You meet me at this issue: you declare,— All special-pleading done with—truth is truth, And justifies itself by undreamed ways. You don't fear but it's better, if we doubt, To say so, act up to our truth perceived However feebly. Do then,—act away! 'Tis there I'm on the watch for you. How one acts Is, both of us agree, our chief concern: And how you'll act is what I fain would see If, like the candid person you appear, You dare to make the most of your life's scheme As I of mine, live up to its full law Since there's no higher law that counterchecks. Put natural religion to the test You've just demolished the revealed with—quick, Down to the root of all that checks your will, All prohibition to lie, kill and thieve, Or even to be an atheistic priest! Suppose a pricking to incontinence— Philosophers deduce yon chastity Or shame, from just the fact that at the first Whoso embraced a woman in the field, Threw club down and forewent his brains beside, So, stood a ready victim in the reach Of any brother savage, club in hand; Hence saw the use of going out of sight In wood or cave to prosecute his loves: I read this in a French book t'other day. Does law so analyzed coerce you much? Oh, men spin clouds of fuzz where matters end, But you who reach where the first thread begins, You'll soon cut that!—which means you can, but won't, Through certain instincts, blind, unreasoned-out, You dare not set aside, you can't tell why, But there they are, and so you let them rule. Then, friend, you seem as much a slave as I, A liar, conscious coward and hypocrite, Without the good the slave expects to get, In case he has a master after all! You own your instincts? why, what else do I, Who want, am made for, and must have a God Ere I can be aught, do aught?—no mere name Want, but the true thing with what proves its truth, To wit, a relation from that thing to me, Touching from head to foot—which touch I feel, And with it take the rest, this life of ours! I live my life here; yours you dare not live.