&ra III 111 III sis [Km o w Th us e WSSKM ■i J i .2; \ &6> Ll '^?/(ub MAN, THE MICROCOSM AND THE COSMOS BY ABRAHAM COLES, M.D., Ph.D. LL.D. EDITED BY HIS SON Jonathan Ackerman Coles, A.M., M.D. ILLUSTRATED. Fourth (Students') Edition. New York- D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1892 ; COPYRIGHT, l8g2, BY Jonathan Ackerman Coles. NEWARK, N. J. ADVERTISER PRINTING HOUSE, 1892 CONTENTS. Preface, - ° List of Illustrations, - - - Pa & e vn ~ Page xi Faith, - & The Microcosm, Pa S es xm ~79 Analysis, ------- Page xiii Geologic Prophecy of Man's Coming, - - Page 17 Scriptural Anticipation of the Doctrine, Page 18 General View— Man Supreme, - - - Pag e 20 Christian Science, - Pa § e 2I Infidel Science, Pa £ e 22 Common Sense, Pa S e 2 3 Invocation, ------- Pa S e 2 4 Flesh Garment-Skin, its Moral Character, Page 24 Pathognomy, ------- Pa S e 2 5 Interior View— Skin Dissected, - - Page 27 Blending of Contraries-Structural Details, Page 28 Voluntary Muscles— Their Office and Work, Page 30 Muscular Dynamics— Directing Power Where? - - Pa S e 32 Cranium— Soul's Firmament— Brain, - - Page 34 Mind's Organ— City of the Dead, - - Page 35 The Eye, and its Correlative, - - - Page 41 iv CONTENTS. Light has no Manifesting Power without the Eye, Page 41 Light lost in the Eye reappears in the Consciousness, ------ Page 43 Tears — Sleep, its Resuscitating Power — Organic Life, ------ Page 44 Spiritual Analogies, ... Page 47 Congenital Blindness — Awards of the Last Day, Page 48 Asylums for the Blind, - Page 49 Asylums for the Deaf and Dumb, - - Page 50 Hearing — Power of Sound — Music of Nature, Page 51 Music of Art — Instrumental and Vocal, - Page 52 Voice — Air of Expiration, its Transmuta- tions, ------- Page 53 Speech, Accountable Self-recording — Math- ematical Problem, ----- Page 55 Its Social Uses— The Word made Flesh, Page 56 Articulation — Nose— Mouth — Smell — Taste, Page 57 Smell — Odors, Their Subtlety and Impon- derability, - Page 58 Breath of Life, Natural and Spiritual, Page 59 Theopneusty, Page 59 Taste — Elimination and Waste — Nothing Lost, - - - Page 60 Human Want and Divine Supply, - - Page 62 CONTENTS. V Lord's Prayer — Hodiernal Bread — Hygienic Wisdom, ------- Page 64 Ingestion — Digestion — Assimilation, - Page 65 Heart — Circulation — Nutrition — Blood Ex- hilarations, ...... Page 67 Heart — Seat of the Affections — Visceral Modifications, ----- Page 69 Woman— Sex — Unity in Difference, - - Page 70 Love of the Sexes — Ends Answered, - Page 71 True Love — Spurious Love, - - - Page 73 Charity — Physician — Opiferque per Orbem Dicor, Page 75 Nosology — Auscultation of Heart and Lungs, Page 76 Physician's Character and Aims — Science Progressive, Page 77 Spiritual Maladies — Christ the Great Phy- sician, - - - - ... Page 78 Death — Immortality, - - - - - Page 79 The Cosmos, ------ Pages 81-110 Psalm CIV — First Version, - - - - Page 83 Psalm CIV — Second Version, - Page 92 God in Nature, Page 99 Morning Hymn, ----- Page 107 Works of Abraham Coles, ... Page in vi CONTENTS. Critics and Criticisms, .... Page 115 Richard Grant White; Rev. Samuel Irenaeus Prime, D. D.; Wm. Cullen Bryant; James Russell Lowell; "Christian Quarterly Re- view;" ''The Boston Transcript;" Lady Jane Franklin; William C. Prime; Rev. Philip Schaff, D. D.; "The Republican," Spring- field; George Ripley, the New York "Tribune;" Rev. James McCosh, D. D.; Hon. Richard Stockton Field; Newark "Adver- tiser;" Edmund C. Stedman; Rev. Robert Turnbull, D. D.; John G. Whittier; Rev. S. I. Prime, D. D.; George Ripley, New York "Tribune;" Rev. James McCosh, D. D. Gov. Daniel Haines; Rev. George Dana Boardman, D. D. ; Rev. Charles Hodge, D. D.; Hon. Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen; Prof. Robert Lowell, D. D.; Prof. Stephen Alexander; Oliver Wendell Holmes; William Cullen Bryant; Chancellor Henry Wood- hull Green; Charles H. Spurgeon. Hon. William Earl Dodge; Thomas Gordon Hake, M. D. ; New York "Observer;" the New York "Times;" "The Critic;" John Y. Foster; Hon. Justin McCarthy; the "Examiner and Chronicle;" Hon. Horace N. Congar; Rev. William Hague, D. D.; Newark "Advertiser;" Rev. George Dana Boardman; Rev. A. S. Patton. D. D.; Hon. Joseph P. Bradley; John G. Whittier. The Rt. Hon. John Bright, M. P.; Rev. H. G. Weston, D. D. Rev. Horatius Bonar, D. D.; Rev, Alexander McLaren, D. D. Adele M. Fielde; Elizabeth C. Kinney; "The Book Buyer,' Charles Scribner's Sons; Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D.; the New York "Tribune;" Rev. Frederic W. Farrar, D. D., F. R. S. ; Rev. A. H. Tuttle, D. D.; Rev. Charles S. Robinson, D. D.; Hon. George Hay Stuart; Rev. D. R. Frazer, D. D.; Charles M. Davis; Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. D.; S. W. Kershaw, F. S. A.; J. K. Hoyt; Rev. George Dana Boardman, D. D.; Rev. Lewis R. Dunn, D. D.; Rev. Asahel C. Kendrick, D. D.; George MacDonald; Rev. Philip Schaff, D. D. ; the " New York Tribune;" the "Newark Daily Advertiser ;" the Rev. Robert S. Mac Arthur, D. D.; the Rev. Ed- ward Judson, D.D.; Bishop John H. Vincent, D.D., LL.D.; the Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D., LL.D.; the Rt. Rev. John Williams, D.D., LL.D. ILLUSTRATIONS. J Abraham Coles, Steel Portrait, by Alexander Hay Ritchie, - - - - Frontispiece. The Transfiguration. By Raphael Sanzio. Opp. page xi. Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) was born in Urbino. Italy, on Good Friday, March 28, 1483. and died of fever in Rome on Good Friday, April 6. 1520, aged thirty-seven. His body was laid out in state by the side of his unfinished "Transfiguration." which was subse- quently carried in his funeral procession through the streets of Rome, to the Pantheon, where his remains were placed near those of Maria di Bibbiena, to whom he had been betrothed, a niece of a cardinal by that name. Of his private character, Mrs. Jame- son says- " No earthly renown was ever so unsullied by reproach, so justified by merit, so confirmed by concurrent opinion, so established by time." " The "Transfiguration," now in the Vatican gallery, was Raphael s last and is by many considered his grandest work. In the upper part he has represented Christ as hovering between Moses and Elias; representing respectively the old Law and the old proph- ecies- Peter, James and John are seen prostrate on the ground, dazzled by the light, and to the left St. Lawrence and St. Juhen, (according to some St. Stephen). "There is " says Mrs. Jameson, "a sort of eminence or plat- form, but no perspective, no attempt at real locality, for the scene is revealed as in a vision, and the same soft transparent light envelopes the whole. This is the spiritual life, raised far above the earth, but not yet in heaven. Below is seen the earthly lie, poor humanity struggling helplessly with pain, infirmity and death. The father brings his son, the possessed, or as we should now say, the epileptic boy. * * * It is, in truth, a fearful approximation of the most opposite things; the mournful helplessness, suffering and degradation of human nature, the unavailing pity, are placed viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. in immediate contrast with spiritual light, life, hope — nay, the very fruition of heavenly rapture." Salvator Mundi, .... Opp page 81. "Sic Deus Dilexit Mundum." Painted by Carlo Dolci, (born in Florence 1616, died there 1686). Engraved by Raffaello Sanzio Morghen, (born in Florence 1758 died there 1833). "When came the Great Physician of the Skies, To find a remedy that should suffice, Knowing 'twas not in mineral or wood, He sought it in a Pharmacy of Blood: And since none other but His own was pure, He transfused that to consummate the cure. Man curing when past cure — content to give Himself to die to make His patient live." — p. 79. • The "Aurora." By Guido Reni (1575-1642). Opp. page 104. This painting on the ceiling of the Casino of the Rospigliosi palace, at Rome, is celebrated as "the artist's finest work." Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, is represented as strewing flowers before the chariot of Apollo, who is surrounded by seven dancing Hours (Horae), "who had charge of the gates of Heaven and the Seasons." Prevenient splendors run along the sky, The East each moment brightens more and more As nears the jeweled Chariot of the Sun Where rides in awful state the King of Day. — p. 104. THE MICROCOSM. "KNOW THYSELF." "It is most true that of all things in the universe man is the most composite, so that he was not without reason called by the ancients Microcosm, or the little world (Mundus Minor)" — Bacon. "What a piece of work is Man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties ! in form and moving, how express and admir- able ! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a God !" — Shakespeare. "I esteem myself as composing a solemn hymn to the Author of our bodily frame, and in this I think there is more true piety than in sacrificing to Him hecatombs of oxen, or burnt offerings of the most costly perfumes, for I first endeavor to know Him myself, and afterwards to show Him to others, to inform them how great is His wisdom, His virtue, His goodness." — Galen. "I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." — David. PREFACE. rpHE following Poem was delivered before the Med- -*" ical Society of New Jersey at its Centennial Meet- ing, held in Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N. J., January 24, 1866. Prepared amid the hurry and distrac- tions of other duties, and with special reference to the demands and limitations of the occasion, the Poem, as originally delivered, fell short of the author's design, which was to produce, if possible, a tolerably complete compendium of that noblest, most necessary, and yet, strange to say, that most neglected of all the sciences- Anthropology— relieved of some of the dryness belong- ing to the ordinary modes of presentation. The hope of supplying in some measure existing deficiencies, led the author, after the manuscript had passed into the hands of the printer, to avail himself of the short intervals which transpired between the receiv- ing and returning of the proofs, to castigate some parts li PREFACE. and expand others not sufficiently developed, so that besides alterations there have been additions to the amount of two hundred lines and more since that first reading. He regrets that the hurry of the press joined to the hurry arising from other causes, afforded so little opportunity for putting in practice the sound inculca- tion of Horace, concerning the duty of delay and care- ful finish: limce labor et mora. With more time at his disposal, he thinks he could have done better justice to the fine capabilities of a subject, which the writers of verse, ransacking heaven and earth for a theme, have hitherto for the most part strangely overlooked. This remarkable omission is the more to be wondered at, because many of our best poets have been physicians; and for some reason or other " the wise of ancient days adored One power of Physic, Melody and Song." Dr. Armstrong's well-known Poem in four books, written in blank verse, and first published in 1744, entitled, " The Art of Preserving Health," does, indeed, treat partially and incidentally of physiological PREFACE. Hi matters, and may therefore be regarded as forming in some sort an exception to the general rule of neglect affirmed above. It has for its topics— Air, Diet, Exercise and the Passions— discussed of course, in conformity with the design of the Poem, according to their sanitary bearings, each forming the subject of a separate book. The work was everywhere read and admired; and remains to this day, according to the poet Campbell, " the most successful attempt in our language to incorporate material science with poetry." While the critic admits that "the practical maxims of science, which the Muse has stamped with imagery and attuned to harmony, have so far an advantage over those delivered in prose, that they become more agree- able and permanent acquisitions of the memory," he, in common with others, seems to think, that there inhere in such subjects, nevertheless, difficulties of a most formidable kind, a perversity and stubbornness of nature, which are never overcome except by some rare felicity of fortune or surprising exertion of genius. Hence he says: "the author's Muse might be said to show a professional intrepidity in choosing her subject- iv PREFA CE and, like the physician, to prolong the simile, she escaped on the whole with little injury. * * * What is explained of the animal economy is obscured by no pedantic jargon, but made distinct and to a certain degree picturesque to the conception." So too in his final summing up of the merits of the Poet, he does not fail to emphasize that special one, due " to the hand which has reared poetical flowers on the dry and dif- ficult ground of philosophy." But there is another and much older example of this morganatic marriage, as some might call it, between poetry and natural science — one antedating the Chris- tian era and the time of Virgil. Lucretius, born in the year before Christ 95, composed a Latin poem in heroic hexameters, entitled De Re rum Natura. It is divided into six books; and is based on the doctrines of Epi- curus, who taught that the world was formed from a fortuitous concourse of atoms. The first two books expound the nature and proper- ties of these ultimate atoms or seeds of things, varying in shape and infinite in number, moving in void space infinite in extent, with great swiftness, some in right PREFACE. V lines, others declining therefrom, until united to each other after innumerable tentative contacts, all the ob- jects in the universe are generated — which objects form the subject matter of the remaining four books. The third book is taken up with a description of the mind (animus) and soul (anima) maintaining that both are corporeal, acting on the body by material impact ; that the substance of the mind and soul is not simple, 'but composed of four subtle elements — heat, vapor, air, and a nameless fourth substance on which sensibility depends, and is, so to speak, the soul of the soul; that the soul cannot be separated from the body without destruction to both, and that death is the end of man. The fourth book treats of the senses, averring that images* of exquisite subtlety are constantly emitted (shed, peeled off as it were) from the surface of objects, * Democritus first, Epicurus afterwards called these elduXa nal Tvnovc, i. e. eidola and types; Cicero, images; Quintilian, figures; Catius, spectres; Lucretius, effigies, images, simulacra, species, figures, exuviae, spoils, quasi membranes, cortices, etc. Epicurus and Lucretius supposed spectres of the dead to be pellicles thrown off from corpses which were so thin as to pass through coffins and all other obstructions. vi PREFACE. which flying everywhere and impinging on the organs of sight produce vision; that voice and sound are cor- poreal images, (as proved by their abrading the throat after long or loud speaking,) which strike the ear and produce hearing. Taste and odors are accounted for; and imagination and thought traced to images which penetrate the body through the senses. Sleep is next spoken of, and the various causes of dreams — the book closing with a discourse on love and matters pertaining thereto. The fifth book treats of the origin of the world — land, sea, sky, sun, stars, the movements of the heavens, the changes of the seasons and the progress of man, society, institutions and sciences — while the sixth book, being the last, attempts an explanation of the most striking natural appearances, such as lightning, thunder, clouds, rainbow, snow, wind, hail, earthquakes and volcanoes, concluding with a discourse on diseases, and a learned and elegant description of a pest which in the time of the Peloponnesian war desolated Athens. The philosophy of this celebrated Poem is of course false and absurd, but in regard to its poetical merit PREFACE. vii there can be but one opinion. The poet's mastery over his materials is complete. Under his magic touch, speculations the most abstruse and technicalities the most refractory, lose their intractableness, and are con- verted into forms of exquisite beauty and grace. Great, undoubtedly, are the attractions of a virgin theme. It added to the rapture of Milton, " soaring in the high reason of his fancy with his garland and singing robes about him," the knowledge that he pursued "Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme." So Lucretius, in the opening lines of the fourth book, does not conceal his satisfaction that he is first in the field: "Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante Trita solo: juvat integros adcedere funteis Atque haurire; juvatque novos decerpere flores, Insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam, Unde prius nulli velarint tempora Musae."* * The Muses' pathless places I explore, Worn by the sole of no one's foot before : 'Tis sweet to untouched fountains to repair And drink; 'tis sweet to pluck new flowers; and there To seek a famous chaplet for my brow Whence have the Muses veiled no head till now. The literalness of this translation must atone for its lack of elegance. viii PREFACE. The author of the Microcosm, enjoying, in common with these great masters of song, the felicity of a sub- ject unprofaned by previous handling, regrets that he does not possess their power to do it justice. He thinks it strange — that while amid the ignorances and the vani- ties of a false philosophy two thousand years ago, the poet's heart, instinctively discerning the excellent beauty there is in God's works, veras pulchritudines rerum, was stirred to sing, and in such a manner as to charm the ear of the world " Principio ccelum ac terras, camposque liquentes, Lucentemque globum lunae, titaniaque astra Spiritus intus alit; totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet " — no one has been found in these last days, after so long waiting, sufficiently kindled and inspired by the excit- ing discoveries and revelations of modern science, to undertake the task of lifting them into the sphere of poetry, and glorifying them with its light. If there is nothing so mean but it has a divine side — if materials for poetry be not wanting in the most common things, a floating cloud, a spear of grass, or a handful of dust PREFA CE. ix even — how much more may this be said of so lofty a subject as Man, " the mirror of the power of God " reflecting His Maker's image in every part, in the minutest blood-disk and elementary cell, no less than in the complex whole of his most wonderful organism! In short, if it be the proper business of Poetry to deal with subjects of human interest, what can be more human than humanity itself? Or if its high aim be to discover throughout creation the dazzling tokens of the Beautiful, the to nakov which is only another name for the Divine, where else in all the universe do the shin- ing footprints of the First Good and the First Fair appear so radiant or so recent as in His last and crown- ing work, the Human Form ? The failure of the present attempt to show it, would prove nothing against the grand poetic possibilities of such a theme. Still it would be true " How charming is divine philosophy ? Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets Where no crude surfeit reigns." TRANSFIGURATION. "Bt transfiguratus est ante eos, .:vni 2 I Body . . did ens' ■ 1-racioue Q ] i did Thy:-: i) 24 FAITH. The world is full of pain; Fierce sickness binds it fast; And none can break the chain, That sin has round it cast: Philosophy essays, And science goes about In many bootless ways, To cast the demon out: They magnify th' unchanging reign of law, And preach the gospel of the tooth and claw.* Ne'er wizard wove a spell That could the fiend eject; But Faith the miracle Can easily effect: What not the Law could do, Through weakness of the flesh, This strong is to renew, And nature mould afresh: Can bring down Heaven to exorcise my grief — " Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief ! " *To men that "bite and devour one another," the Agnostic assurance, that what they do is but the normal and necessary outcome of the predatory instinct which they possess in common with all beasts of prey, may be comforting, but can hardly be deemed reformatory. If the primitive man was all beast in his origin and development, it is difficult to see, why he is more to blame than lions and tigers in obeying the promptings of his nature. Infidel science prides itself on its microscope and telescope, but finds no use for moral and spiritual lenses by which God is discovered and the infinite sweep of moral law is discerned. ANALYSIS. The Poem begins with speaking of Man as the Arche- type or ideal exemplar of all animals, whose coming was foretold in a long series of Geologic prophecies from the creation of the paleozoic fishes ; and then passes to notice a remarkable anticipation of this accepted doctrine of modern science in the 139th Psalm — Owen, Agassiz and other great lights of Comparative and Philosophical Anatomy agreeing in this — that while man was the last made he was the first planned of all animals — it being easy to trace even in the fins of the fish, a marked resemblance in structure to the bones composing the human arms of which they are homo- logues — fins, in other words, being imperfect arms, arms in their most rudimentary condition. In speaking of the supreme dignity of the human form, viewed as a whole, and of man existing in God as well as of God, occasion is taken to animadvert upon the atheistic tendency of certain materialistic teachings. After which the component parts of the Human Body are taken up in detail, beginning with — I. the Skin, as xiv ANALYSIS. its outermost covering and face, (expressing the pas- sions, &c.,) composed of three layers. Below the Skin lie — II. the Muscles, the Organs of Motion, directed by the Will, acting through nervous channels of communi- cation with — III. the Brain, as the Common Sensory, and seat of this, and the other Faculties of the Mind, such as the Understanding, the Religious Sense, Mem- ory, Imagination and Conscience. A secretory function is attributed to the great Ganglions of the Brain (the Gray Substance) of a hypothetical Nervous Fluid which fills the whole body. The Mind being dependent for its perceiving power on the Organs of the Senses, leads to a consideration of — IV. the Eye in its relation to Light, also to Tears and Sleep. After glancing at the analagous relations subsisting between the Soul and Truth, mention is made of the Founders of Asylums for the Blind ; also of Asylums for the Deaf and Dumb. Next comes — V. the Ear in its relation to Sound and Music ; and then by a natural transition — VI. the Human Voice, as being the most perfect of musical instruments. The Mouth and Nose, being concerned in Articulation, brings up — VII. Taste, and — VIII. Smell. The final cause of Taste being the repair of the Waste the body is constantly ANAL YSIS. XV undergoing, there follows a description of — IX. Inges- tion, Digestion and Assimilation. The Chyle received into the Blood is conveyed to the right side of the Heart, which, besides being the grand Organ of — X. the Circulation and indirectly of Nutrition, is the reputed seat of — XI. the Affections, and stands in general speech as a synonym of Love under its mani- fold manifestations. Having noticed the coloring or modifying power of the Viscera in giving Love its distinctive character, as exemplified in Maternal Love and the Love of the Sexes, occasion is taken to speak of — XII. Woman, as distinguished from Man. Of Charity, which is Love in action, or Love viewed in its practical aspect, an apt illustration is found in the devotion and self- denying labors of — XIII. the Conscientious Physician. Reference is made to — XIV. Christ as the Great Physician of Souls; and to — XV. Death in that as- pect of brightness which it bears to the believer. THE MICROCOSM, Tvoodi ffeavrov. Geologic Prophecy of Alans Coming. OWHAT a solemn and divine delight To pierce the darkness of primeval night — Through countless generations upward climb To the first epochs of beginning time ; Back, through the solitude of ages gone, To the dim twilight of Creation's dawn ; To the dread genesis of heaven and earth, When pregnant Deity gave Nature birth ; Borne on swift pinions, till our feet we place Upon the undermost granitic base Of the round world ; and, awe-struck, standing there, Where all is lifeless, desolate and bare, 2 S THE MICROCOSM. Behold the forming of earth's upper crust, Built up of atoms of once living dust ; Layer on layer rising, rock on rock, Through lapse of years that numeration mock; Where lie, in stony sepulchres forgot, Gigantic organisms that now are not ; And all the various forms of life prevail, From low to high, in an ascending scale, — Mollusk and fish, then reptile, and then bird, So on to mammal, each o'er each interred — All pointing forward, in the eternal plan, To the ideal, archetypal MAN ! Scriptural A?iticipatio?i of the Doctrine. How oft, what's plain and patent in the Word Is by slow Science painfully inferred ! The truth she took long centuries to unfold, Had she but known it, was already told. See, with what ease the Psalmist now unlocks The secret of the paleozoic rocks ; Inspiring insight given him, to see The drift and meaning of the mystery ; His, the discoveries of modern boast, By revelation of the Holy Ghost ; THE MICROCOSM. 1 9 In correspondence, literally exact With geologic inference and fact, O'erwhelmed with fear and wonder, hear him speak :* "O Omnipresent One ! in vain I seek To bound Thy being, get beyond Thee, go Where Thou, the Infinite, art not,— Oh, no ! If I ascend to heaven, I find Thee ; or in hell I make my bed, I find Thee there as well ; There is no hiding place from Thee ; yea, in the dark Thou seest me, nor need'st the sun — that spark Which the insufferable splendor of Thine eye Did kindle — to reveal me or descry ; Thou hast possessed my reins ; didst give me room, Growth and development in my mother's womb ; My substance was not hid from Thee, when I Was made in secret, and was curiously In the earth's lowest parts and strata wrought ; My perfect whole, was present to Thy thought While yet imperfect, and, in Nature's book My members were prefigured ; each thing took My embryonic likeness ; fish's fin, By virtue of relationship and kin, * Psalm cxxxix. ) THE MICROCOSM, Predicted me ; ages before I came, The Ichthyosaurus prophesied the same ; Entrails of beast, and wing of bird, supplied Aruspicy and augury, nor lied. Thy works, how marvellous ! Thy hands began, And wrought continually to make me man. In all the grand ascent of Nature's stair, O unforgetting God ! I've been Thy care : How precious are Thy thoughts to me — their count Is as the sand, an infinite amount !" General View — Man Supreme. O thou, made up of every creature's best, The summing up and monarch of the rest ! Thy high-raised cranium, — vaulted to contain The big and billowy and powerful brain, While that a scanty thimbleful, no more, Belongs to such as swim or creep or soar; Thy form columnar, sky-ward looking face,* Majestic mien, intelligence and grace, Thy foot's firm tread, and gesture of thy hand * " Pronaque cum spectant animalia caetera terram, Os homini sublime dedit : ccelumque videre Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollcre vultus." — 0?'iW. THE MICROCOSM. 21 Proclaim thee ruler, destined to command. A little lower than the angels made, Dominion, glory, worship on thee laid, I praise not thee, but honor and applaud The handiwork and masterpiece of God. Fearful and wonderful, and all divine, Where two worlds mingle, and two lives combine — A dual body, and a dual soul, Touching eternity at either pole — The tides of being, circling swift or slow, 'Tween mystic banks that ever overflow, Exist not severed from the Fountain-head, But whence they rise, eternally are fed : Our springs are all in God; from Him we drink, Live, move, and have our being, feel and think. Christian Science. I value Science — none can prize it more — It gives ten thousand motives to adore. Be it religious, as it ought to be, The heart it humbles, and it bows the knee; What time it lays the breast of Nature bare, Discerns God's fingers working everywhere ; In the vast sweep of all embracing laws, t THE MICROCOSM. Finds Him the real and the only Cause ; And, in the light of clearest evidence, Perceives Him acting in the present tense — Not as some claim, once acting but now not, The glorious product of His hands forgot, Having wound up the grand automaton, Leaving it, henceforth, to itself to run. Infidel Science. If I mistake not, 'tis in this consists The common folly of the specialists. Bigots of sense, they, with unwearied pains Searching for soul, find something they call brains \, Happy the mystery of life to tell, By help of glasses, they announce a cell ; And thereupon they would the world persuade They know exactly how that man is made ; 'Tween nought and nought, his origin and end, A cell is all, and all on this depend ; They pare his being, make it less and less, Until they reach the goal of nothingness. Their boasted methods failing to find out The soul's high essence, they affect to doubt ; To their own notions obstinately wed, THE MICROCOSM. 2 3 They vainly seek the living 'mong the dead ; By learning mad, these noodles of the schools Are but a kind of higher class of fools. Who follows matter through its countless shapes, While still it vanishes and still escapes ; O'er eagerly pursues the flying feet Of natural causes farther than is meet, Losing all trace, and drawing thence too near, Into the bottomless obscure falls sheer ; With atheistic cant, then God ignores, And turns the Maker fairly out of doors ; Deems certainties of consciousness weigh less Than the presumptions of a learned guess. Common Sense. Presumptuous though it be, I, with a calm Audacity of faith, believe I am ; Nor venture with a Maker to dispense, But trust the sanities of Common Sense ; Hold life, despite of failure to extract, A thing of firm reality and fact ; Accept the truth, engraven on my heart, I have a spiritual and immortal part. If this great universe is a deceit, 24 THE MICROCOSM. I am not able to detect the cheat ; Nor dare I tell the Author of the Skies That He has built on rottenness and lies. Invocation. Dear God ! this Body, which, with wondrous art Thou hast contrived, and finished part by part, Itself a universe, a lesser all, The greater cosmos crowded in the small — I kneel before it, as a thing divine ; For such as this, did actually enshrine Thy gracious Godhead once, when Thou didst make Thyself incarnate, for my sinful sake. Thou who hast done so very much for me, let me do some humble thing for Thee ! 1 would to every Organ give a tongue, That Thy high praises may be fitly sung ; Appropriate ministries assign to each, The least make vocal, eloquent to teach. Flesh Garment — Skin, its Moral Character. How beautiful, and delicate, and fresh, Appear the Soul's Habiliments of Flesh ! How closely fitting, easy yet, and broad, THE MICROCOSM. 2 5 Each Tissue woven in the loom of God ! Compared with that magnificence of dress, Wherewith is clothed the Spirit's nakedness, O how contemptible and mean a thing, The purple and fine linen of a king ! The spotless vesture of the silky Skin, Outside of all, and covering all within, With what a marvellous and matchless grace, Is it disposed and moulded to each place ; Bounding and beautifying brow and breast, A crowning loveliness to all the rest ! Endowed with wondrous properties of soul That interpenetrate and fill the whole — A raiment, moral, maidenly and white, Shamed at each breach of decency and right, Where dwells a charm above the charms of sense, Suggestive of the soul's lost innocence. Pathognomy. Who has not seen that Feeling, born of flame,* Crimson the cheek at mention of a name ? The rapturous touch of some divine surprise * Aristotle calls Love, " tl Otpubv npdy/Lia "-a certain fiery thing. 26 THE MICROCOSM. Flash deep suffusion of celestial dyes ; When hands clasped hands, and lips to lips were pressed, And the heart's secret was at once confessed ? Lo, the young mother, when her infant first Gropes for the fountain whence to quench its thirst ; With outstretched tiny hands, to eager lips Conveys the nipple, and the nectar sips ; — As on her yearning breast, she feels the warm Delicious clasp of its embracing arm, How thrills the bosom, and how streams the wine ! How her frame trembles with a Joy divine ! Not Joy, not Love alone here take their rise, The chosen seat of mighty sympathies ; Electric with all life, Religious Awe Here holds its empire and asserts its law. At dead of night when deep sleep falls on men, Terror and trembling came upon me ; then A spirit passed before my face ; the hair Stood up upon my shuddering flesh — and there Was silence — all my bones did shake — A voice the preternatural stillness brake : "Shall mortal man, whose origin is dust, Arraign his Maker, claim to be more just?" Contending Passions jostle and displace THE MICROCOSM. 27 And tilt and tourney mostly in the Face ; Phantasmagoric shapes appear and pass, Distinctly pictured in that magic glass ; Their several natures, instantly imbued With the complexion of the changeful mood- Ashes of Grief, and pallor of Affright, Blackness of Rage, and Hatred's wicked white, The immortal radiance of Faith and Hope, Like that which streamed on Stephen's from the cope ; The hidden depths of being, stirred below, Thoughts, passions, feelings, upward mount for show ; Unmatched by Art, upon this wondrous scroll Portrayed are all the secrets of the Soul ; Upon this palimpsest, writ o'er and o'er, Each passing hour is busy penning more ; Events, that make the history within, There published on the surface of the Skin. Interior View—Skin Dissected. What lies below this beautiful outside ? What proofs of power and wisdom does it hide? To eyes instructed and divinely keen, The Shekinah, the Cherubim between, Was not more visible than the Godhead here, 28 THE MICROCOSM. Nor spake more audibly to human ear. For from the centre to this far extreme, And corporal shore of being, Love supreme Its miracles magnificent has wrought, Embodying the Maker's perfect thought. Would you explore the Mysteries of Life ? Dissect in fear, use reverently the knife — All was made sacred to some holy use, Whate'er the profanations of abuse — Cut not with blundering and careless hand, If you the fleshly maze would understand ; For that the task is difficult, it needs The skill and knowledge which experience breeds. Blending of Contraries — Structural Details. Now that the Dermal Covering is cut through, And its interior structure brought to view, Pause, if you will, and let your aided sight Peruse the wonders of Creative Might. Admire the skill that can in one combine A Sensibility and a Touch so fine — Making the Skin throughout the purpose serve Of one ubiquitous great surface nerve, That finest needle, would it entrance gain, THE MICROCOSM. 29 Must pierce the sense and stab the soul with pain ; AVhere camping armies of papillae wait, Manning each fortress, guarding every gate, Armed at all points, and vigilant as fear, To sound th' alarm when danger hovers near — And yet, despite this nicety of sense, Formed for coarse uses, and for rough defense ; — An imbricated Armor, scale on scale * Twelve thousand millions form a coat of mail, Flexile and fine, or horny else and hard, The trembling nakedness of sense to guard ; A colored Rete delicately spun, Quenching the fiery arrows of the sun, Spreads soft above, and undulating dips * The Skin as here described includes: 1. The Cuticle with its innumerable microscopic tiles specially designed for defence. 2. The Rete Mucosum, the seat of color. 3. The Corium or True Skin, consisting of two non-separable layers — the upper, papillary and sensitive ; the lower, firm and fibrous. 4. Perspiratory tubes, convoluted beneath the true skin, their spiral ducts opening obliquely under the scales of the Cuticle, their office being to purify and cool the body. 5. Sebaceous Follicles, or Oil Glands, seated in the substance of the skin, serving to soften and lubricate the surface, furnishing likewise, perhaps, 6, that Distinctive Odor pecu- liar to each individual whereby he sows himself on all the winds, and perfumes with every footstep the ground over which he passes. 7. The Hair, implanted by a bulbous root in the fibrous layer of the Corium, which being contractile shrinks under the influence of great fear or horror, and as the poet says : " Makes each particular hair to stand on end Like quills upon the fretful porcupine" — quills in the porcupine, feathers in the bird, wool and hair in the quadruped, all belonging to the same category. Hair in man, not being needed for warmth or covering as in the lower lives, is gathered to the head and appropriately crowns it. 30 THE MICROCOSM. Between the sentient papillary tips, Part of the duplex Corium beneath Forming a continent elastic sheath, Felted and firm and suitable to bind, Muscle andviscus to the place assigned ; Where, nine full leagues of Tubing buried lie — All convoluted opening to the sky, Transmitting formed impurities within, Through doors and windows of the porous skin, Th' exuding moisture tempering inward flame, Cooling the fever of the heated frame — Fountlets and Rivulets of Oil below, Preserving softness, ever spring and flow ; Musk emanations — to the dog defined, Snuffing his master on the scented wind — Hair, not for warmth or dress, here sparsely spread, Reserved to ornament the regal head, Around the brow of Eva thickly curled And crowning Adam monarch of the world. Voluntary Muscles — Their Office and Work. Lifting this threefold Veil, we find — beneath A dense, enclosing, universal sheath — * * The enveloping aponeurosis or fascia binding down the muscles. THE MICROCOSM. 3 1 The subject Muscles—* girded to fulfil The lightning mandates of the sovereign Will— Th' abounding means of motion, wherein lurk Man's infinite capacity for work ; By which, as taste or restless nature bids, He rears the Parthenon or Pyramids ; In high achievements of the plastic art, Fulfils th' ambitious purpose of his heart ; Creates a grace outrivaling his own, Charming all eyes— the poetry of stone ; Symbols his faith, as in Cathedrals— vast Religious petrifactions of the Past : Covers the land with cities ; makes all seas White with the sails of countless argosies ; Pushes the ocean back with all her waves, And from her haughty sway a kingdom saves ; Tunnels high mountains, Erebus unbars, And through it rolls the thunder of his cars ; With stalwart arm, defends down-trodden right, * Some authors reckon the number of Muscles in the Human Body as high as 5^ 7 They have been divided into Voluntary (forming the red flesh, or the main bulk of the body); Involuntary, such as the heart, fleshy fibres of the stomach, etc • and Mixed, such as the muscles of respiration, etc. Each Muscle is made up of an indefinite number of fibres, which may be considered as so many muscles in miniature, along which stream the currents of the Will. Yet with all this complex apparatus everything is in harmony. 32 THE MICROCOSM. And, like a whirlwind, sweeps the field of fight ; And when, at last, the war is made to cease, On firm foundations stablishes a peace ; Then barren wastes with nodding harvests sows, And makes the desert blossom as the rose. Muscular Dynamics — Directing Power Where ? Bundles of fleshy fibres without end, Along the bony Skeleton extend In thousand-fold directions from fixed points To act their several parts upon the Joints ; Adjustments nice of means to ends we trace, With each dynamic filament in place ; But where's the Hand that grasps the million reins Directs and guides them, quickens or restrains ? See the musician, at his fingers' call, All sweet sounds scatter, fast as rain-drops fall ; With flying touch, he weaves the web of song, Rhythmic as rapid, intricate as long. Whence this precision, delicacy and ease ? And where's the Master that defines the keys ? The many-jointed Spine, with link and lock To make it flexile while secure from shock, Is pierced throughout, in order to contain THE MICROCOSM. 33 The downward prolongation of the brain ; From which, by double roots, the Nerves* arise — One Feeling gives, one Motive Power supplies ; In opposite directions, side by side, With mighty swiftness there two currents glide — Winged, head and heel, the Mercuries of Sense \ Mount to the regions of Intelligence ; Instant as light, the nuncios of the throne Command the Muscles that command the Bone. Each morning after slumber, brave and fresh, The Moving Army of the Crimson Flesh, From fields of former conquests, marching comes To the grand beating of unnumbered drums — \ Each martial Fibre pushing to the van To make " I will " the equal of " I can"; * For the benefit of the general reader, presumably not familiar with anatomi- cal details, we may state that there are 43 pairs of nerves in all, i.e. 12 Cranial or Encephalic and 31 Spinal. The first have only one root in the brain, whilst the latter arise by two roots from the anterior and posterior halves of the spinal mar- row, but unite immediately afterwards to form one nerve. Division of the ante- rior root causes loss of motion — of the posterior the loss of sensation. The first transmit volitions/row the brain, the latter sensitive impressions to the brain. tHelmholtz has instituted experiments to determine the rapidity of transmis- sion of the nervous actions. For sensation the rate of movement assigned is one hundred and eighty to three hundred feet per second. Muscular contraction, or shortening of the muscular fibre takes place, at times, with extreme velocity ; a single thrill, in the letter R., can be pronounced in the i-3o,oooth part of a minute. There are insects whose wings strike the air thousands of times in a minute. The force of contraction (Myodynamis) is most remarkable in some of these. In birds, the absolute power in proportion to the weight of the body is as 10,000 to 1. X The heart and arteries. 3 34 THE MICROCOSM. Testing the possibilities ot power In deeds of daring suited to the hour ; Doing its utmost to build up the health And glory of the inner Commonwealth. Levers and fulcra everywhere we find, But where's the great Archimedean Mind, That on some pou sto,* outside and above, Plants its firm foot this living world to move ? Cranium — Soul 's Firmament — Brain. Find it we shall, if anywhere we can, Doubtless, in that high Capitol of man, Whose Spheric Walls, concentric to the cope, Were built to match the nature of his Hope. What seems the low vault of a narrow tomb, Is the Soul's sky, where it has ample room ; As apt through this, its crystalline, to pass, As though it were diaphanous as glass. When Sense is dark, it is not dark, but light, Itself a sun, that banishes the night, Shedding a morning, beauteous to see, On the horizon of Eternity. * Archimedes used to say, "Give a place where I may stand (&oq nov otu), and I can move the world." THE MICROCOSM. 35 Strange, a frail link and manacle of Brain So long below suffices to detain A principle, so radiant and high, So restless, strong, and fitted for the sky. Mind's Organ — City of the Dead. Here mounted, standing on the topmost towers, Up to the roof of this high dome of ours, With the Mind's Organ in our hands, what new Secrets of structure strike th' astonished view? A weird and wonderful, and fragile mass Of white and gray * — deserted now, alas ! All knowledge quite razed out ; no trace Of things which were ; now mourns each happy place, * The Nervous System everywhere consists of two kinds of tissue — White and Gray. The White forms the nerves, the exterior of the spinal cord, and the central parts of the brain and cerebellum (where it is soft, like curdled cream, but is firmer in the nerves), composed everywhere of parallel fibres or threads of extreme fineness, which form the Channels of nervous power and influence to and from the Ganglionic Centres — Sources, both great and small, of this influence. These constitute the Gray substance found in the central parts of the spinal cord, at the base of the brain in isolated masses, and the exterior of the cerebrum and cerebel- lum, where to economize space it lies in folds, dipping down into the interior, and forming the convolutions. It is found also in the ganglia of the Great Sympa- thetic. Condensely stated, the gray ganglia originate nervous power, the white nervous filaments only transmit it. The Hemispherical Ganglia (the plaited or convoluted cortex of the cerebrum forming about nine-tenths of the whole mass of the brain), although entirely destitute of both sensibility and excitability, are believed to be on good grounds the special seat, so far as these can be said to have any, of the intellectual faculties — memory, reason, judgment and the like. Im- pressions, conveyed to the Spinal Cord, i. e. its ganglionic centre, are there organ- 36 THE MICROCOSM. Where frolicked once the Children of the Mind, Of all the number, not one left behind ; No vestige of the battle and the strife ; None, of the conquests that ennobled life. Hid is the maze where Doubt was wont to grope ; Hid the starved fibre of a perished Hope ; Hid the tough sinews of a wrestling Faith, The Christian Athlete matched with Sin and Death ; Hid all the teeth-prints of the wolves of Grief, A savage pack, of which Remorse is chief. How strange, of all the wounds our comforts mar, That of the fellest we should find no scar ! None can point out where Understanding dwelt ; None, the high places where Religion knelt — The spot where Reverence, with feet unshod, Came to consult the Oracle of God. The crypts and catacombs, where Memory cast The bones of all the dead of all the Past ; ically s not intellectually perceived, and the movements which follow are such as are dictated by supreme organic wisdom, forming indeed an admirable mimicry of conscious sensation and voluntary action, but mimicry only, for both are really absent. This belongs to what is called "reflex action," and explains automatic function and phenomena, of which life is full. It is not, it is believed, until im- pressions have reached the ganglion of the Tuber Annulare that they are con- verted into conscious sensations and excite voluntary movements. And only when they have mounted to the Hemispheres, the ganglia of thought and feeling, that they become the property of the intellect and are made the grounds of rational conduct. THE MICROCOSM. 37 Shelves, where were stowed all libraries of man, All gray traditions, since the world began ; All literatures, religions, kinds and parts Of knowledge, laws, philosophies and arts ; All actions, all articulated breath — The Book of Life, and, ah ! the Book of Death, — Wherein, whatever fatal leaf it turned, Its former self the guilty soul discerned, Mirrored entire — seen outside and within In every form and attitude of sin ; Th' inevitable reflection, imaged there, True to the life, like pictures of Daguerre ; The very scene, in which each deed was done, Painted in all the colors of the sun ; So faithful, fresh, time, circumstance and act, The past reality seemed present fact — There field, and weapon, and the riven brain Of Abel smitten by the hand of Cain, And blood, with red moist lips, in Pity's ears Crying for vengeance through eternal years, Th' unwashed crimson of the guilty sod As in the eye and memory of God. Imagination's skyey seat, where came For soaring flight the demigods of fame, 38 THE MICROCOSM. Home of the Muses, fair and forked Mount Of high Parnassus, and Castalian Fount, Whence issued streams that watered all the earth, Then most, when blind Mceonides had birth ; And Zion's holier Hill, and Siloe's Brook, Warbling forever, in blind Milton's book ; The topmost peak where Shakespeare took his stand, And waved his wand of power o'er sea and land. Strange, that so sweet and heavenly a hill, Should breed fierce dragons, ravenous beasts of ill — " Gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire,' Monsters of hideous shapes, with tongues of fire — Have rifted rocks whose entrance leads to hell, And the damned wizard of the mighty spell, Making its precincts all enchanted ground, Turning to horror every sight and sound, With grisly terrors, straight from Acheron, Peopling each nook, and darkening all the sun. None can the judgment seat of Conscience show, That highest Court and Parliament below, Where, sole and sovereign, seated on her throne, She recognized th' Infallible alone. To her, the keys of heaven and earth were given, And what she bound on earth was bound in heaven. THE MICROCOSM. 39 By the clear light, which her decisions shed, Instructed feet in pleasant ways were led, Martyrs were pointed to the neighboring sky, And Patriots taught how sweet it is to die. Where these had their high dwelling, we, in vain, Seek in this packed and folded pulp of brain. Judged, by the ignorant regards of sense, How mean ! by heights of function, how immense ! To reason and the vision of shut eyes Its infinite expandings fill the skies. What regions of sublimity once there ! What mountains soaring in the upper air ! Not thunder scarred Acroceraunian* peak, Alpine or Himalayan loftier than the Greek, So high so hidden— from whose secret tops, Keener than needles, trickled the first drops Of rising rivers, flowing silently Into the cerebral deep drainless sea, From which, as from a mighty fountain-head, Life's crystal waters everywhere were spread, y,i<* mountains in Greece (from d/cpor, extreme, and ning. 4° THE MICROCOSM. Coursing in liquid lapse through Channels White,*" Swift as the lightning, stainless as the light, Conveying to each atom of the whole Volitions, animations, power and soul. Once beautiful for situation, gem And joy of the whole earth, Jerusalem, How sits she solitary ! she that was great Among the nations, now left desolate ! Th' adversary hath spread out his hand On all her pleasant things and spoiled the land ; Her gates are sunk into the ground ; the rent And ruined rampart and the wall lament ; Her palaces are swallowed up ; the Lord His altar hath cast off ; He hath abhorred His sanctuary even ; hath o'erthrown And pitied not, nor cared to spare His own. * The Nerves are composed of bundles of minute fibres or filaments, averaging T-2,000 of an inch in diameter. Each filament consists of a colorless, transparent, tubular membrane, containing a thick, softish, semi-fluid nervous matter which is white and glistening by reflected light. Running through the central part is a longitudinal grayish band, called " the axis of the cylinder." Branches of a nerve are merely separations and new directions of some of the filaments of the bundle, these being always continuous from their origin to their point of distribution, which prevents any confusion arising from a running together of impressions. The nervous tree, like that of the blood vessels, is so vast, that in its totality, •exhibited separately, it would give almost an outline of the human form. The •circulation of a nervous fluid, though not demonstrable, has been hypothetically deduced from the tubular structure of the nerves and other considerations. Assuming the fact, the whole body may be said to swim in this vital sea, having its analogy in that higher or divine animation, described as being " filled with the Spirit." THE MICROCOSM. 4* The Eye, and its Correlative. The ways of Zion mourn ; funereal gloom pills every habitation like a tomb ; Closed is each port, and window of the mind ; And there is none to look— the Eye is blind. How different once, when in that little Sphere The glorious universe was pictured clear ! O what an Organ that ! germane to Light, Whose own relations too are such to sight, T'were hard to say, the two so nicely fit, Made was the eye for light, or light for it. Ne'er were two lovers, separate by space, More eager, fond, impatient to embrace, Than that sweet splendor — streaming from afar, Traveling for ages from some distant star, Straight as an arrow speeding from the bow — And that dear Eyeball waiting here below. Light has no Manifesting Power without the Eye. Prime work of God ! upon the bended knee The whole creation homage pays to thee ; From night and chaos countless suns emerge That all their beamings may in thee converge, 42 THE MICROCOSM. Since wholly vain and useless were, they know, Without the Eye to see, their light to show ; They roll in darkness, quenched their every ray, Till thy lids opening change the night to day. Placed, for commanding and enjoying these, In the dread centre of immensities, The depths thou searchest and the heights supreme, Ranging at will from this to that extreme. Where space is dark to thy unaided sight, Thither thou turn'st thy telescope of might, And in the heart of the abysmal gloom Behold'st celestial gardens all abloom — Brave starry blossomings and clusters fine Loading the branches of the heavenly vine ; See'st suns, like dust, lie scattered 'long the road That leads to that far Paradise of God. From this to yonder, who the leagues can tell ? One might compute the ocean's drops as well. Turn now ! the nether infinite explore ! Extend thy vision as thou did'st before !* Pierce downwards, pierce to the concealed minute, The ultimates of things, the germ, the root, * For example, with a Microscope that magnifies a million times. THE MICROCOSM. 43 The atom world, — so near and yet so far Not more remote is the remotest star — To forms of life to which, O can it be ? A drop of water is a shoreless sea ! So vast thy sweep, it surely were not strange If eye angelic had no wider range. Even so ! On earth or in the realms of air Nothing is fair but as thou mak'st it fair — In face or flower or iris braided rain, Beauty exists not or exists in vain ; Without thy power to paint them or perceive There were no gorgeous shows of morn and eve. Light lost in the Eye reappears in the Consciousness. How wonderful, that organs made of clay Should drink so long th' abundance of the day ! Receive the constant unreturning tides Of sun and moon and all the stars besides ! Not lost is all this mighty wealth of beams — Rivers of light, innumerable streams, Flow darkling for a space, then spring again To join the Arethusas * of the brain, * The river Alpheus in Elis is fabled to flow under the earth to Sicily and to unite with the fountain Arethusa ; hence Arethusa, a nymph, whose lover was Alpheus. 44 THE MICROCOSM. In bliss of married consciousness to be Fountains of brightness through eternity. Tears — Sleep, its Resuscitating Power — Organic Life. Since man was born to trouble here below, Tears were provided for predestined woe ; And tears have fallen in perpetual shower From man's apostasy until this hour, But there's the promise of a future day When God's dear hand shall wipe all tears away. On eyes that watch as well as eyes that weep Descends the solemn mystery of Sleep. Toiling and climbing to the very close, The weary Body, longing for repose, On the gained level of the day's ascent, Halts for the night and pitches there its tent ; Then, sinking down, is 'gulfed in an abyss As deep and dark as the abodes of Dis.* Rather, returns into the peaceful gloom And blank unconsciousness of Nature's womb, Where plastic forces work, to be next morn To a new life and mightier vigor born — * Domos Ditis. THE MICROCOSM. 45 Prepared to run again Life's upward way Scaling the misty summits of To-Day ; Lo ! height o'er height, through all the years, they rise, Supplying steps by which to mount the skies, Ladder, like Jacob's, heavenly, complete, Whose radiant rounds were for angelic feet. From night's dark caves spring evermore, in truth, Fountains of freshness and perpetual youth ; This seeming death, with consciousness at strife, Is health and happiness and length of life. There is within, that which preserves and keeps — Organic Providence that never sleeps * — When the slack hand of Reason drops the rein, This drives the chariots of the heart and brain. Were life's full goblet trusted to the Will, Its nerveless hand would soon its contents spill ; The Maker so was careful to provide Another principle and power beside, Archeus,* Instinct — any name may serve — *The Archeus (from Gr. apxevu, to rule ; apXV> beginning), according to Van Helmont, is an immaterial principle, existing from the beginning and presiding over the development of the body and over all organic phenomena. Besides this chief one, which he located in the upper orifice of the stomach, he admitted several subordinates, one for each organ, each of them being liable to anger, caprice, ter- ror, and every human feeling. 46 THE MICROCOSM. Organic Life, Great Sympathetic Nerve,* With Cerebellum,f competent to save, And rescue from the clutches of the grave, — When Sleep would else have caused immediate death, Stopped the heart's action, and cut short the breath, Drying each source, that fed and kept alive Th' industrious bees in the organic hive.J * The Great Sympathetic lies in front and along the sides of the spine, and sup- plies the organs over which the will and consciousness have no immediate control, such as the intestines, liver, heart, etc. Its numerous ganglia (centres and origi- nators of nervous influence) are the knots of a nervous reticulation which connects not only the organs of Organic Life one with the other, but these also with the brain and spinal cord. It is due to this- -separately or conjointly with the spinal cord in its reflex or excito-motor capacity, derived from its own ganglionic axis or pith, giving it also independent and automatic powers, powers not sensibly de- pendent upon the consciousness or will for their exercise — that all the vital func- tions do not come to a stand-still in our first slumber. + The opinion, which attributes to Cerebellum the power of associating or co- ordinating the different voluntary movements, is the one now most generally re- ceived. Destroyed, the gubernatorial faculty is lost and the animal staggers and falls like a drunken man. In addition to this, it has been supposed that whatever the cerebrum does rationally and by fits, the cerebellum does unconsciously and permanently — so that in sleep, the motions of thought and will not being organi- cally but only consciously suspended, need to be maintained and kept up to their proper level, and that this is the office of the cerebellum, which like the chain and springs of a watch, not only regulate its movements, but prevent it from running suddenly down. % While an exaggerated importance may have been given to the doctrine of Cell Formation, the truth of it seems to be well established. The statement of Virchow that " Every animal presents itself as a sum of vital unities, every one of which manifests all the characteristics of life," although hypothetical, at least in part, is a convenient formula for explaining many vital phenomena observed both in health and disease. Receiving it, it certainly justifies the figure here used — the bee working with a blind instinct, being compared to that organic intelligence, which resident in each cell presides over the functions of nutrition, secretion and elimination. THE MICROCOSM. 47 Spiritual Analogies. As light to Eye, so to the Soul, in sooth, The light of God, the higher light of Truth. How, when man fell, his dark and hungry eyes Looked for the sunrise in the eastern skies ! Filled with all doubt, and wandering forlorn, Watching for signs of the delaying morn ! Ah ! should it never break, the stumbling feet Go stumbling onward to the Judgment Seat ; And toward the guilty, should there be no ruth In the just bosom of the God of Truth ; Those images of horror and affright, Projected on the canvas of the night, Should aye be present, wheresoe'er he turn, And God's fierce anger never cease to burn ! Ah! when the parting heavens some gleam let through, Some gleam of promise shining through the blue, Ah, more ! when that the Dayspring from on high Told that the Sun of Righteousness was nigh ; — Waving glad wings of many colored flame, Fore-running angels certified He came ; Then most of all, when following full soon, Upon his midnight burst eternal noon ; 48 THE MICROCOSM. How to the heavenly host his pulses beat, Timed to the music of their marching feet ! Congenital Blindness — Awards of the Last Day. Alas, for those, who, haply blind from birth, Have never seen the loveliness of earth ; To whose rapt gaze, the spectacle ne'er given Of all the dread magnificence of heaven ; One mighty blank, one universal black, The moving wonders of the Zodiac ; The constellations from their fixed abode, Shed no sweet influence on their darkling road : Their rolling eyeballs turn, and find no ray ; An unknown joy, the blessedness of day. Between the man, who, in his neighbor's grief, With swiftest pity, flies to his relief ; And him, whose cruel and unnatural part It is to plague and wring his brother's heart, How deep the gulf ! how different the award At the great final coming of the Lord ! In the Last Judgment, all the world shall hear The silent thunder prisoned in a tear — * * Faraday has shown by the most conclusive experiments that the electricity which decomposes, and that which is evolved by the decomposition of a certain quantity of matter are alike. A single drop of water therefore contains as much electricity as could be accumulated in 800,000 Leyden jars — a quantity equal to that which is developed from a charged thunder -cloud. THE MICROCOSM. 49 The pent up wrath shall strike the tyrant there, Who would not pity, and who would not spare. Asylums for the Blind. Thou, who wert styled th' Apostle of the Blind, No bays too green, thine honored brows to bind, Who toiled and sacrificed beyond the sea — 'Tis right to name thee, Valentin Haiiy !* To render happier a cheerless lot ; Enrich with knowledge those who have it not ; To pour new light into the darkened mind, And force an entrance where it none can find ; By novel methods, and ingenious tools, Imparting all the learning of the schools ; For loss of one, obtaining recompense In the perfection of another sense ; — Inspiring music, bringing heaven so near They almost think they see it, as they hear — * Louis IX., better known as St. Louis, in 1260 founded the Hospice des Quinze Vingts at Paris— designed, as its name implies, originally for 15 score or 300 per- sons—which still exists. This is believed to have been the first public provision ever made for the Blind. It was solely eleemosynary. No instruction was at- tempted. Although in the 16th century attempts were made to print for the Blind in intaglio and afterwards in relief, nothing material was accomplished, till 1784, when Valentin Haiiy, " the apostle of the blind" as the French named him, commenced his arduous, and self-denying labors, and laid the foundations of the modern system. His pupils became eminent as musicians or mathematicians. 4 50 THE MICROCOSM. Is like that work, in kind if not degree, Done Bartimeus, when Christ made him see. Asylums for the Deaf and Dumb. Not less their praise, nor less their high reward, Th' unequaled heroes of a task more hard, Enthusiasts, who labored to bridge o'er The gulf of silence, never passed before, To reach the solitaire, who lived apart,* Cut off from commerce with the human heart ; To whom had been, all goings on below, A ceremonious and unmeaning show ; Men met in council, on occasions proud, Nought but a mouthing and grimacing crowd ; •The possibility of teaching the Deaf and Dumb was never conceived by the an- cients. Useless to the State, their destruction in infancy was even connived at ; and they were classed legally with idiots and the insane. Plunged in a night of the profoundest ignorance, sitting apart in utter loneliness, their state was the saddest possible. Attempts to instruct them belong mostly to modern times. Three sys- tems have been adopted in different countries. i. That of Wallis, Pereira Heinicke and Braid wood, which falsely assumed that while signs may give vague ideas there can be no precision without words. Consequently the first years under this system were devoted almost wholly to learning articulation and reading on the lip. 2. That of abbe" De l'Epde as improved by Sicard and Bebian, which proceeds on the directly opposite theory that there is no idea which may not be expressed by signs without words. Sign language has the important advantage, besides many others that might be named, of being universal. 3. The American system, which is a further modification of De l'Epee's. The number of deaf-mutes who have distinguished themselves in science and art is already quite consider- able. My friend, Mr. John R. Burnet, farmer and author, living at Livingston, N. J., is one of the best informed men in the State. THE MICROCOSM. 51 And all the great transactions of the time, An idle scene or puzzling panlomime. Children of siience ! deaf to every sound That trembles in the atmosphere around, Now far more happy — dancing ripples break Upon the marge of that once stagnant lake, Aye by fresh breezes overswept, and stirred With the vibrations of new thoughts conferred. No more your minds are heathenish and dumb, Now that the word of truth and grace has come ; Your silent praise, that penitential tear, Are quite articulate to your Saviour's ear. Hearing — Powers of Sound — Music of Nature. Within a bony labyrinthean cave, Reached by the pulse of the aerial wave, This sibyl, sweet, and mystic Sense is found, Muse, that presides o'er all the Powers of Sound. Viewless and numberless, these everywhere Wake to the finest tremble of the air ; Now from some mountain height are heard to call ; Now from the bottom of some waterfall; Now faint and far, now louder and more near, With varying cadence musical and clear ; 52 THE MICROCOSM. Heard in the brooklet murmuring o'er the lea ; Heard in the roar of the resounding sea ; Heard in the thunder rolling through the sky ; Heard in the little insect chirping nigh ; The winds of winter wailing through the woods ; The mighty laughter of the vernal floods ; The rain-drops' showery dance and rhythmic beat, With twinkling of innumerable feet ; Pursuing echoes calling 'mong the rocks ; Lowing of herds, and bleating of the flocks ; The tender nightingale's melodious grief ; The sky-lark's warbled rapture of belief — Arrow of praise, direct from Nature's quiver, Sent duly up to the Almighty Giver. Music of Art — Instrumental and Vocal. If once, ye Powers, with reeds, a rustic Pan, Ye tuned idyllic minstrelsies for man, These thin dilutions of the soul of song, Ye have abandoned, and abandoned long. Sweet as the spheral music of the skies, The thunder of your later harmonies. O fill the void capacious atmosphere With your full sum, and pour it in the ear ; THE MICROCOSM. 53 Drown it with melody, nor let it wade Longer in shallows, of the deep afraid. Join to all instruments of wind and cords The poetry and excellence of words. If Country calls, put in the Trumpet's throat A loud and stirring and a warlike note ; And let there follow an inspiring blast, As the long file of heroes hurries past ; Then raise th' exultant clamor to its height, When crowned as victors, they return from fight. Because the service God demands of men Is not an intermittent thing of now and then, Temples of permanence we rightly raise, For the perpetual purposes of praise, And build great Organs, in whose tubes of sound, Sleeping or waking, ye are always found. Awake ! prepare Te Deums ! now awake ! Wave your great wings till all the building shake ! Rend the low roof, and rend the vault of heaven, Bearing the rapture of a soul forgiven ! Voice — Air of Expiration, Its Transmutations. Wonderful instrument, but not so choice As is the Organ of the Human Voice. 54 THE MICROCOSM. What compact proof of Heavenly Power and Skill, When simplest means sublimest ends fulfill ! That two-stringed Lyre — quick strung to every note, Placed at the windy entrance of the throat, With a divine economy of room, So placed it might the smallest space consume, There where the aerial currents come and go, To feed the vital fires that burn below, And with a quickening purifying force, The blood to freshen in its onward course — Taking the waste, effete and useless breath, Charged with the very element of death, Converts it into music, glorious shapes Of power and beauty, ere that breath escapes. A transformation marvelous and strange, Unequaled, in the Alchemy of change ; Harmonious forces working to condense The blazing jewels of intelligence ; Diamonds more rich than proudest monarchs wear, •Formed from the gaseous carbon of the air ; Th' imperial currency of human wit, Image and superscription stamped on it, Coined from the atmosDhere — th' exhaustless mine Of golden treasures magical and fine — THE MICROCOSM. 55 Chief circulating medium of thought, And common mintage by which truth is bought, And wisdom in its infinite supply, Stored in th' invisible market of the sky ! Speech, Accountable Self-recording— Mathematical Problem. O Heart and Mouth, in strictest wedlock bound, Whence spring th' immortal births of soul and sound ! Winged for far flight, your moral offspring sweep The airy fields of the cerulean deep, Up to the awful place, where Judgment waits Within Eternity's tremendous gates. Philosophy itself may serve to teach, No power so fearful as the Power of Speech. The idle word, which nothing can recall, Breaks sacred silence thrilling through the All ; Yea, like a pebble dropped into the sea, Ripples the ocean of immensity ; An oath profane, the horror of a lie, The shuddering Ether bears beyond the sky : Sounding through height and depth, its way it takes To distant spheres, and endless echoes wakes ; After long ages, still can be inferred, The sense and nature of each uttered word, 56 THE MICROCOSM. Declared in postured particles, because The dance of atoms is by rhythmic laws : For that another cannot be the same, God calls each atom by a different name ; Makes these an alphabet, by which to spell Each sentence spoken, and each syllable ; Beyond the power of parchment, or of pen, Expounding all the utterances of men.* Its Social Uses — The Word made Flesh. Most genial of the faculties is this, And most subservient to social bliss ; Fulfills the longing as no other can, When man would manifest himself to man ; * Mr. Charles Babbage— an English Mathematician of the first rank, formerly Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the Chair of Newton, famous also as the inventor of a Calculating Machine, built at a cost to the English Government of $85,000, followed by another, involving a still heaver outlay— in a work styled "The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise," published in 1S38, filled with much original and quaint speculation, expresses his faith in the startling doctrine that no word or action can ever be eliminated from the records of Nature, but that the air is a " vast library," in whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered, inasmuch as the aerial pulses which seemed to have died out completely might yet be demonstrated by human reason to exist. So of the ocean. A being possessed of unbounded powers of mathematical analysis might trace the results of any impulse on the fluid, or read back the history of the sea in its own billows. And so too, the solid frame of the earth may serve as a stereotyped record both of the transactions and the proceedings of its inhabitants; for not only the heavings of the greatest earthquakes, but the little local tremors which the stamp of a human foot may produce, may all be said to have left their memorials in the ground. Heaven and earth are therefore prepared to bear wit- ness against the transgressor on the Day of Judgment. Terrible thoughts these, but what if thev are true ? THE MICROCOSM. 57 The isolated soul shut up no more Walks freely forth as through an open door. Vainly in inarticulate dumb show, Had Nature strove to teach man here below ; When finding that intended to reveal, Served but the more His presence to conceal, God put aside the Vesture of the Skies, And walked and talked with men in Human Guise : Th' apocalyptic Word made Flesh, made thus Communicated Godhead — God With Us. Articulation — Nose — Mouth — Smell — Taste. Behold how man, the polyglot, employs Th' uncompounded elemental noise ! Makes endless permutations, mixes breath For nice intonings of each shibboleth ! Up from the Throat, one little step, we reach The cunning moulds and matrices of speech ; Formless and void the vocal chaos flows, Shaped into Language by the Mouth and Nose ; Mellifluous modulations taking place, In scented caverns of the hollow face ; Sweet mobile Lips, Teeth, Palate, flavorous Tongue, Making intelligible the speaking Lung ; 58 THE MICROCOSM. Aiders of Speech, but then the seats as well Of the two senses of the Taste and Smell. Smell — Odors, Their Subtlety and Imponderability. The Nerves of Smell, the first the brain to leave, Combed and divided through a bony sieve,* They, from their tresses of disheveled hair, Shake out the tangled fragrance of the air. Conversant with all sweetness — Nature brings Hither the soul and quintessence of things ; Airy solutions of the finer powers, Imponderable properties of flowers ; Th' aroma of all seasons and all times, Kingdoms of nature, continents and climes — Too subtle and too spiritual, I ween, These for analysis however keen. Daintiest of senses, daintily it feeds On thymy pastures of the skyey meads, Drinks from etherial fountains, whence are quaffed Delicious lungfulls at one mighty draught, Cheering the breast, and sweetening all the blood, Like some celestial minister of good. * The ethmoid bone (from r)0fio^, " a sieve," and eioog, " form"). THE MICROCOSM. 59 Breath of Life, Natural and Spiritual. God breathed, O breath with heavenly sweetness rife ! Into man's nostrils first the breath of life. The blissful aura vivified the whole, And straightway man became a living soul. Then odorous Eden yet more odorous grew, As o'er its bowers, th' informing Spirit blew Another inner and diviner air, Moving within the proper atmosphere, That shook the leaves and made the tree-tops nod, A mystic wind immediately from God, — Rushing and mighty like the Holy Ghost Poured out upon the day of Pentecost. Still the same Spirit where it lists it blows, We know not whence it comes nor where it goes, But souls it quickened on Creation's morn, Now dead in sin to a new life are born : One inspiration of immortal breath Creates a life beneath the ribs of death. Theopnetisty. O via sacra, O thrice blessed door, Once hallowed with Thy presence, hallow, Lord ! once more. 60 THE MICROCOSM. Inbreathe Thyself, my Maker ! fill each cell Of my deep breast, and deign with me to dwell. Come, my Desire ! Thou theme of heavenly tongues, Fulfill the want and hunger of the lungs. Be Thou my breath, my laughter, my delight, My song by day, my murmured dream by night. When hope dilates, and love my bosom warms, Be these the product of Thy powerful charms. If grief convulses, be it grief for sin, Prompt every sigh and make me pure within ; Perfumed by Thee " make every breath a spice And each religious act a sacrifice." Taste — Elimination and Waste — Nothing Lost. We eat to live : the Gustatory Sense (The same as Smell, but with a difference) At the pleased portal of the hungry throat, From endless sources, neighboring and remote, Assembles relishes, and daily feeds On these to satisfy the body's needs. Each moment, lo ! we die and are reborn ; * The old becomes cadaverous and outworn ; *" Occasio enim praeceps est propter artis materiam, dico autem corpus, quod continue fluit et momento temporis transmutatur." — Galen. THE MICROCOSM. 6l Beyond the boundary of our every breath, Wide yawns the open sepulchre of death ; Parts of our living selves give up the ghost ; Corrupt, corrupting, use and function lost, Benignant Nature with victorious force Effects deliverance from the loathed corse And body of this death ; in ceaseless flow, Fun'ral processions of dead atoms go, Thronging life's ways and outward opening gates, All unattended, where no mourner waits. Because the quick have duties, let the dead Bury their dead, the Lord of life hath said. No fear that needful ministry or rite Shall then be wanting when they pass from sight ; Sown on the winds or swallowed of the waves They shall not fail of hospitable graves. Dear to terrestial and celestial powers, Through every moment of the flying hours, Earth, careful mother, to her bosom draws Each reverent particle subject to her laws ; Dust welcomes dust, and all the happy ground Rejoices that the lost again is found. Again it forms a portion of the mould To tread the circle it fulfilled of old. 62 THE MICROCOSM. Again it ministers to the thirsty root, Mounts to the blossom and matures the fruit ; Eaten again, again it makes a part, Or of the thinking brain or feeling heart. Human Want and Divine Supply. Because we ne'er continue in one stay — Our flowing lives still wash their banks away ; This colliquation of unstable flesh, Invades the old and scarcely spares the fresh ; The new formed solid, even, oozes through, " Thaws and resolves itself into a dew ; " And all is flux, and out ten thousand doors Our manly strength perpetually pours — We Hunger and We Thirst, and all abroad We see spread out the mighty Feast of God. Abounding plenty equal to the waste With luscious adaptations to the taste ; Viands heaped up in such seductive guise, Forestalling pleasure looks with sparkling eyes The golden produce of the garnered fields, Whate'er the valley or the mountain yields, The juicy tops of Nature, not that found In the dark mineral lumpish underground. THE MICROCOSM. 63 By intermediate vegetative toil, And much elaboration of the soil, Lifted in air and glowing in the sun, We pluck the fruit then when the work is done. In curious quest of every dainty known, We draw from every month and every zone. To pile our boards, the canvas is unfurled Of more than half the navies of the world. Art intervenes, and as the case requires, Concocts the crude with culinary fires ; Goes forth in nature to extend her range, And serve man's love of novelty and change, By findings of manipulative skill, Testings and tastings, mixings at her will Of all the kingdoms, flavorings of the same, And seasonings of vegetable flame. Imperious Wants ! obedient to whose call, Armies capitulate, dynasties fall : Howe'er the rulers of the earth combine, They may not blink the fact that man must dine. It might seem little and beneath God's care — A punctual ordering of man's common fare ; Unwarranted, extravagant, absurd, To think our Pater Nosters could be heard — 64 THE MICROCOSM. Did we not know that round our every meal Suns wait and serve and mighty planets wheel. Lord's Prayer — Hodiernal Bread — Hygienic Wisdom. Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name — 'Tis on Thy fatherhood we build our claim — Stoop to our needs, we cannot else be fed, Give us this day, as erst, our daily bread. Preserve us from perversion and abuse, Turning Thy bounties from their proper use ; From gluttony and criminal excess, Making enough our rule, nor more nor less. Instruct us how to choose, lest that we sin Against the body's health, the powers within, Awful economies and sacred laws, Of half our miseries the dreadful cause. May we live innocent as at the first, Using safe beverages to quench our thirst, Our common drink be water from the well, Not brewed enchantments of the fires of hell, Not tasting unblest cups, by Thee unblest, But where Satanic benedictions rest, Cursing and killing, maddening the brain — Brief joy succeeded by eternal pain. THE MICROCOSM. 65 Ingestion — Digestion — Assimilation. Be in our Mouths to sanctify our Food ; Begin the process changing it to Blood. We dare not call that common and unclean Which Thou hast cleansed — nor count that longer mean So honored by assimilations grand, And exaltations of Thine own right hand, As through the channels of the body rolled, Th' ingested Morsel comes to be ensouled. Wherefore be present, every step attend Of its miraculous progress to the end. During the perilous passage of the strait, O keep fast shut the Laryngeal Gate : Adown the Throat while that it gently glides, And in the Stomach's secret chamber hides, Be there to entertain th' expected guest, And to the welcome give a keener zest. Make the couch ready : and mid veiling gloom, And holy privacy as in a womb, Induct into the mysteries of the place . Rain down celestial influence and grace Upon the nascent neophyte ; prepare The lavers of regeneration ; where 5 66 THE MICROCOSM. By wondrous saturations* for a time, And fresh baptisms of the new-born Chyme A part all purified, from soil purged clear, Made meet and worthy of a higher sphere, Enters the veins and mingles with the blood ; The rest a stained probationary flood, Passing the Gate Pyloric waits awhile, Its transformation into purer Chyle. Prosper and bless and let the work proceed, Each faithful function equal to the need ; Teach the strict Lacteals, duly this to guide Into the narrow way from out the wide, Where freed from feculence all white and clean, And trained, through mazes of the Glands between, For saintly fellowship and spousals sweet With the dear Lymph, as they together meet Within the Duct Thoracic, mount to gain The level of the pierced Subclavian Vein — Tempering the mass, to form a fluid part Of that humanity which fills the Heart. *The Gastric Juice, like the saliva, is not secreted in considerable quantity (Dr. Beaumont says not at all) except under the stimulus of recently ingested food. It is estimated that the average total quantity secreted in a man of medium size in 24 hours is 14 pounds, equal to nearly two gallons. This quantity would be altogether incredible, were it not, that as soon as it has dissolved its quota of food, it is immediately re-absorbed and agains enters into the circulation, together with the alimentary substances which it holds in solution. — Dalian. THE MICROCOSM. 67 Heart — Circulation — Nutrition — Blood Exhilarations. Make room, my Heart !* that pour'st thyself abroad, Deep, central, awful mystery of God ! Lord of my bosom ! wonder of the breast ! " Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest : " The young white blood, commingled with the old — Purple, impure, effete in part, and cold — Give needful furtherance through the Lungs, to where It meets the fiery spirits of the air — In friendly barter with the growing plants Exchanging what they need for what it wants ; For dingy carbon, refuse of the frame, Receiving back the principle of flame ; While mystic cerebrations downward pour The human flood to humanize yet more, Making it moral, with all passions rife, Instinct with mortal and immortal life ; * In the Fish, the Heart is a single organ, having one Auricle and one Ventri- cle. In Reptiles, it has two Auricles placed side by side, and one Ventricle. In Quadrupeds and Man it is double, with two Auricles and two Ventricles; and there are two distinct Circulations — the General or Systemic, and Pulmonary. The Blood on the Right Side of the Heart, whether found in the Veins or Arter- ies, is dark or venous ; on the Left, it is ruddy and bright or arterial. The first belongs to the nocturnal side or hemisphere ; the latter to the diurnal — the sun having its rising in the capillaries of the lungs, and its setting in those of the general svstem — where the blood loses for the time its auroral bloom and splendor, and becomes dark, half devitalized and charged with deadly poison, until having completed its circuit, its pristine glitter and beauty are once more restored, as it 68 THE MICROCOSM. Transfigured thus, thus raised and glorified, Complete the circle on the other side, Where Auricle and Ventricle with power Repeat their grasp five thousand times an hour ; Closing unresting hands that never tire On the one passionate object of desire ; And through each moment of the night and day A traveling joy to every part convey ; Filling each cell of all the Organs up, As wine is poured into a jeweled cup, With the Falernian of the grapes of Heaven, The living Blood miraculously given — Endued with plenteous power by which it can Rebuild the complex of the perfect man ; To every organ like to like impart, Distribute brain to brain and heart to heart ; reappears on the horizon of the lungs. The rapidity with which the Blood moves is very great. Even in Arteries of the minutest size it is so rapid that the glob ules cannot be distinguished in it on microscopic examination. It is slower in the Veins than in the Arteries, in the proportion of two to three, and still slower in the Capillaries. Volkman estimates the velocity in the arteries at 12 inches per second ; in veins at 8 inches; in capillaries, i-3oth of an inch. Experiments have been made to ascertain the time it takes the blood to pass the entire round of the circulation. Traces of a solution of Ferrocyanide of Potassium introduced into the right jugular vein of a horse appeared at the left in twenty to twenty-five sec- onds, but this is not decisive of the rate of the circulation, only of the diffusion. Results swarm with every heart-beat. Life's innumerable wheels, revolving all at once in every organ, make that beat representative of a life-time — a century of existence being no more than a calculable number of repetitions of that vital second. THE MICROCOSM. 6 9 Conquer the years, the wastes of time repair ; Add to the body, make the fair more fair : Nor potent less to raise to loftiest heights Of sensuous pleasures and divine delights — Untied to fleshy ministrations— fraught With stimulant to Feeling and to Thought, Our Ganymede, enlivening with full bowl " The feast of reason and the flow of soul." Heart— Scat of the Affections— Visceral Modifications. Undoubted Sovereign, worthiest to reign, Sharer of empire with the regal Brain ! (Like omnipresent in the realms of sense, Found at the centre and circumference, As if by multiplication, every part Possessed a sensory and beating heart) By virtue of thy birthright from above Thine all the high prerogatives of Love. One with thyself, Love's ample power display, Assert its right to universal sway ! As thou, so Love is many and yet one, Its royal robes of soul and body spun — Assorted vestments, filling many a room, The beauteous product of the living loom, 7° THE MICROCOSM. By the deft fingers of the feelings wrought Plying the shuttle with the helping thought — The several organs, to their nature true, Giving each tunic its distinctive hue, One of the colors of refracted light, Or the chaste total of religious white — Defining Loves, all Family Loves that bind, The Love of Country, Love of Human Kind, The Love of God all other Loves above, The Love of Truth and Right, the Love of Love. Within, what gracious sympathies appeal ! What visceral yearnings do not mothers feel ! — The conscious vitals, full of fond alarms For the sweet infant folded in her arms, And melting tendernesses, that impart Tears to the eyes but laughter to the heart. Woman — Sex — Unity in Difference. O loving Woman, man's fulfillment sweet. Completing him not otherwise complete ! How void and useless the sad remnant left Were he of her, his nobler part bereft ! Of her who bears the sacred name of Wife, The joy and crown and glory of his life, THE MICROCOSM. 7 1 The Mother of his Children, whereby he Shall live in far off epochs yet to be. Conjoined but not confounded, side by side Lying so closely nothing can divide ; A dual self, a plural unit, twain, Except in sex, to be no more again ; Except in Sex — for sex can nought efface, Fixed as the granite mountain on its base — But not for this less one, away to take This sweet distinction were to mar not make. Dearer for difference in this respect, As means of rounding mutual defect. Woman and Man all social needs include ; Earth filled with men were still a solitude. In vain the birds would sing, in vain rejoice, Without the music of her sweeter voice. In vain the stars would shine, 'twere dark the while Without the light of her superior smile. To blot from earth's vocabularies one Of all her names were to blot out the sun. Love of the Sexes — Ends Answered. O wondrous Hour, supremest hour of fate, When first the Soul discerns its proper Mate, 72 THE MICROCOSM. By inward voices known as its elect — Distanced by love, and infinite respect, Fairer than fairest, shining from afar, Throned in the heights, a bright particular star The glory of the firmament, the evening sky Glad with the lustre of her beaming eye. Young Love, First Love, Love, haply, at First Sight, Smites likes the lightning, dazzles like the light ; Chance meeting eyes shoot forth contagious flame, Sending the hot blood wildly through the frame. By strange enchantment violently strook, The total being rushes with a look ; A beauty never seen before, except some gleams Purpling the atmosphere of blissful dreams, Wakens rare raptures and sensations new, Both soul and body thrilling through and through. Says sage Experience, sighing o'er the past, These dear illusions will not always last ; For beauty fades and disappointment clings To the reality of human things. It may be so — it may be, lover's sight Surveying all things by love's purple light, Sees not the faults possession shall disclose, THE MICROCOSM. 73 Nor the sharp thorn concealed beneath the rose. But if thus Nature her great ends attain The pomps of fancy dazzle not in vain. The pleasing falsehood of perfection flits, But not the Love, that in contentment sits Among the Dear Ones of its happy home, Blest with sweet foretastes of the heaven to come. Deciduous charms of face unmissed depart, While bloom the fadeless beauties of the heart ; Inward conformity, and gradual growth Of moral likeness, tightening bonds of both, Perfect the marriage, which was but begun Upon that day they were pronounced one. True Love — Spurious Love. True Love is humble, thereby is it known, Girded for service, seeking not its own ; Exalts its object, timid homage pays, Vaunts not itself, but speaks in self-dispraise : "Look not on me ," it says, "for I am black, In thee all fullness is, in me all lack; But what I have and am are wholly thine, Vast were the grace would'st thou give thine for mine." 74 THE MICROCOSM. Let Love but enter, it converts the churl, And makes the miser lavish as an earl ; The strict walls of his prison, giving way, Fall outward and let in the light of day ; Released from base captivity to pelf, He upwards soars into a nobler self ; And hands, that once did nought but clutch and hoard Now emulate the bounty of the Lord ; Hold up a mirror, that reflects the face Of Him whose heart is love and man-ward grace. O how unlike to this, so chaste, refined, Magnanimous, benevolent and kind, Is that base thing, defiling and defiled, Born of unbridled lusts and passions wild, Which soon of all the virtues rings the knell And sends its subjects headlong down to hell ! The hidden canker of a vicious heart Spreads mortal sickness to the farthest part ; Th' infected body rots from day to day Till death contemptuous calls the soul away, To its own place its sentence to fulfill, "Let him that filthy is be filthy still." THE MICROCOSM. 75 Charity — Physician — Opiferque per Orbem Dicor* O ye, devoted to the Healing Art, By solemn consecration, set apart To be the ministers of God above In the sublime Activities of Love ; Whose special function 'tis to give relief In the dark hours of suffering and of grief ; Between the living and the dead to stand Where fall the shafts of death on either hand ; Without one thought of flight, to still maintain Perpetual battle with the Powers of Pain ; With a fine arrow from a well bent bow Transfixing fatally the murd'rous foe ; And with an arm made powerful to save, Snatching the destined victims of the grave ; — The lofty nature of your office such, You cannot magnify the same too much, Which Tullyf even, eloquently lauds, As that which lifts man nearest to the gods. * This motto of the Medical Society of New Jersey is taken from the fable of Phoebus and Daphne in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lib. I., v. 521-522. Phcebus is re- presented as saying : " Inventum medicina meum est ; opiferque per orbem Dicor \ et herbarum subjecta potentia nobis." Physic is my discovery ; and I Help-bearing [One] am called throughout the world, To us subjected is the power of herbs. t Nulla re homines ad deos propius accedunt quam salutem hominibus dando. — Cicero. 76 THE MICROCOSM. Nosology — Auscultation of Heart and Lungs How many forms of sickness man befall, Sorrow and pain the common lot of all ! Science inquires, and, as its kinship finds, Makes classes, orders, families and kinds, Grouping and marshalling diseases so You can them better nominate and know. But no nosology did e'er include The total of the mighty multitude. Wise to interpret each prophetic sign, To pierce the veil and hidden fates divine, When parents ask, with grief and terror wild, " Canst thou not save my darling, save my child ? " You skilled to catch, while listening to the breath, The distant footsteps of approaching death, May, in the sighing of the suffering lung And in its stillness, hear alike a tongue That syllables oracular reply : " Impossible, 'tis fixed, your child must die." Response more dread not Delphic prophetess E'er shuddered from her murmurous recess. With rush of countless chariots, palpitates Life's great metropolis through all her gates ; THE MICROCOSM. 77 Their crimson wheels with a perpetual sound, Coming and going in their endless round, Are heard tumultuous as they hurrying throng Th' Appian or Flaminian ways along : 'fis yours to know next hour all this will fail, And death and silence everywhere prevail. Physicians Character and Aims-Science Progressive. O it is well, that ye have hearts to feel, And ears not deaf to pity's soft appeal, Putting no difference 'twixt rich and poor, Plying with equal zeal the means of cure, Not deeming it becoming to regard Color or rank or person or reward. The man of impure life and sordid aims, He smuts his office and his calling shames ; Him you disown and place him under ban As nothing better than a charlatan. Believing needless ignorance a crime, You strive to reach the summit of your time ; To old age learning up from early youth Your life one long apprenticeship to truth. Wisely suspicious sometimes of the new, Ye give alert acceptance to the true : 78 THE MICROCOSM. Even though it make old science obsolete, It with a thousand welcomes still you greet. " Knowledge is power," and here 'tis power to save, A power like God's to rescue from the grave. Each Year adds something — many things ye know Your sires knew not a Hundred Years ago. Art grown to more, your sons will higher climb, And make the Coming Centuries sublime ; Till Christ's Millennial Kingdom shall begin, And put an end to sickness and to sin. Heights of the Future ! breezy with the breath Of vernal quickening to the fields of Death, In the far distance of the long before, We think we see your misty summits soar ; Though scarce distinguished from the mingling skies, How glad the sight to our believing eyes ! Spiritual Maladies — Christ the Great Physician. Ah ! there are maladies beyond your skill ; You cannot cure depravity of will ; You cannot mend a moral nature flawed, Convert a mind at enmity with God ; You cannot terminate the inward strife, Restore the broken harmony of life ; THE MICROCOSM. 79 With all th' armentariura of Art Restrain the outflow of an evil heart ; Cleanse by detergent washings of the skin Th' immedicable leprosy of sin ; Remove the lunacy that chooses death, And imprecates destruction with each breath. When came the Great Physician of the Skies, To find a remedy that should suffice, Knowing 'twas not in mineral or wood, He sought it in a Pharmacy of Blood ; And since none other but His own was pure, He transfused that to consummate the cure. Man curing when past cure — content to give Himself to die to make His patient live. Death — Immortality. Death spreads, no more — a black and wrathful cloud The smiling infinite of heaven to shroud — A harmless mist, instead, divinely bright With dewy splendors of the morning light That scarcely serves th' eternal world to hide, Where loved ones gone before in bliss abide. BY CARLO DOLCE ; 'hysician : . . u ifice, 'ig'twasn- i.l or wood, of Blood, i His own was i 1 cure — content to give i 7e, p. 79 COSMOS. PSALM CIV.— Two Versions. GOD IN NATURE. MORNING HYMN. COSMOS.* PSALM CIV. FIRST VERSION. o LORD my God ! Thou art Above conception great ; Nature Thy wardrobe is, in part, The purple of Thy state. W Thy garment is the light: Around Thee, lo ! are drawn The starry mantle of the night, The vesture of the dawn. PSALM CIV. BLESS the Lord, O my soul. O Lord 2 Who coverest thyself with light as my God thou art very great,thou art with a garment : who stretchest out the clothed with honor and majesty : [Hed. heavens like a curtain; [i.e. 0/ a tent, or with glory and beauty.'] favilion.\ * Alexander Von Humboldt, in his " Cosmos," remarks : " It might be said one single Psalm (the hundred and fourth) represents the image of the whole Cosmos . . . We are astonished to find, in a lyrical poem of such a limited compass, the whole universe— the heavens and the earth— sketched with a few bold touches." Bishop Lowth in his Lectures refers again and again to this Psalm (or Idyllium, as he some- where calls it), and always in terms of unbounded admiration. He says : " There is nothing of the kind extant (indeed nothing can be conceived) more perfect than this hymn, whether it be considered with respect to its intrinsic beauties, or as a model of that species of composition," Lord Bacon dedicates to his " very good «4 COSMOS. The heavens Thou dost extend, As a pavilion fair ; bl Thy chambers' beams Thou dost suspend In watery depths of air. The clouds Thy chariot are ; W The winged winds Thy steeds ; To bear Thy messages afar The flaming lightning speeds. fsl The earth Thou founded hast On law's eternal base, That nothing should, while time shall last Remove it from its place. 3 Who layeth the beams of his cham- his angels, the flaming fire his minis- bers in the waters ; who maketh the ters.] clouds his chariot ; who walketh upon 5 Who laid the foundations of the the wings of the wind. earth, that it should not be removed for- 4 Who maketh his angels spirits; his ever. [Heb. " Who hath founded the ministers a flaming fire ; [In the French earth on its iases."] translation it is — Who maketh the winds friend, Mr. George Herbert," a version, executed in the heroic couplet — one of the few productions of his none too gracious Muse. Of the two versions here giv- en, the first is based more upon the Received Text, the other on the Marginal Reading, or Hebrew, where this differs. [Cosmos— a Greek word, meaning primarily " order ", order with beauty as a result, i.e. "beautiful order" — came early to stand specifically for the universe or world, the world contemplated as a beautiful system, characterized by the most perfect order. The synonymous term Macrocosm, signifying explicitly the great [or whole] world, is sometimes used to mark opposition more distinctly to the Micro- cosm, or the little world of man. ] COSMOS. 85 M The garment of the deep Around it all was poured : Above the mountains' highest steep The haughty waters roared. fr] Thy dread rebuke they heard ; They fled, they hasted down Before the thunder of Thy word, The terror of Thy frown. M They climb the mountains' height, They down the valleys roll, Wave chasing wave in headlong flight To the appointed goal. M There Thou a bound hast set, That never more the main Howe'er the loud waves rage and threat May drown the earth again. 6 Thou coveredst it with the deep as go down by the valleys [or, the mount - ■with a garment : the waters stood above ains ascend, the valleys descend] unto the the mountains. place which thou hast founded for them. 7 At thy rebuke they fled : at the 9 Thou hast set a bound that they voice of thy thunder they hasted away. may not pass over ; that they turn not 8 They go up by the mountains ; they again to cover the earth. 86 COSMOS. t J °] Into the vales, among the hills, A thousand fountains burst; There run cool brooks and murmuring rills ["] For beasts to slake their thirst. 1 I2 1 The fowls of heaven have near Their favorite retreat, Among the branches singing clear Their happy songs and sweet. t J 3] From out the blessed sky Thou send'st the genial rain, And thirsty vales and hill-tops dry Revive and laugh again. [m] Thy breath is in the fields, Thy power beneath the sod, Each mead and cornfield tribute yields And owns the present God. 10 He sendeth the springs into the sing [give a voice] among the branches, valleys, which run [Her. ivalk~\ among 13 He watereth the hills from his the hills. chambers ; the earth is satisfied with the 11 They give drink to every beast of fruit of thy works. the field ; the wild asses quench [slake] 14 He causeth the grass to grow for their thirst. the cattle, and herb for the service of 12 By them shall the fowls of the man ; that he may bring food out of the heaven have their habitation which earth ; COSMOS. 87 l j s\ For sake of man and beast, To satisfy their needs, Exhaustless Nature spreads this feast, This miracle proceeds. t l6 l Majestic cedars prop The nests on Lebanon ; t J 7] The stork prefers the fir-tree's top To build her house upon. 1 ,8 1 On craggy summits, where No other foot can tread, The wild-goats seek a refuge there, By wondrous instinct led. Thou dost for all provide Whate'er their natures ask — A sphere, and faculty to guide, A purpose, and a task. 15 And wine that maketh glad the sap ; the cedars of Lebanon, which he heart of man, and oil to make his face hath planted ; to shine [Heb. to make his face to shine 17 Where the birds make their nests: as ivitk oil, or, more than oif\, and bread for the stork, the fir-trees are her house, which strengthened man's heart. 18 The high hills are a refuge for the 16 The trees of the Lord are full of wild goats ; and the rocks for the conies. 88 COSMOS. M The setting sun, the rising moon, Their proper seasons wait — For punctual Nature's ne'er too soon, Nor ever yet too late. t 2 °l As down heaven's headlong steep The dewy night is hurled, Forth from their dens all wild beasts creep, While darkness wraps the world. t 2I l Young lions roar for prey, And seek their meat from God ; But when the sun arises, they t 22 l No longer roam abroad. [ 2 3] Man now, refreshed by sleep, Goes forth at morning light, To plough the fields, to sow or reap, Till the return of night. ig He appointeth the moon for sea- prey, and seek their meat from God. sons : the sun knoweth his going down. 22 The sun ariseth, they gather them- 20 Thou makest darkness, and it is selves together, and lay them down in night : wherein all the beasts of the for- their dens. est do creep forth IHeb. all the beasts 23 Man goeth forth unto his work and thereof do trample on the/oresi\. to his labor until the evening. 21 The young lions roar after their COSMOS. 89 M O Lord, how manifold The products of Thy hand ! How wise ! how wondrous to behold \ How admirably planned ! I>5] And not the earth alone, But the unfathomed sea Is filled with myriads unknown, Whose being is in Thee. [ 26 1 There go the ships, and there Leviathan disports, And other beasts the waters bear — Innumerable sorts. I 2 7l These all on Thee depend, All wait on Thee for food ; l> 8 ] Thine open hand Thou dost extend And they are filled with good. 24 Lord, how manifold are thy ^^ ^ t ^ in hM «^ e t H " B - works! in wisdom has thou made them /or ,-/] t phv , the re.n all ; the earth is full of thy riches. ^ mayest gjve the £ their m y t m 2s So is this great and wide sea, ,jue season, wherein are things creeping innumera- 2 s That thou givest them they gather: ble, both small and great beasts. tno u openest thine hand, they are filled 26 There go the ships; there is that with good. 9© COSMOS. [29] That moment Thou dost hide, Benignant Lord ! Thy face, They down to swift destruction glide They die and leave no trace. M Thou spread'st Thy brooding wing, Thou sendest forth Thy breath, And countless forms of life upspring From out the dust of death. The earth, that late was seen Shrunk by the fatal cold, Warmed by Thy smile, appears as green And beauteous as of old. kO Thy glory doth endure, Thy goodness doth not pass, Thy works reflect Thine image pure, Distinct as in a glass. are created : and thou renewest the op Thou hidest thy face, they are face of the earth. troubled; thou takestaway their breath, 3 , The g i or y of the Lord shall endure they die, and return to their dust. forever j the Lord shall rejoice in his 30 Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they works. COSMOS. 91 L32] Awe-struck beneath Thy gaze, Earth shakes from South to North ; At Thy bare touch the mountains blaze, Volcanic fires burst forth. I33] While I have power to praise, And being have and breath, My joyful song to Thee I'll raise, Nor shall they cease at death. [34] What tongue cannot repeat, That silence shall express — My thoughts of Thee shall still be sweet Whose love is fathomless. [35] Though Thou canst be severe, As impious men shall know, Yet to the humble and sincere Thy grace doth overflow.. 32 He looketh on the earth, and it 34 My meditation of him shall be trembleth ; he toucheth the hills, and sweet ; I will be glad in the Lord, they smoke. 35 Let the sinners be consumed out 33 I will sing unto the Lord as long of the earth, and let the wicked be no asllive; I will sing praise to my God more. Bless thou the Lord, O my Soul. while I have my being. Praise ye the Lord. 92 COSMOS. My soul, bless Thou the Lord ! Glad hallelujahs sing ! Let rapturous praise be ever poured From an exhaustless spring. PSALM CIV. SECOND VERS ION. o LORD my God ! Thou art, Of all that is, the soul, The mystery of every part, The glory of the whole. W Thou art the Light of light, Light is Thy dazzling veil, Compared with this, Thy raiment white, The light of suns is pale. With high aerial grace, The azure firmament Thou hangest o'er the empty place, In likeness of a tent. COSMOS. 93 [3] Thy chambers' buoyant beams Rest on that upper sea, Where unseen rivers flow, and streams Pour tribute silently. Thou makest clouds Thy car, W By winds tempestuous driven ; Th' obedient lightnings bear afar The messages of Heaven. [5] Immovably Thy hand The earth established ; still, Beneath its strong foundations, stand The pillars of Thy will. M Thou poured'st the deep around, Whose waters roared and swirled Above the mountains of a drowned And ocean buried world. [7] At Thy rebuking word, They trembling fled away ; The thunder of Thy voice they heard And hastened to obey. 94 COSMOS. tel In endless ebb they shrink To lower levels fast — The mountains rise, the valleys sink — Till, gathered at the last, bl They keep the place assigned, Th' unsounded depth of seas, By bars of adamant confined And Thy unchanged decrees. I T °] In valleys cool and sweet Spring brooks and murmuring rills, That walk the meads with shining feet And run among the hills. ["J Beasts of the field there drink, Wild asses thirst allay ; 1 12 1 Among the trees that shade the brink Sing happy birds all day. M Thou water'st all the land, And makest glad the sod ; The earth contented owns the hand And husbandry of God. cosmos, 95 M Thou makest grass to spring For cattle, and dost plan Supplies of every needful thing For the support of man. t's] The tilled and teeming soil Brings forth the foodful wine, That cheers the heart of man, and oil That makes his face to shine. f l6 l The cedars of the Lord, The pride of Lebanon, With plenteous sap and vigor stored, Thou planted'st every one. M The birds there build, and hide Their nests from human ken ; Fir-trees for storks a house provide Far from the haunts of men. l l8 J The wild goats climb the steep Of friendly hills that mocks Pursuing feet, and conies creep For safety in the rocks. 96 COSMOS. All these Thy thoughts employ, Thy tender mercies share, The great and mean alike enjoy Thy universal care. 1'9] The changeful moon observes Thy ordinances yet ; The sun his orbit keeps, nor swerves, And knows his time to set. t 2 °] Thou makest dark — 'tis night — Mid settling shadows brown, Wild beasts with eyeballs flashing light The forest trample down, [21] Young lions roar for prey, And food from thee require ; M But when the sun arises, they Back to their dens retire. M After the night's repose, Refreshed in every power, Man to his work and labor goes Until the evening: hour. COSMOS. 97 M O Lord, how manifold Thy works, in wisdom framed ! The earth is full of wealth untold, Beneficence unnamed. 1>5] So this great sea and wide, Where things unnumbered creep : Beasts small and great there swiftly glide, And populate the deep. M There go the ships ; there plough Monsters of mighty fin, That huge leviathan whom Thou Hast made to play therein. t 2 ?! These wait without alarm On Thee, their bounteous Lord, Who hang'st Creation on Thine arm, And feed'st it at Thy board. I> s ] Thy love and pity grand Assure them timely food : Thou op'nest Thy paternal hand, And they are filled with good. 7 gS COS M OS. t 2 9l Thou hid'st Thy face, and they Are struck with mortal fear ; Thou takest soon their breath away, They die and disappear : [j°1 Thy Spirit broods above — They live, in number more ; The earth beneath Thy smile of love, Seems fairer than before. fc'l The glory of Thy power Shall stand, as it has stood Since that divine rejoicing hour Thou madest all things good. M Earth trembles at the stroke Of Thy swift-glancing eyes ; The hills Thou touchest and they smoke, Volcanic flames arise. [33I O Lord my God ! I fling Me down at Thy dear feet ; There will I lie, and gladly sing Adoring anthems sweet. COSMOS. 99 t35] Bless thou the Lord, my soul ! Permitted as thou art, Of this majestic cosmic whole, To form a noble part. GOD IN NATURE. TO see with eyes of wonder, and with heart Of worship, God, in all — the Mystery, That renders sacred most familiar things — With priestly ministrations here to stand In the grand Temple of the Universe, Voicing the praises of all creatures mute, This is Religion, and for this alone Was man created sovereign of the world. Yea ! all things are of God. This infinite And unimaginable Universe, Built up of atoms, hath no other Cause, No other Father. His unutterable Will Is the foundation on which Nature rests. God underlieth every meanest grain ; ioo COSMOS. There, even there, is His omnipotence And love and wisdom, else it could not be. Glorious with a divine significance, And full of mighty motives to adore, Is the dull clod we tread beneath our feet. The shadow of each footfall covers space Made awful with the tokens of the Unseen. Of common dust, no handful but contains Problems for Science, arguments for Faith, That not the patient and untiring search Of studious years can number or exhaust. There power is resident, and forces work In secrecy and silence. 'Tis a part Of the great whole, indissolubly joined, And needful to the mighty equipoise Of all the orbs that circulate in space. Subtract that element, and means of strength, And the great pillars that support the world . Shall crumble instantly and fall to wreck. It lies, and shall yet lie, where it has lain From the beginning, in its Maker's palm, An instrument of power to do His will. A gust of summer wind sweeps suddenly COS A/ OS. IOI Along this dry frequented thoroughfare. Pursue each particle of flying dust ; O'ertake and seize the air-blown fugitive ; Strictly interrogate, and, if need be, Extort confession from reluctant lips ; Compel th' imprisoned secret, whence it came And what it is. It has a history. Lo ! ages back it wrought, and, ever since, In various forms, through changes manifold Of protean existence, played its part. Perhaps it dwelt with Adam ere he sinned In Paradise, and fed the healthful springs Of an immortal vigor ; otherwise with Eve, To make her first and fairest of her sex, Supreme in unimagined loveliness. Wondrous its essence then. O Ignorant ! Who vainly deem aught mean or meaningless, Since in the very ultimates of things, In fragmentary atoms, God is seen Minutely miniatured, His image traced In multiplied reflections clear and bright, As some chance-shattered mirror truly shows The object that confronts it in each part. 02 COSMOS. If what is least reveals Him : testifies Surely and sweetly of the present God ; If each dull particle of sordid earth The latent light of Deity enshrines, Whose liberated and outbursting pomp, The lustre of the diamond would shame, And stain the radiance of all the stars ; If dust is eloquent and atoms preach ; If elementary component parts, With separate utterances of pregnant proof, And mystic characters compactly writ, Are each and all condensed embodiments, Examples and epistles of His love ; With what a rapturous, o'erwhelming might Of certainty, and bliss of kneeling awe, The glorious Aggregate and wondrous Whole, So all ablaze with Godhead, on the sight Now presses, and invites my trembling lyre ! Opens the eye, and, lo, a Universe ! A flash of vision issuing from the lids Of darkness ; an ubiquity of thought, A rush of consciousness o'erflowing space, And reaching boundaries of worlds so far,, COSMOS. 103 That Light's swift messenger, dispatched from thence At the creation, has but just arrived. O my Mind's Beautiful ! My own Heart's Bride ! That, with surrender of thy powerful charms, Leaps to th' encounter of my Soul's embrace ! O inexpressible Reality! the All ! So multiform and marvellous ; so near And neighboring ; as day familiar ! Sleep A while excludes, but, punctual as the Morn, At the low portal of th' awakened Sense, Thou stoop'st to enter in with all thy train. Ye dwellers in mud-huts, who look, perchance, With squint and hungry eyes and pining heart, At the palatial mansions of the rich, Angry with Fortune, wherefore are ye thus ? Ungrateful ! is not this your Father's house — This domed and decorated Universe — And have ye not the privilege of sons ? All day and half the night ye are abroad, Awake and wonder-struck. What matters it How mean your dormitory, you asleep ? How rude or scant your chamber's furniture ? Sleep takes no knowledge, occupied with dreams, Haply reversive of your differing lots. 104 COS M OS. Costly or coarse my couch, be it my wont, Always to leave Sleep's leaden doors ajar, That the first glimmerings of diluted light, Dusk heralds of the Dawn, may enter in, And rouse me from short slumber. Who would wish In such a world to waste the precious hours? To tarry snoring in a slothful bed, What time the risen and rejoicing lark Goes up to meet the Morning ? Yet once more, While in my eyeballs lives unquenched the day, I would behold that miracle of God. Usurping Night sits throned among the Stars, Her dreadful shadow filling all the void, Sovereign and sole. But, lo ! her Rival comes To hurl her from her seat. Already, see ! Prevenient splendors run along the sky ; The East each moment brightens more and more, As nears the jeweled chariot of the Sun, Where rides in awful state the King of Day. Lances and spears and javelins of flame Rain upward, an inverted shower, and wound And put to flight the punishable Dark, Guilty and filled with ignominious fears. ^ § t> m O g. m CI £3 3 co 3. 3. P O P' rt £ £ > «> ° £ g • K" t? 1 .. Ci- s- co tv COSMOS. 10 5 Not so the blameless and unfearing Clouds, Born of the Light, and Children of the Sun. These do not fly, but motionless and calm, With grief of absence and long watching pale, Now flushed with pleasure at his near approach, In reverent, expectant posture, wait To smile back welcome to their glorious Sire, Who seals, Good morrow ! with a heavenly kiss. All things put off their melancholy mien. The Earth, that wept all night her absent lord, Her cold cheek wet with tears, now makes each drop A brilliant mirror to reflect her joy. The streams sing louder ; and unnumbered birds Flitting from bough to bough in the green wood, Or high in air, exert their little throats To testify delight. The flowers, which shut Last night their gaily painted leaves, and hid And husbanded their store of sweets, yield up Their gathered fragrance. Greener gleams the grass. The beautiful foliage of all the trees Quivers with secret rapture. Zephyrs soft, Breezes Favonian, feel new pulses beat Within, and waking wave invisible wings. But what a glory crowns the mountain-tops, 106 COSMOS. When bursts the budding Day into full flower. Uprising from th' abyss like world new-made The blazing Wonder comes. It touches now, Now overtops the Earth's circumference, And pours great floods of light into the void, And fills up all the mighty gulfs of space — The flux and fullness of that shoreless sea Which deluges and drowns and swallows all, Yea ! and baptizes all things unto God. Who can resist the impulse of glad praise ? Father of Lights ! Sun of the Universe, Here imaged ! Thee, we magnify, we bless, We worship ! we have greatest cause. Of all Thy creatures, Thou, to man alone, Hast given mind, imagination, heart ; The knowledge of Thyself and of Thy works -> The inspiration and the joy of Faith. Enlightened by Thy immaterial beams, He sees a beauty others cannot see. He hears a melody no others hear ; He. feels a rapture none else comprehends Well may he join the general jubilee ; As first in dignity be first in praise ; As first in favor foremost too in thanks; COSMOS. 107 Articulate voice and utterance to all, As in himself the sum of all, and more ; His animal perfection topped and crowned With a religious and immortal soul, Electric with a mystery of life, Related to that mystery divine, Which dwells in all, and is the soul of all, Whence, like a body oppositely charged, He touches nature, and sustains a shock Thrilling his being to its lowest depths. MORNING HYMN. GT OD, my security ! Let me in purity Hymn Thy high praises while morning's yet dark- Slumbering humanity Dreaming of vanity, How is it shamed by the worshipping lark ! Lowly in attitude, Musical gratitude Fain would I pour to Thee fervent and sweet — 10S COSMOS. Thank Thee in verity, Bless in sincerity, Wonder, and worship, and wait at Thy feet ! Thou, whose benignity, Hellish malignity Baffling, with sleep refresheth the world — Nature's sweet chirrupings, Warblings and worshippings, Hear, while the banner of day is unfurled ! Pride of the firmament, Fadeless and permanent, Star of the morning ! begin the soft lay — Lovingly lingering, Singing, and fingering Viols of sweetness preluding the day ! Constellar mysteries ! Known are your histories, Countless and boundless, ye rose at His call- Boast His ubiquity, Greater antiquity, Always and everywhere, God all in all ! COSMOS. I0 9 Queen of serenity, Grace and amenity, Walking in brightness and blessing the earth — Aye in thy wandering, Fondly be pondering, Proofs of His matchless and manifold worth ! Orient hoverings ! Kindlings and coverings ! Flaming the firmament, flashing afar, Duskiness scattering, Mountain-tops flattering, Chasing my spirit's gloom, tell whence ye are ! Type of Divinity ! Over infinity Throwing a mantle of beauty and light ; Life of the perishing, Cheering and cherishing, Blazon His goodness and wisdom and might ! Earth ! in simplicity, Sing thy felicity, Bosomed in azure, and bride of the sky ; COSMOS. Favored and beautiful, No more undutiful, Low at His footstool contentedly lie ! Wondrous reality, Forms of vitality, Countless in number, O come in your need ! Come ye, adoringly ! Come ye, imploringly ! Every one trusting His love will you feed. Airy profundity ! Round this rotundity, Shedding on all benediction and balm — Tempests, cloud-sundering, Dreadfully thundering, Lift with all winds the powerful Psalm ! Bluest Ethereal ! Bright Immaterial ! Th' infinite Heavens encompassing all ! Cope of Immensity ! Sound with intensity Praises to God from your echoing wall ! WORKS ABRAHAM COLES, M.D., LL.D. REVIEWED BY EMINENT CRITICS WORKS OF ABRAHAM COLES, M.D., LL.D. LATIN HYMNS, in Four Parts, viz.: I. Dies Ir^, in Thirteen Original Versions. Sixth edition. (1892.) II. Stabat Mater (Dolorosa). Third edition. III. Stabat Mater (Speciosa). Second edition. IV. Old Gems in New Settings. Third edition. All bound together, with biographical and critical prefaces, with full-page illustrations of: "The Last Judgment," by Michael Angelo; "Christus Remuner- ator," "St. Augustine and His Mother," "Faith and Hope," by Ary Scheffer; " Mary at the Cross," by Paul Delaroche; Raphael's " Madonna di San Sisto," the gem of the Dresden gallery; "Ecstasy and Prayer," by Ch. Landelle; etc., etc. Crown, 8vo, pp. 249. $3.00. THE MICROCOSM AND OTHER POEMS. Including three additional versions of the " Dies Irse," National Lyrics, and Hymns for Children. Beautifully illustrated. Crown, 8vo, pp. 348. $2.50. THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF OUR LORD. In Verse. Being a complete, harmonized exposition of the four gospels, with original notes, etc. A cyclopaedia of re- ligious knowledge. Two volumes in one. Illustrated with Munkacsy's "Christ Before Pilate." Crown, 8vo, pp. 800. $2.50. THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF OUR LORD. In Verse. Two volumes, viz.: Vol. I. The Evangel. Illustrated with twenty-eight full-page " artotype ' copies of: " Ecce Homo," by Guido Reni; "The Four Evangelists," by Thorwaldsen ; "Salvator Mundi," by Carlo Dolce; "The First Death," by Adrian V. Werff ; "The Annunciation," by Prof. E. Deger; " The Visita- tion," by Bida; "Golgotha," by J. L. Gerome; "La Notte," by Correggio; "The Presentation in the Tem- ple," by W. T. C. Dobson; "The Magi Going to Bethle- hem," by J. Portaels; "The Flight into Egypt," by Dorothea Lister; "The Massacre of the Innocents," by Guido; " The Shadow of the Cross," by Phil. R. Morris; "Nazareth," by W. T. C. Dobson; "The Good Shep- herd," by Murillo; "The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple," by W. Holman Hunt; "The Voice in the Wilderness," by Guido Reni; "Jesus, the Christ," by Ary Scheffer; "The Scapegoat," by W. Holman Hunt; "The Temptation," by Ary Scheffer; " Christus Con- solator," by Ary Scheffer; "The Holy Family," by F. Ittenbach; "Christ's Mother and Brethren," by Bida; "The Marriage at Cana," by Paul Veronese; "Christ by the Sea of Galilee," by Bida; " Jeptha's Return," by Leon Glaize ; " Ruth and Naomi," by Ary Scheffer; "The Cleansing of the Temple," by Barthelemy Man- fredi; " Invocation and Petition," by Ch. Landelle; etc. Crown, 8vo, pp. 405. $3.50. Vol. II. The Light of the World. Including translations of various Latin Hymns and illustrated with full-page " artotype " copies of : "Christ Before Pilate," by Munkacsy ; "The Good Shepherd," by Dobson; "Christ and His Disciples on Their Way to Emmaus," by B. Plockhorst; etc. Crown, Svo, pp. 395. $2.50. A NEW RENDERING OF THE HEBREW PSALMS INTO ENGLISH VERSE. With notes, critical, historical and biographical, in- cluding an historical sketch of the French, English and Scotch metrical versions, pp. 300. $1 25. MAN, THE MICROCOSM. Fifth (Physicians') edi- tion. (1892.) With portrait of the author, and full-page illustrations of "Ambrose Pare, the Father of French Surgery;" ''Ed- ward Jenner, the Discoverer of Vaccination; " "Andreas Vesalius, author of the immortal work, ' De Corporis Humani Fabrica ; ' " "William Harvey Demonstrating to Charles I, His Theory of the Circulation of the Blood;" Rembrandt's famous "Lesson in Anatomy — Prof. Tulp and His Pupils; " the "Apollo Belvedere," from a photograph of the original statue; the "Venus de Medici, which from its exquisite proportions and perfection of contour has become the most celebrated standard of female form extant;" " Theodor Billroth and his Clinical Assistants, Vienna;" etc. $2.50. An appropriate gift to a physician. ABRAHAM COLES. Biographical Sketch; Memorial Tributes; Selections from his Writings, Some hitherto unpublished, (including Two New Ver- sions, the Seventeenth and Eighteenth, of the "Dies Irse"); eight full-page illustrations; steel portrait of Dr. Coles, etc., etc. Edited by his son, Jonathan Acker- man Coles, A. M., M. D., 1892, pp. 350. $2.50. For sale by all booksellers; or sent, at our expense, to any address, on receipt of price mentioned. D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, New York. CRITICS AND CRITICISMS. CRITICS AND CRITICISMS. Richard Grant White (1821-1885), in "The Albion": "We commend the volume, 'Dies Irae, in Thirteen Original Ver- sions/ as one of great interest; and an admirable tribute from American scholarship and poetic taste to the supreme nobility of the original poem. Dr. Coles has shown a fine appreciation of the spirit and rhythmic movement of the Hymn, as well as unusual command of language and rhyme; and we much doubt whether any translation of the ' Dies Ira.,' better than the first of the thirteen, will ever be produced in English, except perhaps by himself. ... As to the translation of the Hymn, it is perhaps the most difficult task