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The First Idealist
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U NC OL L E C T E D A N D O T H E R P OE M S | 195 Glory, glory, hal-le-lu-jah! That day is marching on! We have seen it in the writing of a thousand men who know, We have seen it in the meeting where the crowding workers go, We have felt it in the people’s heart, where all great movements grow— That day is marching on! CHORUS The day when every man on earth shall find his fullest flower, When Mother love shall ring the world and bring a nobler hour, When every baby born shall live and blossom like a flower— That day is marching on! CHORUS The end of fort and battleship! The end of gun and sword! The end of shame and misery and vice and crime abhorred! The time for us to build on earth the Kingdom of the Lord! That day is marching on! CHORUS (Gilman Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, folder 193) The First Idealist A jellyfish swam in a tropical sea, And he said, “This world it consists of me; There’s nothing above and nothing below That a jellyfish even can possibly know (Since we’ve no sight, or hearing, or smell), Beyond what our single sense can tell Now, all that I learn from the sense of touch Is the fact of my feelings, viewed as such. But to think they have any external cause Is an inference clean against logical laws. Again, to suppose, as I’ve hitherto done, There are other jellyfish under the sun, Is a pure assumption that can’t be backed By a jot of proof or a single fact. In short, like Hume,41 I very much doubt If there’s anything else at all without. So I come at least to the plain conclusion, When the subject is fairly set free from confusion, That the universe simply centres in me, And if I were not, then nothing would be.”42 (Gilman Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, folder 193) [3.238.12.0] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 12:00 GMT) notes • works cited ...