Awakening

 That souls are not alike, full well I know,
This truth each day’s experience does show;
In God’s image were we all created,
Yet not endowed are we all related.

To heights surprising some great spirits soar,
With inborn strength mysterious depths explore;
By perseverance the game of life’s won,
And knowledge, led by study, wears the crown.

But some there are who wish not to improve,
Who never can the path of honor move,
Whose spirits with mortal coil are one,
With anxious care each mental pleasure shun.

Asleep they are lost in nightmarish dreams,
They cannot swim the currents of life’s streams,
Blocked by the rude hills standing in their way,
Without harmony do not dance or play.

These weak and doubtful and paralyzed minds,
Are but while here to vegetate designed;
Tired spirits mingling with their clod
Can scarcely boast their origin from God.

Yet haste the era when the world shall know
That such distinctions only dwell below,
That a soul unfettered to time confined,
Was for the abodes of cloudless days designed.

This poem was inspired by an essay written by Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820) entitled “On the Equality of the Sexes”, originally published in The Massachusetts Magazine, in 1790.  She made a very good argument for the inequality (or superiority) of the female half of the human race. 

I believe that the argument can be extended even further to those of whatever sex that are endowed with the intellectual powers of profound imagination and reason.  I’m not sure how you would classify such individuals.  “Genius” only implies intelligence.  “Leader” only implies the ability to control others.  Regardless, it is quite evident that such individuals are rare – maybe one in a million.

Yet, is it true that these individuals are born and not made?  It would be a very doomed world indeed if the there was no hope for the other 999,999 out of a million to have the benefit of such things as creativity and judgment.  I can only hope that someday the eyes of the blind can be opened, and a true golden era can be realized, where we can finally live in a world without war and criminality, where the “great spirits” can soar to even greater heights of freedom and prosperity.