Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1857-12-09
For the Spirit of the Age.
THE MANAGES COMPLAINT.

ma NVhN ~ Va ~ AA4C
The cricket, at the hearthstone, hears and shrieks;
Till echo answers from these naked walls.
As when vain Science, with artistic skill,
Doth strive to blend harsh discords into tune;
So natures songsters, in their rivalry,
May sereech and shrek n restless soul to sleep;
Till, from his dungeon. comes the wall subdued,
OF the poor maniac in his agony
Fearing to utter all his souls complaint.
g Why am / tortured thus Z" what is my sin?
That birds and beasts and natures meanest things,
Do mock the misery they cannot feel?
What expiration have l yet to make,
To turn aside this skeleton of death,
That meets me daily in the way of life?
1 cannot, like a laughing idiot, spend
The live long night, obliyious of my fate
And, from a dreamless bed, rise up refresh'd,
To play fantastic tricks that fools may laugh,
Quite on the verge OF deaths profound abyss,
That echoes not but in eternal silence
Hushss the groans of its ten thousand ~plungers.
| must project my thought beyond this life,
Into the silent mansions Of the dead,
And link my destiny, whate'er it be,
With forms Of beauty death has robbed me of.
Is it a crime, by outward show, to act
The nature God has given to the soul?
No, 1 must think, 2nd4hinking must doubt,
Till, from eternal truth, my reason drives
All doubts away, and Science unobscured,
Lights up the darkness with eternal day.
God gave me reason, l must use it then;
Though l do suffer in excess of doubt,
Torture unfelt this side the dread account.
| will not stagger like a criminal
To meet the death, 1 am condemned to die;
Nor will | turn from his most hideous form,
To drown my senses in the maddening draughts
vi pleasure, profit and ambitious aims.
Then l am mad, because / reason thus
And he is wise indeed who reasons not,
But, like a beast of burden, labors on,
Till fed and fattened for the day of slaughter.
Nature Doth teach man her eternal truths.
l feel and am Il think and have a SOU.
lime space! duration and eternity
The finite thus to infinite conducts
All truth with God began; in God must end;
And so IN God must end my destiny.
Heaven or hell who can resolve the doubt?
And solve the problem of this wretched life?
Gould heavens chancery approve the deed,
With pointed steel, 1 soon would cut the knot
And from opposing science fly to rest.
A mothers spirit hovers DER me still,
Her gentle whispers check the mad'ning thought.
One CLEAN of hope still fingers in my soul.
P~resumptlve truth may yet to certain rise
And lift me from this dungeon to the skies.
The owl has flown; be shuns the eye of day,
SO guilt shuns prayer; the eye of God is there.
l cannot kneel my groaning is too great.
Yet l must pray now twice the cock has crowed.
Prayers daughters show, at best, but wrinkled
faces
For they are born Of sin and misery.
When they come %trooping in q merry mood,
with tinkling %rnament with curls and flowers;
with diamonds sparkling on their lips or hands,
With wooing eyes; they pay their compliments,
As fashion leads; their faces yelled from God,
They, doubling, ask the grace they do not need.
Yet l must pray; for so my mother taught me.
But prayer and faith are one. Faith is not reason.
But | must reason, God doth so ordain.
Then, oh! my God, still let me plead with Thee,
Thou Infinite eternal cause of being.
Why hast thou made me of such gross material,
That Lrby searching, cannot find Thee out.
Thou ever-present, all-perVading spirit!
In thy revealings l have sought for Thee,
In every form of beauty, truth and love.
When found, l woEshipped Thee, God of the true,
The beautiful, and good, as L knew how.
On yonder promontory 1 have stood,
To view the vast unfathomable sea.
And trace the line where earth and heaven meet
Uniting all created things in one.
Sublim'd to rapture 1 have longed to plunge
From giddy height of weak aspiring thought,
Into thy bOundless, deep ininitude.
Oerwhelmd to nothingness, then have l turned,
To find Thee less Overwhelming, in sweet forms
Of beauty, suited to adventurous thought,
In forms instinct with life, endowed with freedom
And intelligence; part of thine image
And superscription of thy royal right
10 tribute, such as they alone can give 3
Praise, ardent, free, but notnecessitate.
The yearnings of desire to call them mine
L felt and loved them as thou dost approve,
Happy to think Thee near, to bless thy child.
: Thus feeling after Thee, the beautiful,
The true, the good, my mountain hope stood strong
And lifted up itself above the vale,
S Where welded poverty and toll join hands;
Content to live in innocence and faith.
The fields of corn did wave their heads to me,
On pastures green my cattle daily fed
Obedient servants, with assiduous care,
And quick discerning eye, did wait my will.
Then, GROWING all thy richest gifts to me,
Thou gav'st me her whose deep full soul did throl
With equal pulse, to every wish of mine.
Six blossoms grew upen my tender vine.
le On their delicious odour my soul fed
With ever new delight, and gave Thee thanks.
Thus satisfied with Thee, myself and man,
l leisurely surveyed thy handy-work.
At Autumn's eve, to my ACCUSTOMED walk
L did repair, to mediate on Thee.
It's varied beauties now the forest showed;
l. Nieing with Springtime to delight the eye,
Its countless shades then bathed in mellow light
Did seem a queenly garden raised in air,
ct Arranged with careless elegance to please
The love of freedom in the human soul.
III Thus while L fingered to commune with Thee,
a. The sitting sun dipped his broad disk behind
i The rising peak of the dark mountain cloud.
' Now distant and unusual thunder told
The coming on ofneedful showers, to fill
The ripening corn nor were they long delayed.
" The careful housewife, in the vale below,
10 Toiling beside her good man in the field,
n Is warned to shelter all her worldly care
- The little lamb she nourished at her breast,
She took, and to her humble hut repaired.
Kneeling to worship Thee, she prayed in faith,
That in the coming storm thine eye propitious
Night rest on him-her hope, her joy, her crown
n, The partner of her daily toll and care.
nc She, to her bosom, fondly Rugged her babe,
'' And bent on it her streaming eyes of love,
n Then kneeling down she prayed again" Oh Go
70 Her quivering lips refuse to utter more,
Reclining backwards on her loWly couch
Still resting on her knees, one hand supports
&C. Her sinking head, the other hugs her babe.
:. For the quick fash came from the tall tree top,
IL And through the forest cleaned the red lightni
nd Down, with a shivering crash, it plowed its way
Through branch, and gnarled bark to earth,
Then hushed. So too was hushed the mOthe
tn prayer
Her marblcd face, still beautiful in death,
70 Did, like a weeping statue, tell Of love;
Id Revealing ever more, still unrevealed,
60 Save to thine eye, eternal God of love.
W. Then tell me wherefore ?-here my reason reels
led For 1 am mad to know wherefore is death