The Sword of Song

PENTECOST 27 Why, in a word, I seek to gain A different knowledge. Why retain The husk of flesh, yet seek to merit The influx of the Holy Spirit ? And, swift as caddies pat and cap a tee, Gain the great prize all mortals snap at, he- Roic guerdon of Srotapatti ?35 With calm and philsophic mind, No fears, no hopes, devotions blind To hamper, soberly we’ll state The problem, and investigate In purely scientific mood The sheer Ananke of the mind, A temper for our steel to find Whereby those brazen nails subdued Against our door-post may in vain Ring. We’ll examine, to be plain, By logic’s intellectual prism The spiritual Syllogism. We know what fools (only) call Divine and Supernatural And what they name material Are really one, not two, the line By which divide they and define Being a shadowy sort of test ; A verbal lusus at the best, At worst a wicked lie devised To bind men’s thoughts ; but we must work With our own instruments, nor shirk Discarding what we erstwhile prized ; Should we perceive it disagree With the first-born necessity. I come to tell you why I shun The sight of men, the life and fun You know I can enjoy so well, The Nature that I love as none (I think) before me ever loved. You know I scorn the fear of Hell, By worship and all else unmoved 190 195 200 205 210 215 220 225 Our logical method. Clas- sical allusion, demonstrating erudition of poet. Whether or not spirit and matter are dis- tinct, let us in- vestigate the fundamental necessities of thought. Impermanence of the soul.