“I HAVE, oped thy inner vision,”
(Spake the Spirit to the Seer,)
“Now I’ll show to thee the mission
Which whate’er betides—whate’er—
Thou by heaven’s high permission shalt accomplish.—Give
ear!
“Thou shalt write and speak and wholly
By the gift of speech and song;
Thou shalt make the proud one lowly,
And the weak in spirit, strong,
And the servitor of folly for the ways of wisdom long.
“Thou shalt teach he who devises
Harm for others, harm will meet,
And that he who most despises
Counsel’s—to himself a cheat;
That the wisest of the wise is most devoid of self-conceit.
“Thou shalt speak a word in season
To the poor in bondage, nor
Forget to say ’tis treason
'Ganst the highest to ignore
The claims of love and reason and to trample on the
poor.
“Thou shalt teach the tyrant master
How to view his servants lot;
Not to want the wheels go faster
Then there’s strength to do it—not—
Not to make it a disaster to be cradled in a cot.
“Thou shalt teach the willing toiler
Doomed for foe to shape and plan,
He has that which no dispoiler
May divest him of—nor can—
The power to make his scorner feel the dignity of man.
“Thou shalt toll the sordid miser
Not leaps of guinea gold
Will ever make him wiser—
For wisdom ne’er was sold,
And lacking which his joys are too meagre to be told.
“Ask what will be his measure
When dust to dust’s restored;
What shall serve his gold, what pleasure
Shall gems the soul afford?
And if his worshipped treasure, shall be worth one tender
word.
“Are the deeds encircling
The heart enshrined in love—
The brightest jewels sparkling
In the courts above,
And lacking which we darkling down to our soul sphere move.
“All this in words unvarnished
Say to the world; and say,
That lives by deeds ungarnished
Must be deplored—and may
As much as lives crime-tarnished which other traits display.
“Strike, strike at superstition,
Bid its slaves with open eyes,
See in lack of a volition
For themselves to think, there lies
A more, damnable perdition than the bigots can devise.
“Bid each for himself but ponder,
And e’en though he err persist;
And the fetters he will sunder,
That now threaten to resist;
Nay, e’er long he’ll come to wonder how so long he lay in
mist.
“Risen on the wings of rapture,
At his freedom he will soar
Far 'yond the reach of Scripture
Misconstruers evermore
To redazzle, to recapture by their guile engendered lore.
“Leaving churches and their minions,
Leaving books and bells and beads,
Leaving craftdom’s dark dominions
To the bigots and their creeds,
He will stamp his bold opinions on the coin of golden
deeds.
“Thus thy thought shall like a sabre
Cut some knot, if not untie,
And some duty to a neighbour
Do—and yet a nobler—ay,
A higher, holier labour must thy efforts yet employ.
“See, yon desolated woman
Weeping o’er an infant lost;
Tearing out her hair, consuming
Life in anguish, till a ghost
She seems and not a woman weeping o’er her baby lost.
“Go, take her hand extended—
In words of music say,
How the spirit that descended
Once on Pentecost, yet may
The bosom heal thus rended—say the child’s not far
away.
“Say, In fact the little jewel
Not a clod sepulchred lies—
Ah, the cruel creed, the cruel
Hearts can teach such creed unwise!
That her jewel, yet a jewel will sparkle in her eyes.
“Aloud let it be sounded
Whoever were, yet are;
Not lost in space unbounded,
Not in another star—
That yet around, about us are the friends we deem
afar.
“This may sound like a gigantic
Fiction to the world—'tis true,
And thou be held an antic,
And bigots not a few
Will with a fairy frantic thy lonely steps pursue.
“Slander black, and black detraction,—
All the poison’d darts of hate,
All the malice of a faction
Whose wounded pride would sate
Itself on thy distraction to brook shall be thy fate.
“But then shalt stand undaunted,
The arrows at thee hurl’d,
Till on falsehood’s grave implanted
The flag of truth’s unfurl’d,
And a mighty pean’s chanted by her angels to the world.
“That shall be a day of glory—
Glory to our God on high—
Glory to the angels o’er ye—
Glory and exceeding joy—
Glory to the nations—glory to the seer they’d now de–
stroy.
“Thus I’ve oped thy inner vision—
In the language of thy kind
Have shown to thee the mission
For which then art designed—
Then go and with God’s blessing do the work to thee
assigned.”
THE END.
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