Page:The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892).djvu/213

Rh :Is called in our speech the son of man,
 * Outcome and crown of the spirit’s plan.
 * From iron slumber, from dreaming set free,
 * Now marvels the spirit who he may be.
 * Looks on himself with wondering gaze,
 * Measures his limbs in dim amaze,
 * Longs in terror once more to be hid
 * In nature’s slumber, of sentience rid.
 * But nay, his freedom is won for aye,
 * No more in nature’s peace may he lie;
 * In the vast dark world that is all his own,
 * He wanders his life’s narrow path alone.
 * Yes, he even fears, in his visions dim,
 * That the giant himself may be wroth with him.
 * And like Saturn of old, in godlike scorn,
 * Devour his children scarcely born;
 * Know not that he himself is the Sprite
 * That longingly toiled in the world’s dark night;
 * Peoples the void with the ghosts of his fear.
 * Yet could he say, the Giant’s peer: —
 * I am the God who nature’s bosom fills,
 * I am the life that in her heart’s blood thrills.
 * From the first quiver of her mystic power.
 * Until of life there came that primal hour,
 * When force new form and body power assumed.
 * And flowers the beauty showed that lay entombed, —
 * Yes, now, wherever light, as dawn begins,
 * A new created world from chaos wins, —
 * And in the thousand eyes that, from the sky,
 * Show night and day the heavenly mystery, —
 * Onwards, to where, in thought’s eternal truth
 * Nature’s deep self rewords itself in truth, —
 * There stirs one might, one pulse-beat all sufficing,
 * All power retaining, aye, — and sacrificing.”