Γνωθι Σεαυτον
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Gnothi Seauton I If thou canst bear Strong meat of simple truth If thou durst my words compare With what thou thinkest in my soul’s free youth, Then take this fact unto thy soul,----- God dwells in thee. It is no metaphor nor parable, It is unknown to thousands, and to thee; Yet there is God.
II
He is in thy world, But thy world knows him not. He is the mighty Heart From which life’s varied pulses part. Clouded and shrouded there doth sit The Infinite Embosomed in a man; And thou art stranger to thy guest And know’st not what thou doth invest. The clouds that veil his life within Are thy thick woven webs of sin, Which his glory struggling through Darkens to thine evil hue.
III
Then bear thyself, O man! Up to the scale and compass of thy guest; Soul of thy soul. Be great as doth beseem The ambassador who bears The royal presence where he goes.
IV
Give up to thy soul----- Let it have its way----- It is, I tell thee, God himself, The selfsame One that rules the Whole, Tho’ he speaks thro’ thee with a stifled voice, And looks through thee, shorn of his beams. But if thou listen to his voice, If thou obey the royal thought, It will grow clearer to thine ear, More glorious to thine eye. The clouds will burst that veil him now And thou shalt see the Lord.
V
Therefore be great, Not proud,-----too great to be proud. Let not thine eyes rove, Peep not in corners; let thine eyes Look straight before thee, as befits The simplicity of Power. And in thy closet carry state; Filled with light, walk therein; And, as a king Would do no treason to his own empire, So do not thou to thine.
VI
This is the reason why thou dost recognize Things now first revealed, Because in thee resides The Spirit that lives in all; And thou canst learn the laws of nature Because its author is latent in thy breast.
VII
Therefore, O happy youth, Happy if thou dost know and love this truth, Thou art unto thyself a law, And since the soul of things is in thee, Thou needest nothing out of thee. The law, the gospel, and the Providence, Heaven, Hell, the Judgement, and the stores Immeasurable of Truth and Good, All these thou must find Within thy single mind, Or never find.
VIII
Thou art the law; The gospel has no revelation Of peace and hope until there is response From the deep chambers of thy mind thereto,----- The rest is straw. It can reveal no truth unknown before. The Providence Thou art thyself that doth dispense Wealth to thy work, want to thy sloth, Glory to goodness, to neglect, the moth. Thou sow’st the wind, the whirlwind reapest, Thou payest the wages Of thy own work, through all ages. The almighty energy within Crowneth virtue, curseth sin. Virtue sees by its own light; Stumbleth sin in self-made night.
IX
Who approves thee doing right? God in thee. Who condemns thee doing wrong? God in thee. Who punishes thine evil deed? God in thee. What is thine evil meed? Thy worse mind, with error blind And more prone to evil That is, the greater hiding of the God within: The loss of peace The terrible displeasure of this inmate And next the consequence More faintly as more distant wro’t Upon our outward fortunes Which decay with vice With Virtue rise.
X
The selfsame God By the same law Makes the souls of angels glad And the souls of devils sad See There is nothing else but God Where e'er I look All things hasten back to him Light is but his shadow dim.
XI
Shall I ask wealth or power of God, who gave An image of himself to be my soul? As well might swilling ocean ask a wave, Or the starred firmament a dying coal,----- For that which is in me lives in the whole.
1831