“Go no farther, For a phantom lures thee on thy way; Upward striving Will not bring thee nearer to the perfect day. In the valley All is warmth, and rest, and kindly cheer; Go no farther; It is _lone_ and _very cold up here_. “Trust not to your erring Reason All your aspirations to control; Man grows ripe before the season When he heeds the promptings of the soul. “Come up hither! come up hither,” Cried the tuneful voice again; “Doubt should never counsel duty, When the way of truth is plain. “Stay!” replied the watchful demon; “Thou _shalt_ lend an ear to Doubt, For, by Heaven! thou shalt not pass me Until thou hast heard me out. Thou art deeply cursed from the beginning, All thy nature is corrupt with sinning; God refuses thee his grace to-day; Christ alone his righteous wrath can stay. All thy prayerful aspiration But retards thy soul’s salvation; All the efforts of thy godless will Make thy deep damnation deeper still. O thou self-deluded dreamer! O thou transcendental schemer! Leave thine idle speculations, Trances, visions, exaltations, And thy toilsome upward progress stay. By thy fallen, lost condition, By the depths of thy perdition, I have promised, Yea, have _sworn_, to turn thee from this way. “Come up hither! come up hither!” Cried the voice persuasive from above. Then I looked, and bending o’er me, I beheld my long-lost angel love. “Back!” I shouted to the demon. “Never!” in a measured tone he said, “Till the final resurrection, Till the earth and sea give up their dead.” Then I smote him-- Smote him in the forehead and the eyes; And I shouted, “I will not be cozened by your lies! Go to cowards With your Hebrew husks and pious pelf, FOR MY SOUL IS OLDER THAN THE TRUTH, ONE WITH GOD HIMSELF.” Then my blows fell fiercer, harder, hotter, Till he yielded Like the clay-formed vessel of a potter; And I crashed into his brainless skull, Smote his stony eyes out, cold and dull; Into shards amorphous dashed his lips profane, And, as brittle as a bubble, Clove his shattered trunk in twain. Then, as if God’s mill-stones surely Had been given me in trust, On the rock I stood securely, And those fragments ground to dust.