We know Such things as these--Well, I would sterilize, Or segregate these shriveled seeds and keep The soil of life for seeds select, and take The church and Jesus, if he's in the way, And say: "You stand aside, and let me raise A better and a better breed of men." Quit, shut your sniveling charities; have mercy Not on these paupers, imbeciles, diseased ones, But on the progeny you let them breed. And thereby sponge the greatest waste away, And source of life's immeasurable tragedies. Avaunt you potter hands and potter wheels! God is within us, not without us, we Are given souls to know and see and guide Ourselves and those to come, souls that compute The calculus of beauties, talents, traits, And show us that the good in seed strives on To master stocks; that even poisoned blood, And minds in chemic turmoils, mixed with blood And minds in harmony, work clean at last-- Else how may normal man to-day be such With some eight billion ancestors behind, And something in him of the blood of all Who lived five hundred years ago or so, Who were diseased with alcohol and pork, And poverty? But oh these centuries Of agony and waste! Let's stop it now! And since this God within us gives us choice To let the dirty plasma flow or dam it, To give the channel to the silver stream Of starry power, which shall we do? Now choose Between your race of drunkards, imbeciles, Lunatics and neurotics, or the race Of those who sing and write, or measure space, Build temples, bridges, calculate the stars, Live long and sanely. Well, I take my son, I could have prophesied his eyes, through knowing The color of my mother's, father's eyes, The color of his mother's parent's eyes. I could have told his hair. There's subtler things. My father died before this son was born; Why does this son smack lips and turn his hand Just like my father did? Not imitation-- He never saw him, and I do not do so. Refine the matter where you will, how far You choose to go, it is not eyes and hair, Chins, shape of head, of limbs, or shape of hands, Nor even features, look of eyes, nor sound Of voice that we inherit, but the traits Of inner senses, spiritual gifts, and secret Beauties and powers of spirit; which result Not solely by the compound of the souls Through conjugating cells, but in the fusion Something arises like an unknown X And starts another wonder in the soul, That comes from souls compounded.