The Mission

'I HAVE oped my inner vision,' (Spake the Spirit to the Seer,) 'Now I'll show to thee the mission Which whatever betides—whate'er— Thou by heaven's high permission shalt accomplish.—Give ear! 'Thou shalt write and speak, and wholly By the gift of speech and song, Thou shalt make the proud one lowly, And the weak in spirit, strong, And the servitor of folly for the ways of wisdom long. 'Thou shalt teach, he who devises Harm for others, harm will meet; And that he who most despises Counsel's—to himself a cheat; That the wisest of the wise is most devoid of self-conceit. 'Thou shalt speak a word in season To the poor in bondage, nor Forget to say 'tis treason Gainst the highest to ignore The claims of love and reason, and to trample on the poor. 'Thou shalt teach the tyrant master How to view his servant's lot; Not to want the wheels go faster Then there's strength to do it—not— Not to make it a disaster to be cradled in a cot. 'Thou shalt teach the willing toiler, Doomed for fee to shape and plan, He has that which no despoiler May divest him of—nor can— The power to make his scorner feel the dignity of man. 'Thou shalt tell the sordid miser Not heaps of guinea gold Will ever make him wiser— For wisdom ne'er was sold, And lacking which his joys are too meagre to be told. 'Ask what will be his measure, When dust to dust's restored; What shall serve his gold, what pleasure Shall gems the soul afford? And if his worshipped treasure shall be worth one tender word. 'The brighest jewels sparkling In the courts above, Are the deeds encircling The heart enshrined in love, And lacking which we darkling down, ever downward, move. 'All this in words unvarnished, Say to the world; and say, That lives by deeds unvarnished Must be deplored—and may As much as lives crime-tarnished, which other traits display. 'Strike, strike at superstition! Bid its slaves with open eyes, See, in lack of a volition For themselves to think, there lies A more damnable perdition than the bigots can devise. 'Bid each for himself but ponder, And e'en though he err, persist; And the fetters he will sunder, That now threaten to resist; Nay, e'er long he'll come to wonder how so long he lay in mist. 'Risen on the wings of rapture, At his freedom, he will soar Far 'yond the reach of Scripture Misconstruers, evermore To redazzle, to recapture by their guile-engendered lore. 'Leaving churches and their minions, Leaving books and bells and beads, Leaving Craftdom's dark dominions To the bigots and their creeds, He will stamp his bold opinions on the coin of golden deeds. 'Thus thy thought shall like a sabre Cut some knot, if not untie, And some duty to a neighbour Do—and yet a nobler—ay, A higher, holier labour must thy efforts yet employ. 'See, yon desolated woman Weeping o'er an infant lost; Tearing out her hair, consuming Life in anguish, till a ghost She seems and not a woman weeping o'er her baby lost. 'Go, take her hand extended— In words of music say, How the spirit that descended Once on Pentecost, yet may The bosom heal thus rended—say the child's not far away. 'Say, In fact the little jewel Not a clod sepulchred lies— Ah, the cruel creed, the cruel Hearts can teach such creed unwise! That her jewel, yet a jewel will sparkle in her eyes. 'Aloud let it be sounded, Whoever were, yet are; Not lost in space unbounded, Not in another star— That yet around, about us are the friends we deem afar. 'This may sound like a gigantic Fiction to the world—'tis true; And thou be held an antic, And bigots not a few Will with a fury frantic thy lonely steps pursue. 'Slander black, and black detraction,— All the poison'd darts of hate, All the malice of a faction Whose wounded pride would sate Itself on thy distraction, to brook shall be thy fate. 'But thou shalt stand undaunted, The arrows at thee hurl'd, Till on Falsehood's grave implanted The flag of Truth's unfurl'd, And a mighty pæan's chanted by her angels to the world. 'That shall be a day of glory— Glory to our God on high— Glory to the angels o'er ye— Glory and exceeding joy— Glory to the Nations—glory to the seer they'd now destroy. 'Thus I've oped thy inner vision— In the language of thy kind Have shown to thee the mission For which thou art designed— Then go, and with God's blessing do the work to thee assigned.'