Thomas Aird

Genius

I

Eye of the brain and heart,
O Genius, inner sight,
Wonders from the familiar start
In thy decisive light.
Wide and deep the eye must go,
The process of our world to know.
Old mountains grated to the sea
Sow the young seed of isles to be.
States dissolve, that Nature's plan
May bear the broadening type of Man.
Passes ne'er the Past away:
Child of the ages, springs To-day.
Life, death, and life! but circling change
Still working to a higher range!
Make thee all Science, Genius, clear
Our world; all Muses, grace and cheer.
And shaping still the ideal, be
The joy a special joy to thee.
For thee the starry belts of time,
The inner laws, the heavenly chime:
Thine storm and rack—the forests crack,
The sea gives up her secrets hoary;
And Beauty thine, on loom divine
Weaving the rainbow's woof of glory.

II

Power of the civic heart,
More than a power to know,
Genius, incarnated in Art,
By thee the nations grow.
Lawgiver, thine, and priest, and sage
Lit up the Oriental Age.
Persuasive groves, and musical
Of love the illumined mountains all,
Eagles, and rods, and axes clear,
Forum and amphitheatre,
These in thy plastic forming hand,
Forth leapt to life the Classic Land.
Old and New, the Worlds of Light,
Who bridged the gulf of Middle Night?
See the purple passage rise,
Many-arched of centuries;
Genius built it long and vast,
And o'er it Social Knowledge passed.
Far in the glad transmitted flame,
Shinar knit to Britain came.
Their State by thee our fathers free,
O Genius, founded deep and wide;
Majestic towers the fabric ours,
And awes the world from side to side.


III

Mart of the ties of blood,
Mart of the souls of men!
O Christ, to see Thy Brotherhood
Bought to be sold again!
Front of Hell, to trade therein!
Genius, face the giant sin:
Shafts of thought, truth-headed clear,
Tempered all in Pity's tear,
Every point, and every tip,
In the blood of Jesus dip;
Pierce till the Monster reel and cry,
Pierce him till he fall and die.
Yet cease not, rest not, onward quell,
Power divine and terrible!
See where yon bastioned Midnight stands
On half the sunken central lands;
Shoot! let thy arrow-heads of flame
Sing as they pierce the blot of shame,
Till all the dark economies
Become the light of blessed skies.
For this above, in wondering love,
To Genius shall it first be given
To trace the lines of past designs,
All confluent to the finished Heaven.