When danger threatened. Peaceable with all,
From rugged limbs of trees; he cast huge stones
Against his stronger foes, and uttered cries,
And roared in dreadful tones, and quickly found
The virtue of the voice all powerful.
Still life increased as ages waned away,
While, from the cunning ape, a conquering race
Had sprung predominant through force of will:
Weavers of garments of the fibrous grass,
Builders of homes amid the lofty trees,
And dwellers in the caverns of the hills.
Then first they used the preconcerted sign-
Combined for safety-tipped their rough-hewn clubs
With points of agate-hurled the rounded stone
From whistling slings, and learned to bend the bow;
To taste of flesh and blood, and wear the spoils
Reft from the slain. Happy, contented, free,
They lived gregariously with natural rule;
Knowing no sin, for they were not too wise;
Till language grew, and lust was ruled by love,
And growing reason ripened in the brain.
Then came contention, and ambitious thought
To soar to something higher than themselves;
For all their understandings failed to grasp
They feared and bowed to. Superstition grew,
And God within them, warring with the flesh,
Drove them to worship the indefinite.
THE MAN OF THE PRESENT.
Man the majestic-Man the reasoner ;
Forger of metals-tiller of the soil-
Giver of laws and ruler of the earth,
Finds, to his sorrow, he was born in sin.
For one among them, taking precedence,
On seeing others ready of belief,
And ever eager for the marvellous,
Absents himself, and fabricates a lie,
And weaves an artful tale, and Man believed;
And, next to what was worshipped, he who framed
The senseless idol held high reverence.
And many idols grew and multiplied,
Cause of dissension and of envious strife.
But when the Truth appeared, in human form,
Teaching the doctrine of the God in man,
Man ridiculed His laws, condemned His creed,
And nailed Him bleeding to a shameful tree.
But still the crafty of their race arise,
And on the being they betrayed and slew
Base a religion. They pervert His words,
And, ravenous for power, proclaim themselves
Apostles of a faith direct from God,
And clumsily concoct a curious tale
Founded on legends of an older age;
Of sacrifice for sin, and of a God—
More cruel even than their cruellest-
Dooming His creatures to eternal pain ;
And then relenting-spiritually pure-
Begetting from a woman of their race—
Herself immaculate-an only Son,
Whom Man must slay to purify his soul!
So Man the credulous believed and feared,
And Man the crafty gained predominance.
Then rapidly development proceeds,
According to the power of will in man.
The hypocrite becomes a specious priest,
Proffering salvation for a golden fee.
The blood-stained slayer of his fellow-man,
A righteous king, defender of the faith,
And licensed murderer, by the grace of God.
The wanton beast and shameless courtesan,
Having the wit to nestle near a throne,
A peerless queen of beauty and of love.
The thriving rogue, with brain to hide his theft
Under a cloak of spurious piety,
A sainted founder of a sacred fane.
While the dull wretch who steals a mouldy crust
To drive back hunger's anguish, rots in gaol.
The lonely heart that breaks the heavy chain
Of cankering fetters riveted by priests
Is damned for ever as adulteress.
The slave who strikes in haste a fatal blow
Against some vile betrayer of his peace
Dies ignominiously a cruel death.
The just expounder of the mystical,
Too conscientious to invent a hell
To awe his hearers, only earns their scorn.
So vice and virtue but depend on power,
As Man the civilized moves swiftly on
Toward perfection and his destiny.
The earth is all his own, and conquered yields Its treasures at his will. The troubled sea Frets 'neath the vast creations of his brain The very air itself, subservient,
Wafts him above the clouds. The elements
Perform his bidding-bear him o'er the earth
As on a whirlwind, and convey his words
From clime to clime, with swiftness of the thought.
And Man grows tired of war, and prays for peace,
And arbitrates his feuds, and surely finds.
The virtue of the mind all powerful.
A world, but not the world; for everywhere
Reigns desolation, and a sickening scent
Of blood is in the air. The dreary plains
Are trampled into mire. The livid sea
Is lifeless as a stagnant putrid pond.
No animal, no bird, or insect form,
No blade of verdure, lives upon the land;
But here and there are strewn, in disarray,
Vast engines of destruction; massive hills
Shivered and splintered; palaces o'erthrown—
And crumbling ruin cumbers all the ground.
The setting sun, in baneful vapour veiled,
Gleams luridly upon a shadowy form
Emerging from the mists. Its spreading wings,
Torn, blood-polluted, scarcely have the strength
To bear it onward. More distinct it grows,
A being beauteous as a dream of God.
It hovers, circles slowly, and descends.
Then, on a mound of mighty ruin piled,
It poises its huge limbs, and motionless,
Dusky, gigantic 'gainst the fiery sky,
Bows low its lofty head; droops wearily
Its battle-rended wings, and awfully,
Man the perfected-conqueror and king-
Enthroned upon his devastated world,
Vents to the winds the requiem of his race.
O power of knowledge, which has urged me on,
Supreme in vast development of will,
To work destruction on my fellow-man;
What end have I attained, what victory won?
My kingdom is a chaos, and my feet
Are purple with the blood of subjects slain,
And all my soul is quivering with their cries;
And yet they vexed me sorely.-I alone
Foretold and warned them of the time to be;
And still they prated of the perfect peace,
Of lengthened life and all unnatural laws.
What better were they for inventive power?
It but increased their labour and their cares.
Gained they in aught by framing good and ill?
Foul superstition and unholy rites.
Instead of following Nature's simple rules,
The Artificial held their souls enthralled.
Instead of listening to the Deity
Whispering through conscience the Reality,
They sought ideal gods, and worshipped them.
How better had it been, if Man had deigned
To recognize the chain which holds the life?———
For it existed even to the end;
And though the savage slew the lower ape,
And weak barbarians by the civilized
Were swept from off the earth, there still remained
A difference in grade as wisdom grew.
For Man's invention wrought such fearful force
Of direful engines of destructive power,
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