The Animalcule On Man

An animalcule in my blood
    Rose up against me as I dreamed,
He was so tiny as he stood,
    You had not heard him, though he screamed.

He cried 'There is no Man!'
    And thumped the table with his fist,
Then died - his day was scarce a span, -
    That microscopic atheist.

Yet all the while his little soul
    Within what he denied did live, -
Poor part, how could he know the whole?
    And yet he was so positive!

And all the while he thus blasphemed
    My (solar) system went its round,
My heart beat on, my head still dreamed, -
    But my poor atheist was drowned.

Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet born on January 20, 1866. Known for his lyrical poetry, he was a key figure in the literary circles of the fin de siècle. He contributed to the literary magazine 'The Yellow Book' and was involved with the Rhymers' Club, an influential group of London-based poets. His works often explored themes of beauty, love, and nature. His influence extended to both sides of the Atlantic, and he spent the latter part of his life in the United States, where he continued to write until his death on September 15, 1947.

Richard Le Gallienne

Autumn

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

An Easter Hymn

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

Moon-Marketing

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

Flos Aevorum

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

English

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Man, The Destroyer

O spirit of Life, by whatsoe'er a name
Known among men, even as our fathers bent
Before thee, and as little children came
For counsel in Life's dread predicament,
Even we, with all our lore,
That only beckons, saddens and betrays,
Have no such key to the mysterious door
As he that kneels and prays.

The stern ascension of our climbing thought,
The martyred pilgrims of the soaring soul,
Bring us no nearer to the thing we sought,
But only tempt us further from the goal;
Yea! the eternal plan
Darkens with knowledge, and our weary skill
But makes us more of beast and less of man,
Fevered to hate and kill.

Loves flees with frightened eyes the world it knew,
Fades and dissolves and vanishes away,
And the sole art the sons of men pursue
Is t...

Richard Le Gallienne

Sunday

DECEMBER 28, 1879.

A dim, vague shrinking haunts my soul,
    My spirit bodeth ill--
As some far-off restraining bank
Had burst, and waters, many a rank,
    Were marching on my hill;

As if I had no fire within
    For thoughts to sit about;
As if I had no flax to spin,
No lamp to lure the good things in
    And keep the bad things out.

The wind, south-west, raves in the pines
    That guard my cottage round;
The sea-waves fall in stormy lines
Below the sandy cliffs and chines,
    And swell the roaring sound.

The misty air, the bellowing wind
    Not often trouble me;
The storm that's outside of the mind
Doth oftener wake my heart to find
    More peace and liberty.

Why is not such my fate to-night?
...

George MacDonald

The Menagerie

        Thank God my brain is not inclined to cut
        Such capers every day! I 'm just about
        Mellow, but then--There goes the tent-flap shut.
        Rain 's in the wind. I thought so: every snout
        Was twitching when the keeper turned me out.

        That screaming parrot makes my blood run cold.
        Gabriel's trump! the big bull elephant
        Squeals "Rain!" to the parched herd. The monkeys scold,
        And jabber that it 's rain water they want.
        (It makes me sick to see a monkey pant.)

        I 'll foot it home, to try and make believe
        I 'm sober. After this I stick to beer,
        And drop the circus when the sane folks leave.
        A man 's a fool to look at things too near:
        They look back, and begi...

William Vaughn Moody

The Asthmatic Man To The Satan That Binds Him

Satan, avaunt!
    Nay, take thine hour,
Thou canst not daunt,
    Thou hast no power;
Be welcome to thy nest,
Though it be in my breast.

Burrow amain;
    Dig like a mole;
Fill every vein
    With half-burnt coal;
Puff the keen dust about,
And all to choke me out.

Fill music's ways
    With creaking cries,
That no loud praise
    May climb the skies;
And on my labouring chest
Lay mountains of unrest.

My slumber steep
    In dreams of haste,
That only sleep,
    No rest, I taste--
With stiflings, rimes of rote,
And fingers on my throat.

Satan, thy might
    I do defy;
Live core of night
    I patient lie:
A wind comes up the gray
Will blow thee clean away.

Chris...

George MacDonald

Man's Place In Nature, Dedicated To Darwin And Huxley

They told him gently he was made
    Of nicely tempered mud,
That man no lengthened part had played
    Anterior to the Flood.
'Twas all in vain; he heeded not,
    Referring plant and worm,
Fish, reptile, ape, and Hottentot,
    To one primordial germ.

They asked him whether he could bear
    To think his kind allied
To all those brutal forms which were
    In structure Pithecoid;
Whether he thought the apes and us
    Homologous in form;
He said, "Homo and Pithecus
    Came from one common germ."

They called him "atheistical,"
    "Sceptic," and "infidel."
They swore his doctrines without fail
    Would plunge him into hell.
But he with proofs in no way lame,
    Made this deduction firm,
That all organic beings came...

Unknown

A Man And His Image

All day the nations climb and crawl and pray
In one long pilgrimage to one white shrine,
Where sleeps a saint whose pardon, like his peace,
Is wide as death, as common, as divine.

His statue in an aureole fills the shrine,
The reckless nightingale, the roaming fawn,
Share the broad blessing of his lifted hands,
Under the canopy, above the lawn.

But one strange night, a night of gale and flood,
A sound came louder than the wild wind's tone;
The grave-gates shook and opened: and one stood
Blue in the moonlight, rotten to the bone.

Then on the statue, graven with holy smiles,
There came another smile--tremendous--one
Of an Egyptian god. 'Why should you rise?
'Do I not guard your secret from the sun?

The nations come; they kneel among the f...

Gilbert Keith Chesterton