Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked But for Tradition; we walk evermore
To higher paths, by brightening Reason's lamp.
The fairest trees and leave the withered stumps.
Has joys apart, even in blackest woe, And seizing some fine thread of verity Knows momentary godhead.
Prediction is contingent, of effects
Where causes and concomitants are mixed To seeming wealth of possibilities Beyond our reckoning. Who will pretend To tell the adventures of each single fish Within the Syrian Sea? Show me a fish, I'll weigh him, tell his kind, what he devoured, What would have devoured him-but for one Blas Who netted him instead; nay, could I tell That had Blas missed him, he would not have died Of poisonous mud, and so made carrion,
Swept off at last by some sea-scavenger?
For half the truths they hold are honoured tombs.
Brutes have no wisdom, since they know not his :
Can we divine their world ?—the hidden life That mirrors us as hideous shapeless power, Cruel supremacy of sharp-edged death,
Or fate that leaves a bleeding mother robbed ? Oh, they have long tradition and swift speech, Can tell with touches and sharp darting cries Whole histories of timid races taught
To breathe in terror by red-handed man.
My lord, I will be frank; there's no such thing As naked manhood. If the stars look down On any mortal of our shape, whose strength Is to judge all things without preference, He is a monster, not a faithful man. While my heart beats, it shall wear livery.
Nay, they are virtues for you warriors- Hawking and hunting! You are merciful When you leave killing men to kill the brutes.
But, for the point of wisdom, I would choose To know the mind that stirs between the wings Of bees and building wasps, or fills the woods With myriad murmurs of responsive sense And true-aimed impulse, rather than to know The thoughts of warriors.
If conscience has two courts
With differing verdicts, where shall lie the appeal? Our law must be without us or within.
The Highest speaks through all our people's voice, Custom, tradition, and old sanctities;
Or he reveals himself by new decrees Of inward certitude.
And Cruelty his right-hand minister, Pity insurgent in some human breasts
Makes spiritual empire, reigns supreme As persecuted faith in faithful hearts.
Your small physician, weighing ninety pounds, A petty morsel for a healthy shark, Will worship mercy throned within his soul Though all the luminous angels of the stars
Burst into cruel chorus on his ear,
Singing, ‘We know no mercy.' He would cry— 'I know it,' still, and soothe the frightened bird And feed the child a-hungered, walk abreast Of persecuted men, and keep most hate
For rational torturers. There I stand firm.
I read a record deeper than the skin. What! Shall the trick of nostrils and of lips Descend through generations, and the soul That moves within our frame like God in worlds— Convulsing, urging, melting, withering— Imprint no record, leave no documents, Of her great history? Shall men bequeath The fancies of their palate to their sons, And shall the shudder of restraining awe, The slow-wept tears of contrite memory, Faith's prayerful labour, and the food divine Of fasts ecstatic-shall these pass away Like wind upon the waters, tracklessly? Shall the mere curl of eyelashes remain, And god-enshrining symbols leave no trace Of tremors reverent ?-The Prior.
The fence of rules is for the purblind crowd; walk by averaged precepts: sovereign men, g by God's light, see the general
By seeing all the special-own no rule But their full vision of the moment's worth. 'Tis so God governs, using wicked men— Nay, scheming fiends, to work his purposes.
But when you see a king, you see the work Of many thousand men.-Blasco.
They talk of vermin; but, sirs, vermin large Were made to eat the small, or else to eat The noxious rubbish.-Blasco.
Next to a missing thrust, what irks me most Is a neat well-aimed stroke that kills your man, Yet ends in mischief.-Lorenzo.
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