Your dive into the heart yields folly’s fruit; The selfish theory, carried to its end, Makes wrong of right, and overturns the world. And strong it is in seeming; for the self, In human conduct, plays important part. But ’tis not action’s only source, nor dims The quality of every action’s worth. ’Tis true that Man exists in self alone, And in himself feels pain or pleasure. True, An instinct teaches to avoid the one, And seek the other; true, that every act, How small soe’er, gives pleasure or gives pain. Yet thousand deeds are done without regard To one or other, or effect on Self. Howe’er an action may affect the Self, If he that acts has not a thought of it, The action is not selfish. You appeal To Man, and so will I appeal to you. You find a helpless brute, with broken limb, Upon the roadside, moaning out its pain. Now, though to aid will surely pleasure give, And to neglect will cause remorseful pain, Is there a single thought of this, when you, With kindest hand, bind up the swollen bruise, And hold the grateful water to its mouth? Is not each thought to ease the sufferer’s pain? Is not the Self first found, when on your way You go, with lighter heart, for kindness done? And while you think with pleasure on the deed, Would you not feel despised in your own eyes, If consciousness revealed ’twas done for Self? But should you say that Self was thus concealed, And still evoked the deed, the argument The same; if Self was out of thought, the deed Had other source. In all, you thus mistake The deed’s effect, unthought of, for its source. God, in His wisdom, hath affixed to good Performed, a pleasure, and to evil, pain. But selfish actions are not good, you’ve said, And therefore cannot slightest pleasure yield. Here, then, your system contradicts itself; All actions emanate from love of Self, To find the highest pleasure for that Self; And yet the pleasure’s lost by very search; What good soe’er apparently is sought, The consciousness of selfish aims destroys. And here is wisdom manifest. When Self Would seek the good, for pleasure to the Self, The pleasure is not found; but when it seeks The good alone, true pleasure is conferred. I mean the Self of soul, not Self of flesh; For pleasure to the sense, to be attained Is sought; these two are mingled intricate (And hard to separate), in thousand ways. But when Man’s higher Self would seek its good, It must forget the Self. In every case You instanced, Self of soul must be unthought, For pleasure will not come at call of Self. Your gambler none will doubt has selfish ends; Not so the preacher, for his pleasure sought, Would ne’er be found; it must be out of thought. His burning eloquence, his pastoral care,