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All life and living in the Alkahest
Of thought, to set the single mind above
All seeming, all appearances, to match
With sense all emptiness, to crumble faith
Into its ignorance. This blowing smoke,
This shadow of an age-long vanished girl—
Ye gape and watch the fuming vapor twist
And call it miracle. But to the mind
That knows how light and shadow form and solve
Into each other 'tis a petty trick
Of eye on brain, a mimicry of life
As senseless as the many-seeming clouds.
Ye blind who live in darkness and believe!
I wrought the maid to mock you. Now almost
I weep that you have suffered such content
When such great light illumines. Mind has torn
The veil that hangs before the Riddler's lip,
Has found the riddle answered,—time and space
And life and very dying has the brain
Ground to their atoms and their ancient laws;
And soul, and mystery, and stuff of dream