If Death be end and close the useless strife,

Strive not at all, but take what ease you may

And make a golden glory of the day,

Exhaust the little honey of your life.

Fear not to take her beauty to your heart

Whom you so utterly desire; you do

No hurt to any, for the inner you

So cherished is a dream that shall depart.

The wine of life is sweet; let no man stint

His longing or refuse one passionate hope.

Why should we cabin in such infinite scope,

Restrict the issue of such golden mint?

Society forbids? It for our sakes

Was fashioned; if it seek to fence around

Our joys and pleasures in such narrow bound,

It gives us little for the much it takes.

Nor need we hearken to the gospel vain

That bids men curb themselves to help mankind.

We lose our little chance of bliss, then blind

And silent lie for ever. Whose the gain?

What helps it us if so mankind be served?

Ourselves are blotted out from joy and light,

Having no profit of the sunshine bright,

While others reap the fruit our toils deserved.

O this new god who has replaced the old!

He dies to-day, he dies to-morrow, dies

At last for ever, and the last sunrise

Shall have forgotten him extinct and cold.

But virtue to itself is joy enough?

Yet if to us sin taste diviner? Why

Should we not herd in Epicurus’ sty

Whom Nature made not of a Stoic stuff?

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For Nature being all, desire must reign.

It is too sweet and strong for us to slay

Upon a nameless altar, saying nay

To honied urgings for no purpose plain.

A strange unreal gospel Science bring, -

Being animals to act as angels might;

Mortals we must put forth immortal might

And flutter in the void celestial wings.

“Ephemeral creatures, for the future live,”

She bids us, “gather in for unborn men

Knowledge and joy, and forfeit, nor complain,

The present which alone is yours to give.”

Man’s immortality she first denies

And then assumes what she rejects, made blind

By sudden knowledge, the majestic Mind

Within her smiling at her sophistries.

Not so shall Truth extend her flight sublime,

Pass from the poor beginnings she has made

And with the splendour of her wings displayed

Range through the boundaries of Space and Time.

Clamp her not down to her material finds!

She shall go further. She shall not reject

The light within, nor shall the dialect

Of unprogressive pedants bar men’s minds.

We seek the Truth and will, not pause nor fear.

Truth we will have and not the sophist’s pleas;

Animals, we will take our grosser ease,

Or, spirits, heaven’s celestial music hear.

The intellect is not all; a guide within

Awaits our question. He it was informed

The reason He surpasses; and unformed

Presages of His mightiness begin.

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  Nor mind submerged, nor self subliminal

But the great Force that makes the planets wheel

 Through ether and the sun in flames reveal

His godhead, is in us perpetual.

That Force in us is body, that is mind,

And what is higher than the mind is He.

This was the secret Science could not see;

Aware of death, to life her eyes were blind.

Through chemistry she seeks the source of life,

Nor knows the mighty laws that she has found

Are Nature’s bye-laws merely, meant to ground

A grandiose freedom building peace by strife.

The organ for the thing itself she takes,

The brain for mind, the body for the soul,

Nor has she patience to explore the whole,

But like a child a hasty period makes.

“It is enough,” she says, “I have explored

The whole of being; nothing now remains.

But to put details in and count my gains.”

So she deceives herself, denies her Lord.

Therefore He manifests Himself; once more

The wonders of the secret world within

Wrapped yet with an uncertain mist begin

To look from that thick curtain out; the door

Opens. Her days are numbered, and not long

Shall she be suffered to belittle thus

Man and restrain from his tempestuous

Uprising that immortal spirit strong.

He rises now; for God has taken birth.

The revolutions that pervade the world

Are faint beginnings and the discus hurled

Of Vishnu speeds down to enring the earth.  

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The old shall perish; it shall pass away,

Expunged, annihilated, blotted out;

And all the iron bands that ring about

Man’s wide expansion shall at last give way.

Freedom, God, Immortality, the three

Are one and shall be realised at length;

Love, Wisdom, Justice, Joy and utter Strength

Gather into a pure felicity.

It comes at last, the day foreseen of old,

What John in Patmos saw, what Shelley dreamed,

Vision and vain imagination deemed,

The City of Delight, the Age of Gold.

The Iron Age is ended. Only now

The last fierce spasm of the dying past

Shall shake the nations, and when that has passed,

Earth washed of ills shall raise a fairer brow.

This is man’s progress; for the Iron Age

Prepares the Age of Gold. What we call sin,

Is but man’s leavings as from deep within

The Pilot guides him in his pilgrimage.

He leaves behind the ill with strife and pain,

Because it clings and constantly returns,

And in the fire of suffering fiercely burns

More sweetness to deserve, more strength to gain.

He rises to the good with Titan wings:

And this the reason of his high unease,

Because he came from the infinities

To build immortally with mortal things;

The body with increasing soul to fill,

Extend Heaven’s claim upon the toiling earth

And climb from death to a diviner birth

Grasped and supported by immortal Will.  

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