“Reason and Instinct!” How we love to play with words that please our pride; Our noble race’s mean descent by false forged titles seek to hide! For “gift divine” I bid you read the better work of higher brain, From Instinct diff’ering in degree as golden mine from leaden vein. Reason is Life’s sole arbiter, the magic Laby’rinth’s single clue: Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne’er be true. “Fools rush where Angels fear to tread!” Angels and Fools have equal claim To do what Nature bids them do, sans hope of praise, sans fear of blame! VIII There is no Heav’en, there is no Hell; these be the dreams of baby minds; Tools of the wily Fetisheer, to ’fright the fools his cunning blinds. Learn from the mighty Spi’rits of old to set thy foot on Heav’en and Hell; In Life to find thy hell and heav’en as thou abuse or use it well. So deemed the doughty Jew who dared by studied silence low to lay Orcus and Hades, lands of shades, the gloomy night of human day. Hard to the heart is final death: fain would an Ens not end in Nil; Love made the senti’ment kindly good: the Priest perverted all to ill. While Reason sternly bids us die, Love longs for life beyond the grave: Our hearts, affections, hopes and fears for Life-to-be shall ever crave. Hence came the despot’s darling dream, a Church to rule and sway the State; Hence sprang the train of countless griefs in priestly sway and rule innate. For future Life who dares reply? No witness at the bar have we; Save what the brother Potsherd tells,— old tales and novel jugglery. Who e’er return’d to teach the Truth, the things of Heaven and Hell to limn? And all we hear is only fit for grandam-talk and nursery-hymn. “Have mercy, man!” the Zâhid cries, “of our best visions rob us not! “Mankind a future life must have to balance life’s unequal lot.” “Nay,” quoth the Magian, “’tis not so; I draw my wine for one and all, “A cup for this, a score for that, e’en as his measure’s great or small: “Who drinks one bowl hath scant delight; to poorest passion he was born; “Who drains the score must e’er expect to rue the headache of the morn.” Safely he jogs along the way which ‘Golden Mean’ the sages call; Who scales the brow of frowning Alp must face full many a slip and fall. Here èxtremes meet, anointed Kings whose crownèd heads uneasy lie, Whose cup of joy contains no more than tramps that on the dunghill die. To fate-doomed Sinner born and bred for dangling from the gallows-tree; To Saint who spends his holy days in rapt’urous hope his God to see; To all that breathe our upper air the hands of Dest’iny ever deal, In fixed and equal parts, their shares of joy and sorrow, woe and weal. “How comes it, then, our span of days in hunting wealth and fame we spend “Why strive we (and all humans strive) for vain and visionary end?”