Charles Robert Darwin. 47 



DARWIN. 



[Read on the occasion of the preceding Lecture, by Mr. Ciiakles T. CATLIN, 

 with the permission of the Author.] 



He was a bold discoverer of the wise 

 And lucid order of the world, who bade 

 Men love the truth and speak it, and be glad 

 When each ideal of superstition dies. 



The bigot cursed him, and, with flaming eyes, 

 Flashed hate upon him as one gone mad 

 With stark God-enmity, although he had 

 No blacker sin than honest hearts devise. 



He was a hero for the right of men 



To seek beyond their bibles, churches, creeds, 



Beyond the tyrannous will of pope or priest, 



Thought buried deep in nature ; holy when 



Revealed to us by any soul that reads 



The infinite mind in God and man and beast. 



Amid the harsh endeavors of old days 

 He strove supremely, and, with patient will, 

 Climbed masterfully onward, upward, till 

 He rose above men's bitter blame, or praise. 



He probed our life along its secret ways ; 

 Back through historic centuries, farther still, 

 He traced the simple, clear designs which fill 

 Creation, as they fill a robin's lays. 



Amid the vast complexity of forms 

 Births from one primal ancestry he saw, 

 Like stars and planets from one chaos hurled, 



And showed, through aeons of fire and flood and storms, 

 The march of evolution and of law, 

 The beauty and the wonder of the world. 



