Poor Human Nature is a book-huge Book!
As broad and mighty are its pages all,
As vast, well-deep the wisdom it contains,—
Frail Nature's Book of Follies without end!
This book is ope to every eye of man;
But men have met me in the walks of life
Who have made Art and Science all their own,
And think themselves the Magi of the world,
That scarcely read its Preface while they live!
Sage Wisdom's babes shall grow up Folly's men,
When, with a bat-like blindness of the soul,
They will not see a mid-day sun that shines
To turn their night of Nature into day,—
Poor Human Nature's Bible will not read-
That book of frailties by Human Nature
Penn'd out and printed plain upon all flesh;
A revelation, truthfully revealing
To man, that night of all enigmas-MAN!
We must look into self to-know ourselves;
This one truth missed, what is there else to know
Save God, and nothingness of all beside?
For this, our mother Eve all Eden gave,
And her bright crown of Immortality.
Men that eat up this book, alone are wise;
Ay, Wisdom's self was but a child, till his
Far-seeing eye and hungry soul devour'd
Its every page, and made them all his own:
And man ne'er was, nor will, nor can be great,
Tho' his name's echo talks from college halls,
Till FINIS of this book is his A. M.
Mankind, to know mankind, must study-Man;
The world's profoundly wise do study deepest
Poor Human Nature's Book of Frailties,-
Encyclopedia of all science-truth!
The fabled stone that turns all dross to gold!
The rod of Moses and water's gush!
The wand that breaks the spell of all enchantments
And turns man's minus into plus at will!
The Alpha, Omega of earthly books-
The A B C of the great book of Life,
That makes us cry EUREKA, while we live!
Ay, here the key of all our knowledge lies,-
'Tis Learning's crown and Wisdom's utmost bound;
Boundary that human genius may not pass-
Third heaven and home to wing of glorious mind,-
The all on this side-mortal, beyond-God!
Man! study Human Nature and be wise;
Heaven-eyed Philosophy, more riches here
May find, than hunting new worlds 'mong the stars;
It teacheth self! bless'd lesson known by few.
Must know thyself e'er thou canst govern self:-
This self is eel-like in its slipperiness,
And would not be examined by daylight;
Man seeks for wisdom-all, but-know himself,—
In science colleged, ignorant in self
Are those that this world's tongue pronounces wise:Great lesson this-to know we nothing know.
This book's wide ope to every eye,—read—read!
Tho' imperfection blots its every page
And cries- Behold an imperfection perfect,'
'Tis Life's school book and Time's philosophy;
A text-book for the deeply-thinking wise;
'Tis Reason's rule-'tis Science's highest school
That maketh men true graduates indeed;
Light of Experience, and Wisdom's all,-
Nay, wisdom's not Wisdom, till patient hand
Hath turned with care its sacred pages o'er,
And learnt this truth—a lesson quite divine:
'To know himself,'-the all that man can know.
That book is-Man! revealing man to man.
Man! read man like a book, and 'KNOW THYSELF,"
And thou hast learned the alphabet of Heaven.
Experience is a hoary-headed Sage,
With hairy cheek and winter-bearded chin,
And his face maps out Old Antiquity
Plain as the dial's shade the hours of day.
Experience, too, hath sacred Wisdom's head,
Attention's smallest-whisper-hearing ear,
Persuasion's tongue of dropping eloquence,
And Penetration's eye that sees things as they are:
Yea, his all-seeing eye scans ghostly Past,
Looks on thro' heart down to the soul of things,
And e'en in Wisdom's head finds vacuum!
He's one who looks 'round other ends of times,
And sees upon both sides of things at once,—
Beholds the years in womb of Embryo,
And reads 'to come,' as it will be when born;
By ruined Past the living Present views,
And eyelays ghost of blank Futurity.
He is the mirror of Intelligence,
Time's open book and Life's philosophy
Sent to dispel the night of Ignorance :-
Poor Human Nature sheds her robe of dust-
Revealed, and bare, and naked, to his sight!
His precepts all are pearls of priceless price,
And those who scorn them are base Folly's fools—
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