The Lantern

Book 251

PG

And have the cunning hardihood to say

Much on the composition of the world,

And in their turn inquire what elements

They have themselves,--since, thus the same in kind

As a whole mortal creature, even they

Must also be from other elements,

And then those others from others evermore--

So that thou darest nowhere make a stop.

Oho, I'll follow thee until thou grant

The seed (which here thou say'st speaks, laughs, and

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thinks)

Is yet derived out of other seeds

Which in their turn are doing just the same.

But if we see what raving nonsense this,

And that a man may laugh, though not, forsooth,

Compounded out of laughing elements,

And think and utter reason with learn'd speech,

Though not himself compounded, for a fact,

Of sapient seeds and eloquent, why, then,

Cannot those things which we perceive to have

Their own sensation be composed as well

Of intermixed seeds quite void of sense?

INFINITE WORLDS

Once more, we all from seed celestial spring,