You see, Whether you call it potter's hand or hand That stirs, to no end, jelly in the bowl, You have the force outside and not inside. Invest it with a malice, wanton humor, Which likes to see the plasmic jelly slop, And rain in drops upon the giant table, And does not care what happens in the world, That giant table. All such dreams are wrong, My dream is wrong, my waking thought is right. Man can subdue the giant hand that stirs, Or turns the wheel, and so these visions err. For as this farmer, lately come to town, Picks out the finest corn seeds, and so crops A finer corn, let's look to human seed, And raise a purer stock; let's learn of him, Who does not put defective grains aside For planting in the spring, but puts aside The best for planting. For I'd like to see As much care taken with the human stock As men now take of corn, race-horses, hogs. You, Coroner Merival are right, I think. If we conserve our forests, waterways, Why not the stream of human life, which wastes Because its source is wasted, fouled. Perhaps Our coroner has started something good, And brought to public mind what might result If every man kept record of the traits Known in his family for the future use Of those to come in choosing mates. Behold, Your moralists and churchmen with your rules Brought down from Palestine, which says that life Though tainted, maddened, must not be controlled, Diverted, headed off, while life in corn, And life in hogs, that feed the life of man Should be made better for the life of man-- Behold, I say, some hundred millions spent On paupers, epileptics, deaf and blind; On feeble minded, invalids, the insane-- Behold, I say, this cost in gold alone, Leave for the time the tragedy of souls, Who suffer or must see such suffering, And then turn back to what? The hand that stirs, The potter's hand? Why, no--the marriage counter Where this same state in Christian charity Spending its millions, lets the fault begin, And says to epileptics and what not:-- "Go breed your kind, for Jesus came to earth, And we will house and feed your progeny, Or hang, incarcerate your murderous spawn, As it may happen." And all the time we know As small grains fruit in small grains, even man In fifty matters of pathology Transmits what's in him, blindness, imbecility, Hysteria, susceptibilities To cancer and tuberculosis. Also The soil that sprouts the giant weed of madness-- There's soil which will not sprout them, occupied Too full by blossoms, healthy trees.