Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Ranolf and Amohia

II

II.

"Behind this Universe—this train
Of grandest beauties, on the brain
page 330 Painted in such mysterious wise
How much is real none know—there lies
The unknown region undenied
Where (but in their effects descried)
Efficient Causes all reside.
But if all subtlest Forces—those
Perception grasps and Science knows,
That work in Nature's myriad shows,
All tend to one, and one alone—
A truth that each day clearer grows;
Must not the mystic Fountain, whence
That one proceeds, transcending Sense,
The primal Source of power, unknown
And unperceived—be One as well,
Though nought can yet its nature tell?

"Say you, there is no proof nor need
Of Cause—that 'tis a dream indeed
Begot by habit—but a vain
Conception of the human brain!—
'Tis answered—the idea of Cause
Is based on fundamental laws
Of human thought—with all that live
The notion is intuitive.

"You say—we can no more conceive
A thing that no beginning knew,
But has from all eternity
Existed—than a thing that grew
Or sprang from Nothing!—Well—'tis true,
Both inconceivable must be:
Yet I, for my part, must believe—
page 331 Most surely feel—while by the first
Our purest reason at the worst
Is merely overwhelmed—surpassed—
Tis jarred—revolted by the last.