly makes her note ; " One fifth OZONE four fifths AZOTE ! " . . . What ails us? Wherefore learn we not Why swart Sahara sands are hot ? Why salts enrich Timbuctoo's marts, While salt from half her soils departs ? Why Niger's watery wealth upwells, To curse with bogs her woodland dells ? 136 INJURESOUL. And why. since Pharoahs lived, has MIND Seen turbid Nile through deserts wind ; Seen Soudan's lakes, o'ergrown with grass, While Soudan's roads through jungles pass : Seen floods of Nile, on Egypt's verge, Fling off their fats in Red Sea surge ; Nor once has MIND, for Afric needs, Shown wedlock ways of soils with seeds ; Save when Lake MCERIS drank from NILE And priceless muriates drank, the while ! . O ! Science ! SCIENCE ! ... .All ages cry : What ails your MIND ? what blinds your EYE ? 6 ' " World's Mind ! Your throne of REASON, O ! sage ! Mock throne, of kings on play-house stage ; Half of their AIMS but paltry plays ; Half of their ENDS but endless maze ! Kings of all realms in SCIENCE mapped ; Glib with all speech, all accents apt ; But, for considerate ends or aims Which man from man, as kindred, claims ; For real results of books or brains What, beyond play house pomps, remains ? Some measurers* metes, some sailors' charts ; Some helps for hurt?, some aids to arts ; Some rhymes of bards, some lore re-vamped, Some guess where Cassars killed or camped ; INJURE SOUL. 137 Crank chasing crank, with crank conceits ; Cranks cheated by self-cheating cheats ; All whims, all whams, of wanton wills, To cure all curses kill all ills 62 But yet no LIGHT, and yet no PLAN, Man's EARTH to reconcile with MAN 1 Idle surmise ! "When poisoned air Flows in all skies, its doom to bear ; And in all climes, from airs exsuct, Malaria moves, through duct and duct ; And all malarious monads course, Through mortal frames with fluid force ; Now, from Sirocco's desert font, Toward weltering waves of Hellespont ; Anon, on east wind's clammy breath, Germing with cold, consuming death ; Again direct as sea-gull's flight From tropic swamps, out-bearing blight ! Malarious breeze, on direful track, Flies the foul flags of " Yellow Jack ! " And wafts each vile, insidious germ, In swarms of unseen zoo- sperm ! HEAT ! loving HEAT ! Sweet Nature's life ! Light ! blessed LIGHT ! for mankind rife ! Monads of purest AIR from Heaven For lives, for loves, for joys, were given ; 138 IN JURE SOUL. 'Till MAN from Nature's Laws estranged Their MOVEMENT marred their LIKENESS changed ! Yea ! ' ' Reason enthroned on MIND ! " and earth, With blasted soils, through half her girth ! And lands manured with human bones, At nods of mannikins on thrones ; And then .... what, then ?. . . . Why, BOB s " ideas ! And TOM'S conceits ! as panaceas ! Quack-nostrums for all human ails ! And CHRIST barred out by pews and pales ! Yea ! the sweet CHRIST, whose image waits In poor men's forms, at rich men's gates, Barred from this earth " OUR FATHER" gave No ground his own ! not even his grave ! 68 Light ! Heat ! and Air ! O ! mother's prayer, My childhood learned 1 .... "God everywhere ! "". . What more for me ? when SCIENCE proves, How, in all substance, Heat-Force moves ? How in all airs, are spores and sperms Of all things, quick for seeds and germs ? . . And, if ONE LAW of LIKE impel Each natural spore with LIKE to dwell ; And, to assure this, CURRENTS move Currents of air as groove with groove ; 1NJURESOUL. \ 39 FORCE in each groove, as force of air ; LIKE in each groove, as freights to bear ; What more as LAWS and FORCE I ask, Shall Nature want, for Nature's task ? Task of CREATION ! task, to make Each spore, each germ, some structure take ! Structure ordained ! as " KIND with KIND ! " In earth, in air, in seas, in MIND ! . . . . 64 And, if, in matter of salts, abides Sodium, as chemic test decides ; And if, in matter of sea-shore shells, Lime-light subsist, as chemist tells ; Whence come they, when alembic heats Make airs to throb, with crucial beats 1 Whence are they brought toward light of mind ? I answer : each one from its " KIND ! " Air-currents ever, in flows distinct, Each bearing freights of " kind " succinct ! Or salts, or lime, or metal, or gas Each, in its current, still must pass ; Each, in its current, still withheld ; And " kind " from "kind " by LAW impelled ! Come CHEMISTRY ! Tis yours to show Wherefore and whence these GASES flow ; Why this AZOTE, with deadly powers. "Volumed and vast," o'er mankind lowers O INJURESOUL. And what shall separate CARBON flows From acrid heats of airs NITROSE ; My word is THIS : no force can dyke Carbon from Nitrogen but " LIKE 1 " And as one LAW of LIKE rules air, So rules it NATURE everywhere ! 65 And wheresoever it CANNOT sway, MAN has "corrupted " NATURE'S way ! Monads have MIXED, in airs and earth ! ALIENS commingling birth with birth ! Alack ! . . . . what sound, save serpent-hiss, Whispers thy secrets .... GENESIS ? His deadly drug DE QUINCEY chews, With flowing heats of blood to fuse ; And the poor " Opium-Eater " flits Through books, as if he WILLED his WITS ! But minds there are, which never pored On " fancies," outside "broker's board ; " Minds, by no books allured, beyond Ledgers and day-books, closely conned ; No opium makes up " thoughts" for these ; Yet brain -work brings them " Bright's disease ! When loins relax, from loosening reins, And kidneys cast up force for brains ; Till, in their " grand advance," on lines Of mills, and marts, and meads, and mines, IN JURE SOUL. 141 Down like a deep-sea lead they sink \. t . Tis " Bright's disease ! " their doctors think ! Nor reck, nor seek, with surgeon's probe, Through BRAINS and KIDNEYS lobe with lobe ONE pregnant " fact ! " as WISDOM'S wike ! MALARIA'S movement. ..." Like" with " like ! ; 6