IDOLS

BUT what is this?

The sacred beetle, bound upon the breast

Of the blind heathen! Snatch the curious prize,

Give it a place among thy treasured spoils,

Fossil and relic,— corals, encrinites,

The fly in amber and the fish in stone,

The twisted circlet of Etruscan gold,

Medal, intaglio, poniard, poison-ring,—

Place for the Memphian beetle with thine hoard!

AM longer than thy creed has blest the world

This toy, thus ravished from thy brother's breast,

Was to the heart of Mizraim as divine,

As holy, as the symbol that we lay

On the still bosom of our white-robed dead,

And raise above their dust that all may know

Here sleeps an heir of glory. Loving friends,

With tears of trembling faith and choking sobs,

And prayers to those who judge of mortal deeds,

Wrapped this poor image in the cerement's fold

That Isis and Osiris, friends of man,

Might know their own and claim the ransomed soul.

An idol? Man was born to worship such!

An idol is an image of his thought;

Sometimes he carves it out of gleaming stone,

And sometimes moulds it out of glittering gold,

Or rounds it in a mighty frescoed dome,

Or lifts it heavenward in a lofty spire,

Or shapes it in a cunning frame of words,

Or pays his priest to make it day by day;

For sense must have its god as well as soul;

A new-born Dian calls for silver shrines,

And Egypt's holiest symbol is our own,

The sign we worship as did they of old

When Isis and Osiris ruled the world.

Let us be true to our most subtle selves,

We long to have our idols like the rest.

Think! when the men of Israel had their God

Encamped among them, talking with their chief,

Leading them in the pillar of the cloud

And watching o'er them in the shaft of fire,

They still must have an image; still they longed

For somewhat of substantial, solid form

Whereon to hang their garlands, and to fix

Their wandering thoughts and gain a stronger hold

For their uncertain faith, not yet assured

If those same meteors of the day and night

Were not mere exhalations of the soil.

Are we less earthly than the chosen race?

Are we more neighbors of the living God

Than they who gathered manna every morn,

Reaping where none had sown, and heard the voice

Of him who met the Highest in the mount,

And brought them tables, graven with His hand?

Yet these must have their idol, brought their gold,

That star-browed Apis might be god again;

Yea, from their ears the women brake the rings

That lent such splendors to the gypsy brown

Of sunburnt cheeks,— what more could woman do

To show her pious zeal? They went astray,

But nature led them as it leads us all.

We too, who mock at Israel's golden calf

And scoff at Egypt's sacred scarabee,

Would have our amulets to clasp and kiss,

And flood with rapturous tears, and bear with us

To be our dear companions in the dust;

Such magic works an image in our souls.

Man is an embryo; see at twenty years

His bones, the columns that uphold his frame

Not yet cemented, shaft and capital,

Mere fragments of the temple incomplete.

At twoscore, threescore, is he then full grown?

Nay, still a child, and as the little maids

Dress and undress their puppets, so he tries

To dress a lifeless creed, as if it lived,

And change its raiment when the world cries shame!

We smile to see our little ones at play

So grave, so thoughtful, with maternal care

Nursing the wisps of rags they call their babes;—

Does He not smile who sees us with the toys

We call by sacred names, and idly feign

To be what we have called them? He is still

The Father of this helpless nursery-brood,

Whose second childhood joins so close its first,

That in the crowding, hurrying years between

We scarce have trained our senses to their task

Before the gathering mist has dimmed our eyes,

And with our hollowed palm we help our ear,

And trace with trembling hand our wrinkled names,

And then begin to tell our stories o'er,

And see — not hear — the whispering lips that say,

“You know? Your father knew him.— This is he,

Tottering and leaning on the hireling's arm,” —

And so, at length, disrobed of all that clad

The simple life we share with weed and worm,

Go to our cradles, naked as we came.