  I am a god; yes, I,— (Smile, if you will, at the claim) Mote though I am in the ambient sky, Housed, I confess, in putrescible frame, Still, a divinity. My sceptre I claim, and, perchance, My altars as well,—who knows? You would prick my pride with your wit’s keen lance, You know my radius. Well, suppose You pipe, I dance. Am I the Primary Cause? That’s my affair, not my creatures’. Did I create nature’s adamant laws, Or am I but one of her manifold features? Fellow gods can pick flaws! But the little corpuscles of blood I create by millions each hour, Do you fancy the witless ephemeral brood, As each lives its life, can my limits and power Declare understood? Alone in the grey of my brain I sit and my universe rule. What can they know of their god, though they fain Question, perhaps, each contemptible fool, What joy is, why pain? Do they brag of their universe, boast, Worsting some hostile bacillus, Fight over their God, sect term other sect lost, Read my ways or complain, “Why torment us and kill us?” What fate has each ghost? Perfecting some large thought that may Move the earth that I dwell on, A million my creatures, remorseless, I slay. Am I annoyed if they call me a felon! It is I, or they. My work, for their sake, shall I cease, My very nature disjoint? Is there aught but destruction for all in such peace? Must I miracle work for a microscope point,— Corpuscles to please? We are not one, we are twain, Yet are we one and not two. They are the universe, I am the brain, In and about them, knit through and through,— Chords in one strain. In common we have, at least, this, Creator and creature, that we Must rise to the height of our powers, or miss Life’s best for ourselves, and each other decree Frustrate of bliss. . . . . . . . . . . Is, now, this godhead of mine, My limits, this difference vast Between creature and maker, a symbol? In fine Is mankind but a host of blood corpuscles, massed Through the Divine? |
|
