‘Let him, the wiser man who springs
Hereafter, up from childhood shape
His action like the greater ape,
But I was born to other things.’
In Memoriam, cxx.
AH, happy you who know your birth
Has loftier origin than earth:
I would not quench that generous fire,
But rather silently admire:
Yet if another, less in luck,
Amid his random thoughts has struck
Some clue which leads him on to think
Mankind is but the latest link
In being’s endless, widening chain
Through higher types and higher again:
If, after months of patient thought,
His wavering mind is slowly brought
To grasp a simpler, humbler creed,
And deem himself an ape indeed;
Then, having judged the notion true,
What should an ape of spirit do
But manfully resign his dream,
And take his rank in nature’s scheme?
Nor need he, yet, behind him cast
The gathered greatness of the past.
He well may nurse each nobler thrill,
Each holier deed, each purer will.
Since earlier apes have raised their race
So high above its former place,
Why may not he as well aspire
To raise his race some places higher?
To add an atom to the store
Of wisdom heaped by apes before;
To feel within his hungry breast
Some goading spur of grand unrest,
Some glorious aim, in impulse rife,
That urges on to fuller life,
Nor leaves to rust in dull content
The powers a million ages lent.
And surely such an ape as this
May live a life not much amiss;
May love the right, eschew the wrong;
Defend the weaker from the strong;
Teach other after apes to be
Nobler and better far than he;
In spite of calumny and scorn,
Mould younger ages yet unborn
To loftier thoughts and loftier still,
Beyond all human hope or will;
Yet act, himself, his little part
On Nature’s stage, with all his heart,
And show that even an ape may be
A credit to his ancestry.