The gills of fish, the two-valved heart of bird,
The simian's tail, the huddled body furred?
Well, then be comforted: for still we find
Body is ever correlate with mind,
And, whilst ye shared the frame of bird or fish
Ye shared no less its feeling, fancy, wish.
And know; the heart, the tail, the fur, the gill,
However altered, are our portion still;
And so it follows: still the mind no less
Secretes some portion of their consciousness.
The Muse of Darwin!...Next, the Muse of Freud:
We know that all we fancied, feared, enjoyed,
From babyhood upon these shores of light
Works still in us, most manifest at night,
Whence dreams, they say, and ghosts, and second-sight,
Why not the fancies and the fears and joys
We shared before our birth as girls and boys—
The animal sensations of our prime?
Are these not there? Shall they not have their time?
To link us, by probed memories within,
Unto the larger life, the vaster kin....
Plotinus, Bergson, ye can gloss my rhyme!
