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Rh All life and living in the Alkahest

Of thought, to set the single mind above

All seeming, all appearances, to match

With sense all emptiness, to crumble faith

Into its ignorance. This blowing smoke,

This shadow of an age-long vanished girl—

Ye gape and watch the fuming vapor twist

And call it miracle. But to the mind

That knows how light and shadow form and solve

Into each other 'tis a petty trick

Of eye on brain, a mimicry of life

As senseless as the many-seeming clouds.

Ye blind who live in darkness and believe!

I wrought the maid to mock you. Now almost

I weep that you have suffered such content

When such great light illumines. Mind has torn

The veil that hangs before the Riddler's lip,

Has found the riddle answered,—time and space

And life and very dying has the brain

Ground to their atoms and their ancient laws;

And soul, and mystery, and stuff of dream