I.

For, as he whiffed and watched above his head
The dainty spirals float and curl and spread,
"Well then," he thought, "if we perforce must dub
These German Giants with their Logic-club,
Unwieldy champions much too prone to beat
The air with ponderous weapons, to defeat
Those agile Jacks of Science, or to screen
From errant Knights of Scepticism keen
The beauteous Truths they clumsily immure
In cavern dim or castle-cage secure;
If, like the bristled monstrous minims seen
To jerk and writhe and wriggle goggle-eyed
Within the lighted circle on the wall
Thrown by the microscopic lantern's sheen—
These crabbed and cribbed Philosophers go near
To craze, because the Apparent's magic sphere
So hems them in; and Hegel above all
Seems, like the fabled Scorpion girt with fire,
With his own logic-nippers to inflict
A bite that kills himself, in mad desire
And effort to escape from bonds so strict,
That radiant round of the Phenomenal—
page 50 What then?—the grand mysterious outside
Is there— there still, and cannot be denied:
Howe'er the thing we may define or name
The' Unapparent' still exists the same.

"For grant it may be made by reasoning plain
That all the fair impressions on the brain
Are not the pictures of such things around,
Where no realities are like them found,
But from those decorating Senses gain,
In passing through them, all the daedal dress
Of qualities we fancy they possess.—
'Not in the rose the red—nor in light-rays
Its texture splits, but in the eyes that gaze;
Not in the thunder—honey—fire, the roar,
The heat or sweetness we perceive; all these
Lie in the Sense that hears, tastes, feels or sees;
Well, it remains as certain as before
The causes of these feelings lie without,
Beyond us still; for who pretends to doubt
We do not, cannot of ourselves excite
These manifold sensations?—by what right
Is it asserted, then, that outside sphere
Of causes is not varied, powerful, bright
And beautiful as aught we see or hear
Or any way perceive within the Mind?
You say, 'Light—colour—sound—taste—smell,
Are states of consciousness, but none can tell
What in themselves they are! So far 'tis well.
Nature in her insentient solitude
But as eternal Darkness must be viewed,
Eternal Silence.' Wherefore thus decide?
What if your bold conclusion be denied?
page 51 'The Light is in ourselves' say you—
Well, so must be the Darkness too.—
'All Nature dark without the eye,
Silent without the ear!' But why?
The Silence and the Darkness you must own
Are our alternatives alone,
Not Nature's!—when the Light and Sound are gone
From us, the causes of the Sound and Light,
Are these effaced because they cease to smite
Our organs? or must these become the same
Ceasing to act upon our consciousness,
As what within that consciousness is left
When ceasing to be acted on?—the things we name
Silence and Darkness? states we feel, bereft
Of those mysterious agents that no less
Are active—glorious—infinite—divine—
Ever impulsive—eager to impress
On other Souls whom other organs bless,
Say (for their nature none of course can guess)
Lights gorgeous, jewel-tinted, more than shine
For us—for our beholding all too fine;
And melodies of such entrancing tone
As would outravish all to mortal music known!
What! make the wondrous Universe depend
On our perceptions—there begin and end?
Must Senses like our own exhaust its powers?
May there not be more Senses too than ours?
Does the Sun cease to be a Sun, and die,
Hurled from his throne in yon majestic Sky,
Whene'er the Worm that grooves the flowery fret
Of pulpit-work—or Spider at his net
On some rose-knotted oak-carved canopy
Within a great Cathedral's gloom and grace—
page 52 May lose the few feint rays it fells through panes
That serve to bound e'en, while they brighten, all
Its tiny being's scant-accorded space—
Dim rays half quenched in that transparent pall,
Vet rainbow-rich with saintly blazonry
And dusky with a wealth of angel-stains?