The Angel in the Cloud. Edwin W. Fuller

perish here.

       These are the sophists; men who deeply dive

       Beneath the surface of effect, and trace

       Our actions to their source. They find that man,

       Made in the glorious image of his God,

       Is not an independent cause, but works

       From motive causes out of his control.

       They find that every mental act must flow

       From outside source, then fearlessly ascend

       The chain of being to a height divine,

       And dare to fetter the Eternal mind,

       And throw their bonds around Omnipotence.

       As well a spider in an eagle’s nest

       Might, from his hidden web among the twigs,

       Attempt to throw his little gluey thread

       Around the mottled wing, whose muscled strength

       Beats hurried vacuums in the ocean’s spray,

       Or circling upward, parts the thunder-cloud,

       And bursts above; and shaking off the mists,

       With rigid feathers bright as burnished steel,

       Floats proudly through the tranquil air.

       Which realm

       Shall now be mine, Free-Will or Fate? The one

       Stands open wide, but all in ruin ends;

       The other, fair if once within the pale;

       But how to scale the barriers none can tell.

       Bah! all is doubt. I’ll leave the mystic paths

       Where, on each side, are ranged the phantom shapes

       Of disputants, alive and dead, who fight,

       With foolish zeal, o’er myths intangible;

       When each one cries “Eureka!” for his creed.

       That scarcely lives a day, then yields its place.

       A Roman ’gainst a Roman, Greek to Greek,

       A zealous Omar with an Ali paired;

       A saintly Pharisee in hot dispute

       With Sadducees. Along th’ illustrious rows

       Of lesser lights, who advocate the creeds

       Of their respective masters, we descend

       To later days and see Titanic minds

       Exert their giant strength to reach the truth,

       And, baffled, fall. Locke, ever elsewhere clear,

       Here mystified Spinoza’s dizzy wing

       O’erweighted by his strange “imperium;”

       Hobbes, with his new intrinsic liberty;

       And Belsham’s quaint reduction too absurd;

       “Sufficient reason,” reared in Leibnitz’s strength;

       Reid, Collins, Edwards, Tappan, Priestley, Clarke,

       All push each other from the door of Truth.

      None ever have, nor ever will, on earth,

       Reach truth of theory concerning Fate.

       It stands as whole from every touch of man

       As ocean’s broad blue scroll, whose rubber waves

       Erase the furrows of the plowing keels.