Whose chains and massy walls We feel, but cannot see.
Spirit of Nature! all-sufficing power, Necessity! thou mother of the world! Unlike the God of human error, thou Requirest no prayers or praises; the caprice Of man's weak will belongs no more to thee Than do the changeful passions of his breast To thy unvarying harmony: the slave,
Whose horrible lusts spread misery o'er the world, And the good man, who lifts, with virtuous pride, His being, in the sight of happiness,
That springs from his own works; the poison-tree, Beneath whose shade all life is withered up, And the fair oak, whose leafy dome affords A temple where the vows of happy love Are registered, are equal in thy sight: No love, no hate, thou cherishest; revenge And favouritism, and worst desire of fame
Thou knowest not; all that the wide world contains Are but thy passive instruments, and thou Regardest them all with an impartial eye, Whose joy or pain thy nature cannot feel, Because thou hast not human sense, Because thou art not human mind.
when the sweeping storm of time Has sung its death-dirge o'er the ruined fanes And broken altars of the almighty fiend,
Whose name usurps thy honours, and the blood Through centuries clotted there, has floated down The tainted flood of ages, shalt thou live Unchangeable! A shrine is raised to thee, Which, nor the tempest-breath of time, Nor the interminable flood,
Over earth's slight pageant rolling, Availeth to destroy,-
The sensitive extension of the world. That wondrous and eternal fane, Where pai and pleasure, good and evil join, To do the will of strong necessity,
And life, in multitudinous shapes,
Still pressing forward where no term can be, Like hungry and unresting flame
Curls round the eternal columns of its strength.
I was an infant when my mother went
To see an atheist burned. She took me there; The dark-robed priests were met around the pile; The multitude was gazing silently:
And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien, Tempered disdain, in his unaltering eye, Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth: The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs: His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon; His death-pang rent my heart! the insensate mob Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept.
Weep not, child! cried my mother, for that man Has said, there is no God.
Nature confirms the faith his death-groan sealed: Let heaven and earth, let man's revolving race, His ceaseless generations tell their tale;
Let every part depending on the chain That links it to the whole, point to the hand That grasps its term! let every seed that falls In silent eloquence unfold its store Of argument; infinity within, Infinity without, belie creation;
The exterminable spirit it contains Is nature's only God; but human pride Is skilful to invent most serious names To hide its ignorance.
Has fenced about all crime with holiness,
Himself the creature of his worshippers,
Whose names, and attributes, and passions change, Seeva, Buddh, Foh, Jehovah, God, or Lord,
Even with the human dupes who build his shrines, Still serving o'er the war-polluted world For desolation's watch-word; whether hosts Stain his death-blushing chariot-wheels, as on
Triumphantly they roll, whilst Brahmins raise A sacred hymn to mingle with the groans; Or countless partners of his power divide His tyranny to weakness; or the smoke Of burning towns, the cries of female helplessness, Unarmed old age, and youth, and infancy, Horribly massacred, ascend to heaven In honour of his name; or, last and worst, Earth groans beneath religion's iron age, And priests dare babble of a God of peace, Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood, Murdering the while, uprooting every germ Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all, Making the earth a slaughter-house!
O Spirit! through the sense
By which thy inner nature was apprised Of outward shews, vague dreams have rolled, And varied reminiscences have waked
Tablets that never fade;
All things have been imprinted there, The stars, the sea, the earth, the sky, Even the unshapeliest lineaments Of wild and fleeting visions
Have left a record there
To testify of earth.
These are my empire, for to me is given The wonders of the human world to keep, And fancy's thin creations to endow With manner, being, and reality;
Therefore a wondrous phantom, from the dreams Of human error's dense and purblind faith, I will evoke, to meet thy questioning. Ahasuerus, rise!
A strange and woe-worn wight Arose beside the battlement, And stood unmoving there.
His inessential figure cast no shade Upon the golden floor;
His port and mien bore mark of many years,
And chronicles of untold ancientness
Were legible within his beamless eye:
Yet his cheek bore the mark of youth: Freshness and vigour knit his manly frame; The wisdom of old age was mingled there With youth's primæval dauntlessness; And inexpressible woe,
Chastened by fearless resignation, gave An awful grace to his all-speaking brow.
Is there a God?-aye, an almighty God, And vengeful as almighty! Once his voice Was heard on earth; earth shuddered at the sound; The fiery-visaged firmament expressed Abhorrence, and the grave of nature yawned To swallow all the dauntless and the good That dared to hurl defiance at his throne, Girt as it was with power. None but slaves Survived,--cold-blooded slaves, who did the work Of tyrannous omnipotence; whose souls No honest indignation ever urged
To elevated daring, to one deed
Which gross and sensual self did not pollute.
These slaves built temples for the omnipotent fiend, Gorgeous and vast: the costly altars smoked With human blood, and hideous pæans rung Through all the long-drawn aisles. A murderer heard His voice in Egypt, one whose gifts and arts Had raised him to his eminence in power,
Accomplice of omnipotence in crime, And confident of the all-knowing one. These were Jehovah's words.
From an eternity of idleness
I, God, awoke; in seven days' toil made earth From nothing; rested, and created man:
I placed him in a paradise, and there Planted the tree of evil, so that he
Might eat and perish, and my soul procure Wherewith to sate its malice, and to turn, Even like a heartless conqueror of the earth, All misery to my fame. The race of men
Chosen to my honour, with impunity
May sate the lusts I planted in their heart. Here I command thee hence to lead them on, Until, with hardened feet, their conquering troops Wade on the promised soil through woman's blood, And make my name be dreaded through the land. Yet ever-burning flame and ceaseless woe Shall be the doom of their eternal souls, With every soul on this ungrateful earth, Virtuous or vicious, weak or strong,-even all Shall perish to fulfil the blind revenge
(Which you, to men, call justice) of their God.
Is there no mercy? must our punishment
Be endless? will long ages roll away,
And see no term? Oh, wherefore hast thou made
In mockery and wrath this evil earth?
Mercy becomes the powerful-be but just:
O God! repent and save.
One way remains:
I will beget a son, and he shall bear
The sins of all the world: he shall arise In an unnoticed corner of the earth,
And there shall die upon a cross, and purge
The universal crime; so that the few
On whom my grace descends, those who are marked As vessels to the honour of their God,
May credit this strange sacrifice, and save Their souls alive: millions shall live and die, Who ne'er shall call upon their Saviour's name, But, unredeemed, go to the gaping grave. Thousands shall deem it an old woman's tale, Such as the nurses frighten babes withal: These, in a gulph of anguish and of flame, Shall curse their reprobation endlessly, Yet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow, Even on their beds of torment, where they howl, My honour and the justice of their doom. What then avail their virtuous deeds, their thoughts
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