The last great Spirit lifting high in air Shall swear by Him, the ever-living ONE, Believe thou, O my soul, Life is a vision shadowy of Truth; And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave, Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell. Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er With untired gaze the immeasurable fount And ye of plastic power, that interfused And aye on Meditation's heaven-ward wing Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love, Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul Sheds on the frost-bound waters-The glad stream Flows to the ray and warbles as it flows. THE DESTINY OF NATIONS. A VISION. AUSPICIOUS REVERENCE! Hush all meaner song, Such symphony requires best instrument. -THE Seize, then, my soul! from Freedom's trophied dome Strong music, that soliciting spell, force back For what is Freedom, but the unfettered use Of all the powers which God for use had given? But chiefly this, him First, him Last to View Through meaner powers and secondary things For infant minds; and we in this low world Placed with our backs to bright Reality, That we may learn with young unwounded ken The substance from its shadow. Infinite Love Whose latence is the plenitude of All, Thou with retracted Beams, and Self-eclipse But some there are who deem themselves most free When they within this gross and visible sphere Chain down the winged thought, scoffing ascent Proud in their meanness: and themselves they cheat With noisy emptiness of learned phrase, Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences, Self-working tools, uncaused effects, and all Those blind Omniscients, those Almighty Slaves, Untenanting creation of its God. But properties are God: the naked mass (If mass there be, fantastic Guess or Ghost) Acts only by its inactivity. Here we pause humbly. Others boldlier think That as one body seems the aggregate With complex interests weaving human fates, Evolve the process of eternal good. And what if some rebellious, o'er dark realms Arrogate power? yet these train up to God, And on the rude eye, unconfirmed for day, Flash meteor-lights better than total gloom. As ere from Lieule-Oaive's vapoury head |