INTELLECTUAL ENDOWMENTS.
By Robert Pollok
"ONE man there was, and many such you might
Have met, who never had a dozen thoughts
In all his life, and never changed their course;
But told them o'er, each in its customed place,
From morn till night, from youth till hoary age.
Little above the ox which grazed the field,
His reason rose. So weak his memory,
The name his mother called him by, he scarce
Remembered; and his judgment so untaught
That what at evening played along the swamp,
Fantastic, clad in robe of fiery hue,
He thought the devil in disguise, and fled
With quivering heart and winged footsteps home.
The word philosophy he never heard,
Or science; never heard of liberty,
Necessity, or laws of gravitation;
And never had an unbelieving doubt.
Beyond his native vale he never looked;
But thought the visual line, that girt him round,
The world's extreme; and thought the silver moon
That nightly o'er him led her virgin host,
No broader than his father's shield. He lived—
Lived where his father lived; died where he died;
Lived happy, and died happy, and was saved.
Be not surprised; he loved and served his God. There was another, large of understanding,
Of memory infinite, of judgment deep,
Who knew all learning and all science knew;
And all phenomena in heaven and earth,
Traced to their cause; traced the labyrinths
Of thought, association, passion, will;
And all the subtle nice affinities
Of matter traced; its virtues, motions, laws;
And most familiarly and deeply talked
Of mental, moral, natural, divine.
Leaving the earth at will, he soared to heaven,
And read the glorious visions of the skies;
And to the music of the rolling spheres
Intelligently listened; and gazed far back
Into the awful depths of Deity;
Did all that mind assisted most could do;
And yet in misery lived, in misery died,
Because he wanted holiness of heart.
A deeper lesson this to mortals taught,
That not in mental, but in moral wealth,
God excellence placed; and only to the good,
To virtue, granted happiness alone. Admire the goodness of Almighty God;
He riches gave, and intellectual strength
To few, and therefore none commands to be
Or rich or learned; nor promises reward
Of peace to these. On all He moral worth
Bestowed, and moral tribute asked from all,
And who that could not pay? Who born so poor
Of intellect so mean, as not to know
What seemed the best; and knowing might not do?
As not to know what God and conscience bade?
And what they bade, not able to obey?
And he who acted thus fulfilled the law
Eternal, and its promise reaped of peace;
Found peace this way alone; who sought it else,
Sought mellow grapes beneath the icy pole;
Sought blooming roses on the cheek of death;
Sought substance in a world of fleeting shades. —Pollok's Course of Time.