90127: 'Unto what pinnacles of desperate heights'

<p dir="ltr"> Unto what pinnacles of desperate heights<br> Do good men climb to seize their good!<br> What abnegation to all mortal joys,<br> What vast abstraction from the world is theirs!<br> O what insane abuses, desperate pangs,<br> Annihilations of the Self, soul-suicides,<br> They wreak upon themselves to purchase---God!<br> A God to guide through these poor temporal days<br> Their comings, goings, workings of the heart,<br> Obsess, indeed, their natures utterly;<br> Meanwhile preparing, as in recompense,<br> Mansions celestial for their timeless bliss.<br> And to what end this Holiness; this God<br> That arrogates their intellect and soul?<br> To none! Their offered lives are not so grand,<br> So active, or so sweet as many a one's<br> That is undedicate, being reason-swayed;<br> And their sole mission is to drag, entice<br> And push mankind to those same cloudy crags<br> Where they first breathed the madness-giving air<br> That made them feel as angels, that are less than men.<br></p>