Page 123 of 172 THE POWER OF WORDS - Complete Poetical Works

THE POWER OF WORDS.

'Oinos.'

Pardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with

immortality!

'Agathos.'

You have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be demanded.

Not even here is knowledge a thing of intuition. For wisdom, ask of

the angels freely, that it may be given!

'Oinos.'

But in this existence I dreamed that I should be at once cognizant of

all things, and thus at once happy in being cognizant of all.

'Agathos.'

Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of

knowledge! In forever knowing, we are forever blessed; but to know

all, were the curse of a fiend.

'Oinos.'

But does not The Most High know all?

'Agathos'.

_That_ (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the _one_ thing

unknown even to HIM.

'Oinos.'

But, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not _at last_ all things

be known?

'Agathos.'

Look down into the abysmal distances!--attempt to force the gaze down

the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep slowly through them

thus--and thus--and thus! Even the spiritual vision, is it not at all

points arrested by the continuous golden walls of the universe?--the

walls of the myriads of the shining bodies that mere number has

appeared to blend into unity?

'Oinos'.

I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream.

'Agathos'.

There are no dreams in Aidenn--but it is here whispered that, of this

infinity of matter, the _sole_ purpose is to afford infinite springs

at which the soul may allay the thirst _to know_ which is forever

unquenchable within it--since to quench it would be to extinguish the

soul's self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely and without fear.

Come! we will leave to the left the loud harmony of the Pleiades, and

swoop outward from the throne into the starry meadows beyond Orion,

where, for pansies and violets, and heart's-ease, are the beds of the

triplicate and triple-tinted suns.

'Oinos'.

And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me!--speak to me in the

earth's familiar tones! I understand not what you hinted to me just

now of the modes or of the methods of what during mortality, we were

accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to say that the Creator is

not God?

'Agathos'.

I mean to say that the Deity does not create.

'Oinos'.

Explain!

'Agathos'.

In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures which are now

throughout the universe so perpetually springing into being can only

be considered as the mediate or indirect, not as the direct or

immediate results of the Divine creative power.

		"Democracy has come from the idea that if all men are equal in any aspect, then they are in all." Arist teles