Songs and Sonnets (Coleman)/Analogy
ANALOGY.
I.
While yet 'twas dark mine eyes were formed to see;
In silence ears were shapen unto me.
Ere I traversed the subtle ways of thought
Within the sealèd crypt a brain was wrought.
And delicately fashioned was the hand,
Though all unknown the task it should command.
Yet these are but the parts; what of the whole—
The man compact, complete, a living soul?
Shall that which grew within him year by year—
Knowledge and judgment, mastery of fear,
The dawning dream of kindlier brotherhood,
And that dim hope, so little understood,
Which seems to beckon to some higher end
Than yet he has the power to comprehend—
Shall these prove fallow, and the finished man
Be unrelated to the final plan?
II.
Can man know longing for a thing
That is not—hath not been?
Dare we distrust desires that spring
Spontaneous within?
Tongue argueth speech; and power, deed—
Each is by each implied;
Can there be universal need
Unmet, unsatisfied?
The heart attuned to love doth find
Love waiting at the door,
He who to knowledge turns his mind
Finds knowledge there before,
And shall the deepest want we know,
The spirit's anguished cry
For kinship through the darkness, go
Unanswered from on high?