POLLUTED WATERS by Willis

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 13, 1877

POLLUTED WATERS.

By Willis

It is a lesson oftener learned than loved— All knowledge is not nourishment. The mind May pine upon its food. In reckless thirst The scholar sometimes kneels beside the stream Polluted by the lepers of the mind. The skeptic, with his doubts of all things good And faith in all things evil, has been there; And, as the stream was mingled, he has strewn The shore with all bright flowers to tempt the eye, And sloped the banks down gently for the feet; And Genius, like a fallen child of light, Has filled the place with magic, and compelled Most beautiful creations into forms And images of license, and they come And tempt you with bewildering grace to kneel And drink of the wild waters; and behind Stand the strong Passions pleading to go in; And the approving world looks silent on; Till the pleased mind conspires against itself, And finds a subtle reason why ’tis good. We are deceived, though, even as we drink, We taste the evil. In his sweetest tone The lying Tempter whispers in our ears, “*Though it may stain, ’twill strengthen your proud wings.*”

I need not follow the similitude. Truth is vitality, and if the mind Be fed on poison, it must lose its power— The vision that forever strains to err, Soon finds its task a habit; and the taste That will own nothing true or beautiful Soon finds the world distorted as itself. — Willis.