PENTECOST 169
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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 ?
With calm and philosophic mind, Our logical
No fears, no hopes, devotions blind cna ioe a
To hamper, soberly we'll state demonstrating
The problem, and investigate erudition of
In purely scientific mood poet.
The sheer Ananke of the mind,
A temper for our steel to find
Whereby those brazen nails subdued
Against our door-posts may in vain
Ring. We'll examine, to be plain,
By logic’s intellectual prism
The spiritual Syllogism.
We know what fools (only) call Whether or
Divine and Supernatural not spirit and
And what they name material tinct, Tet us in
Are really one, not two, the line vestigate the
By which divide they and define fundamental
necessities of
Being a shadowy sort of test ; thought.
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 Impermanence
The sight of men, the life and fun of the soul.
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.