The Power Of Words Poem

The Power of Words

Oinos. — Pardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with immortality!

Agathos. — You have spoken nix, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be demanded. Not even here is knowledge a affair of intuition. For wisdom ask of the angels freely, that it may be given!

Oinos. — But in this existence, I dreamed that I should be at once cognizant of all things, and thus at once happy in being cognizant of all.

Agathos. — Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of knowledge! In for ever knowing, we are for ever blessed; but to know all were the expletive of a fiend.

Oinos. — But does not The About High know all?

Agathos. —That (since he is The About Happy) must be still theane affair unknown even to HIM.

Oinos. — Only, since nosotros abound hourly in knowledge, must notat last all things exist known?

Agathos. — Look down into the abysmal distances! — attempt to force the gaze downward the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as nosotros sweep slowly through them thus — and thus — and thus! Even the peachy spiritual vision, is it not at all points arrested by the continuous golden walls of the universe? — the walls of the myriads of the shining bodies that mere number has appeared to alloy into unity?

Oinos. — I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream.

Agathos. — There areno dreams in Aidenn — but it is hither whispered that, of this infinity of matter, thesole purpose is to afford space springs, at which the soul may allay the thirstto know which is for always unquenchable inside it — since to quench it would be to extinguish the soul'southward self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely and without fear. Come! we volition leave to the left the loud harmony of the Pleiades, and dive outward from the throne into the starry meadows beyond Orion, where, for pansies and violets, and heart's-ease, are the beds of the triplicate and triple-tinted suns.

Oinos. — And now, Agathos, as we go on, instruct me! speak to me in the world's familiar tones! I understood not what you hinted to me, just now, of the modes or of the methods of what, during bloodshed, we were accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to say that the Creator is not God?

Agathos. — I mean to say that the Deity does not create.

Oinos. — Explain!

Agathos. — In the showtimeonly, he created. The seeming creatures which are now, throughout the universe, so perpetually springing into existence, can only exist considered equally the mediate or indirect, non as the direct or firsthand results of the Divine creative power.

Oinos. — Amid men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered heretical in the extreme.

Agathos. — Among angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true.

Oinos. — I can encompass you thus far — that certain operations of what we term Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain conditions, requite rise to that which has all theappearance of creation. Shortly before the final overthrow of the earth, in that location were, I well remember, many very successful experiments in what some philosophers were weak enough to denominate the creation of animalculæ.

Agathos. — The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of the secondary creation — and of theonly species of creation which has e'er been, since the showtime word spoke into existence the starting time law.

Oinos. — Are not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of nonentity, burst hourly along into the heavens — are not these stars, Agathos, the immediate handiwork of the Male monarch?

Agathos. — Let me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead yous, step by step, to the conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no idea can perish, so no human activity is without infinite result. We moved our easily, for example, when we were dwellers on the earth, and, in so doing, nosotros gave vibration to the atmosphere which engirdled it. This vibration was indefinitely extended, till it gave impulse to every particle of the earth's air, which thenceforward,and for always, was actuated by the one motility of the mitt. This fact the mathematicians of our earth well knew. They made the special furnishings, indeed, wrought in the fluid by special impulses, the subject of exact calculation — so that information technology became like shooting fish in a barrel to determine in what precise period an impulse of given extent would engirdle the orb, and print (for ever) every atom of the temper circumambient. Retrograding, they establish no difficulty, from a given outcome, nether given conditions, in determining the value of the original impulse. Now the mathematicians who saw that the results of any given impulse were absolutely endless — and who saw that a portion of these results were accurately traceable through the agency of algebraic analysis — who saw, too, the facility of the retrogradation — these men saw, at the aforementioned time, that this species of assay itself, had inside itself a capacity for indefinite progress — that in that location were no bounds believable to its advancement and applicability, except within the intellect of him who advanced or applied it. But at this point our mathematicians paused.

Oinos. — And why, Agathos, should they take proceeded?

Agathos. — Because there were some considerations of deep involvement, across. It was deducible from what they knew, that to a being of infinite understanding — to one whom theperfection of the algebraic analysis lay unfolded — there could exist no difficulty in tracing every impulse given the air — and the ether through the air — to the remotest consequences at any even infinitely remote epoch of time. It is indeed demonstrable that every such impulsegiven the air, must,in the finish, impress every private thing that existsinside the universe; — and the being of infinite understanding — the existence whom we have imagined — might trace the remote undulations of the impulse — trace them upward and onward in their influences upon all particles of all affair — up and onward for ever in their modifications of old forms — or in other words,in their cosmos of new — until he found them reflected — unimpressiveat final — back from the throne of the Godhead. And non only could such a being do this, but at any epoch, should a given result be afforded him — should i of these numberlessnebulæ, for example, exist presented to his inspection, — he could take no difficulty in determining, by the analytic retrogradation, to what original impulse it was due. This power of retrogradation in its absolute fulness and perfection — this kinesthesia of referring atall epochs,all effects toall causes — is of course the prerogative of the Deity alone — but in every variety of degree, short of the absolute perfection, is the power itself exercised by the whole host of the Celestial Intelligences.

Oinos. — Simply you speak only of impulses upon the air.

Agathos. — In speaking of the air, I referred only to the world: — but the general proffer has reference to impulses upon the ether — which, since it pervades, and alone pervades all space, is thus the great medium ofcreation.

Oinos. — So all motion, of whatever nature, creates.

Agathos. — It must: merely a true philosophy has long taught that the source of all motion is idea — and the source of all thought is —

Oinos. — God.

Agathos. — I have spoken to you, Oinos, as to a child of the fair Earth which lately perished — of impulses upon the atmosphere of the Earth.

Oinos. — Yous did.

Agathos. — And while I thus spoke, did there non cross your mind some thought of thephysical power of words? Is not every discussion an impulse on the air?

Oinos. — Merely why, Agathos, do you weep? — and why — oh why do your wings droop as nosotros hover above this fair star — which is the greenest and yet most terrible of all nosotros have encountered in our flying? Its vivid flowers look like a faëry dream — but its fierce volcanoes like the passions of a turbulent heart.

Agathos. — Theyare! — theyare! This wild star — information technology is now three centuries since with clasped hands, and with streaming eyes at the feet of my beloved — I spoke it — with a few passionate sentences — into birth! Its bright flowersare the love of all unfulfilled dreams, and its raging volcanoesare the passions of the most turbulent and unhallowed of hearts.

Edgar Allan Poe

Published in 1845