674 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
If man had knowledge his moral nature would he destroyed:: 
No more than the passive clay 
Disputes the potter’s act, 
Could the whelmed mind disobey 
Knowledge the cataract. 
But, perfect in every part, 
Has the potter’s moulded shape 
Leap of man’s quickened heart, 
Throe of his thought’s escape, 
Stings of his soul which dart 
Through the barrier of flesh, till keen 
She climbs from the calm and clear, 
Through turbidity all between, 
From the known to the unknown here, 
Heaven’s “Shall be,” from Earth’s “Has been”? 
Then life is—to wake not sleep, 
Rise and not rest, but press 
From earth’s level where blindly creep 
Things perfected, more or less, 
To the heaven’s height, far and steep, 
Where, amid what strifes and storms 
May wait the adventurous quest, 
Power is Love—transports, transforms 
Who aspired from worst to best, 
Sought the soul’s world, spurned the worms’. 
{A Reverie , 186-210.) 
III. Immortality. 
Upon human aspiration and life’s imperfection rests equally 
another cardinal doctrine of the poet—his belief in immortal¬ 
ity. This is indicated in the passage last quoted, and is ar¬ 
gued at length in La Saisiaz. If this life he all, the poet counts 
it “a curse and not a blessing.” 
I must say—or choke in silence—“Howsoever came my fate, 
Sorrow did and joy did nowise,—life well weighed,—preponderate.” 
* * * 
I have lived, then, done and suffered, loved and hated, learnt and taught 
This—there is no reconciling wisdom with a world distraught, 
Goodness with triumphant evil, power with failure in the aim, 
If—(to my own sense, remember! though none other feel the same!)— 
If you bar me from assuming earth to be a pupil’s place, 
And life, time,—with all their chances, changes,—just probation space 
Mine, for me. 
(333-4, 265-271.) 
