[Editor: This poem by Mary Eliza Fullerton was published in Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics (1908).]
The Attributes
What strange ancestral souls do we possess —
The curious cullings from departed sires,
Some the chaste Phoenix-soul of many fires,
The soul that all men love and women bless;
Some have the cruel heart of savageness —
The first man following his first desires,
The beast that stoops; the being that aspires —
And each alike his fathers doth express.
Oh, great potentials! we, not Time, it is
That win the god from out the base and ill.
Fate hath her loves, her favourites to kiss,
Her bastards to abuse; but cannot still
The viewless tide, evolving good and bliss,
Moved by the vital Cosmos — Human Will.
Source:
Mary E. Fullerton, Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1908, p. 38
Editor’s notes:
The phrase “win the god” possibly should be “win the good”; this query would need to be resolved by comparison with another copy of the poem published contemporaneously, or with a manuscript version of the work.
Leave a Reply