And yet I frankly must confess A secret unforgivingness, And shudder at the saving chrism Whose best New Birth is Pessimism; My soul--I mean the bit of phosphorus That fills the place of what that was for us-- Can’t bid its inward bores defiance With the new nursery-tales of science. What profits me, though doubt by doubt, As nail by nail, be driven out, When every new one, like the last, Still holds my coffin-lid as fast? Would I find thought a moment’s truce, Give me the young world’s Mother Goose, With life and joy in every limb, The chimney-corner tales of Grimm! Our dear and admirable Huxley Cannot explain to me why ducks lay, Or, rather, how into their eggs Blunder potential wings and legs With will to move them and decide Whether in air or lymph to glide. Who gets a hair’s-breadth on by showing That Something Else set all agoing? Farther and farther back we push From Moses and his burning bush; Cry, “Art Thou there?” Above, below, All nature mutters _yes_ and _no_! ’Tis the old answer: we’re agreed Being from Being must proceed, Life be Life’s source. I might as well Obey the meeting-house’s bell, And listen while Old Hundred pours Forth through the summer-opened doors, From old and young. I hear it yet, Swelled by bass-viol and clarinet, While the gray minister, with face Radiant, let loose his noble bass. If Heaven it reached not, yet its roll Waked all the echoes of the soul, And in it many a life found wings To soar away from sordid things. Church gone and singers too, the song Sings to me voiceless all night long, Till my soul beckons me afar, Glowing and trembling like a star. Will any scientific touch With my worn strings achieve as much? I don’t object, not I, to know My sires were monkeys, if ’twas so; I touch my ear’s collusive tip And own the poor-relationship. That apes of various shapes and sizes Contained their germs that all the prizes Of senate, pulpit, camp, and bar win May give us hopes that sweeten Darwin. Who knows but from our loins may spring (Long hence) some winged sweet-throated thing As much superior to us As we to Cynocephalus? This is consoling, but, alas, It wipes no dimness from the glass Where I am flattening my poor nose, In hope to see beyond my toes. Though I accept my pedigree, Yet where, pray tell me, is the key That should unlock a private door To the Great Mystery, such no more? Each offers his, but one nor all Are much persuasive with the wall That rises now, as long ago, Between I wonder and I know, Nor will vouchsafe a pin-hole peep At the veiled Isis in its keep. Where is no door, I but produce My key to find it of no use. Yet better keep it, after all, Since Nature’s economical, And who can tell but some fine day (If it occur to her) she may, In her good-will to you and me, _Make_ door and lock to match the key? TEMPORA MUTANTUR.