Song of the Universal
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June, 1874 Camden
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1
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| Come, said the Muse, |
| Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted, |
| Sing me the Universal. |
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| In this broad Earth of ours, |
| Amid the measureless grossness & the slag, |
| Enclosed & safe within its central heart, |
| Nestles the seed Perfection. |
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| By every life a share, or more or less, |
| None born but it is born—conceal'd or |
| unconceal'd the seed is waiting. |
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2
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| Lo! keen-eyed, towering science! |
| As from tall peaks the Modern overlooking, |
| Successive, absolute fiats issuing. |
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| Yet again, lo! the Soul—above all science; |
| For it, the Soul, has entire History gathered |
| like husks around the globe; |
| For it, the Soul, the ^entire star myriads roll through |
| the sky. |
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| In spiral roads, by long detours, |
| (As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,) |
| For it, the Rea partial to the permanent flowing, |
| For it, the Real to the Ideal tends. |
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| For it, the mystic evolution; |
| Nor the right only justified—what we call evil |
| also justified. |
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| Forth from their masks, no matter what, |
| From the huge, festering trunk—from craft and |
| guile & tears, |
| Health to emerge, & joy—joy universal. |
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| Out of the bulk, the morbid & the shallow, |
| Out of the bad majority—the varied, countless |
| frauds of men and states, |
| Electric, antiseptic yet—cleaving, suffusing all, |
| Only the little Good is universal. |
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3
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| Over the mountain growths of sin, disease & sorrow, |
| An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering, |
| High in the pure and happy air. |
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| From imperfection's murkiest cloud, |
| Darts always fl forth one ray of perfect light, |
| One flash of heaven's glory. |
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| To fashion's, custom's discord, |
To the mad Babel-din, the deafening oro orgies, |
| Soothing each lull a strain is heard, just heard, |
| From some far shore, the final chorus sounding. |
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4
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4.
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| O the blest eyes! the happy hearts! |
| That see—that know the guiding thread so fine, |
| Along the mighty labyrinth! |
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| And thou, America! |
| For the Scheme's culmination—its Thought, & |
| its Reality, |
| For these, (not for thyself,) Thou hast arrived. |
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| Thou too surroundest all; |
| Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, Thou too, by |
| pathways broad & new, |
| To the Ideal tendest. |
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| The measur'd faiths of other lands—the grandeurs |
| of the past, |
| Are not for Thee, but grandeurs of Thine own, |
| Deific faiths & amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending |
| all, |
| All eligible to all. |
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| [Leaf 5 recto] |
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| All, all for Immortality! |
| Love, like the light, silently wrapping all! |
| Nature's amelioration blessing all! |
| The blossoms, fruits of many ages ripening—orchards |
| divine & certain; |
| Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to Spiritual Im- |
| ages ripening. |
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6
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| Give me, O heaven, God, to sing that thought! |
| Give me—give him or her I love this quenchless |
| faith, |
| In Thy ensemble—whatever else withheld, withhold |
| not from us, |
| Belief in ^universal plan eventual of Thee enclosed in Time |
| & Space, |
| Health, peace, salvation universal. |
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| Is it a dream? |
| Nay, but the lack of it the dream, |
| And, failing it, life's lore & wealth a dream, |
| And all the world a dream. |
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