A SEA-SIDE MEDITATION.
97
Bowing our high imaginings to eat
Dust, like the serpent, once erect as they;
Binding conspicuous on our reason's brow
Phylacteries of shame; learning to feel
By rote, and act by rule, (man's rule, not God's!)
Until our words grow echoes, and our thoughts
A mechanism of spirit.
Can this last?
No! not for aye. We cannot subject aye
The heav'n-born spirit to the earth-born flesh.
Tame lions will scent blood, and appetite
Carnivorous glare from out their restless eyes.
Passions, emotions, sudden changes, throw
Our nature back upon us, till we burn.
What warm'd Cyrene's fount? As poets sing,
The change from light to dark, from dark to light.
All that doth force this nature back on us,
All that doth force the mind to view the mind,
e
