t first impelled, impelling still, directs:
Urges and guides each solar chariot,
The mundane mass of every globe connects,
By its own energy cohering not,
E'en as dead leaves, decaying languidly,
Not from themselves derive the force to rot.

'All-strengthening, all-sustaining Deity,
Diffused throughout the infinite, abides,
Dwells and upholds:--then, haply, dwells in thee?
Yea, verily. Within thy frame resides
What, by its movement only mayst thou know.
The circling blood, thy being's ambient tides,
Is't thine own will that bids them ebb and flow,
And from their inundating flood depose
Organic germs, whence health and vigour grow?
Yet though such witness serve thee to disclose
In human tenement divine abode,
Not thine be the material creed that shows
The spirit's birthplace in the moulded clod;
Not thine the pantheist raving, that because
God dwelleth with thee, thou thyself art God.
Bethink thee--is't self-reverence that o'erawes
Thy prostrate soul, and from thy faltering tongue,
Subdued, involuntary homage draws?
And when by harrowing pang thine heart is wrung,
Is't for self-aid thy wandering eyes inquire,
Heavenward, at length, in fervid suppliance flung?
And from thy native slough of sensual mire,
Is't to the mark of thine own purity
Thy loftier aims and holier hopes aspire?
Harshly thy fleshly fetters bear on thee,
In dark and dreary prison-house confined,
Cramped and diseased with long captivity,
And hath divine Intelligence designed
That noisome dungeon for her own restraint--
By her own act to galling bonds consigned,--
Self-doomed, with wilful purpose, to acquaint
Herself with sin and sorrow, and pollute
Aethereal essence with corporeal taint?
How doth thy helpless misery confute
That frantic boast of vain conceit, untaugh
The paltriest of its plans to execute!

Hast thou the art to add, by taking thought,
One cubit to thy stature? and hast thou,
Or such as thou, Nature's whole fabric wrought?
Not thine such vaunt--not thine to disavow
The lustre of thy genuine origin.
To the Most Highest, as thine author, bow
With rapture of exulting faith, wherein
Devotion's cravings their desire achieve,
The bright ideal that they imaged, win.
Rejoice that thus 'tis given thee to believe,--
To recognise transcending majesty,
Worthy