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 
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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.