Classic Poem

BOOK IV.

Fresh from his task, the rising bard aspires,
And all his bosom glows with recent fires:
L IFE , L IFE , new forms and constitutes the theme!
The song too kindles in the vital flame,
Whose vivid principle diffusive spreads,
And thro' our strain contagious rapture sheds.
Whate'er the spark, the light, the lamp, the ray,
Essence or effluence of E SSENTIAL D AY ,
Substance, or transubstantiate, and inshrined,
Soul, Spirit, Reason, Intellect, or Mind;
Or these but terms, that dignify the use
Of some Unknown, some Entity abstruse —
Perception specifies the sacred guest,
Appropriate to the individual breast;
Whence, independence thro' dependence flows,
And each unknowing his existence, knows;
Existence, varied by Almighty plan,
From lowly reptiles, to the pride of man;
While incorporeal in corporeal dwells,
Distinct, in union, of associate cells;
Whence powers their prime informing acts dispense,
And sovereign guide the ministry of sense.

Tho' what! if oft, while nature works unseen,
And locomotive forms the nice machine,
Sublimed and quick thro' elemental strife,
The insensate boasts its vegetative life;
A steaming vapour thro' the mass exhales,
And warming breathes its imitative gales;
Fomenting in the heart's vibration plays,
And circling winds the tubulary maze;
With conscious act the vivid semblance vies,
And subtile now the sprightly nerve supplies;
Unconscious lifts the lucid ball to light,
And glares around with unperceiving sight;
Or studious seems to muse with thought profound,
Or lists as 'waked to catch the flying sound —
So temper'd wondrous by mechanic scheme,
The S OVEREIGN G EOMETRICIAN knits the frame;
In mode of organizing texture wrought,
And quick with spirited quintessence fraught:
When objects on the exterior membrane press,
The alarm runs inmost thro' each dark recess,
Impulsive strikes the corresponding springs,
And moves the accord of sympathetic strings;
Effects like acts inevitable rise,
(Preordinate in the D ESIGN A LLWISE )
Yet still their earthly origin retain,
Reductive to the principle terrene,
Tho' curious to deceive with mimic skill,
And feint the dictate of interior will.
Here, matter's fix'd eternal barriers stand;
Tho' wrought beneath T HE A LMIGHTY 's F ORMING H AND ,
Tho' subtilized beyond the kindling ray,
Or sacred flame of heaven's empyreal day,
No plexured mode, no aptitude refined,
Can yield one glimpse of all-informing mind;
The parts distinct in firm cohesion lie,
Distinct as those that range the distant sky;
Time's fleeting points the unreal self devour,
Varied and lost thro' every changling hour;
Whence, the precarious system, tho' compact,
Can ne'er arrive to individual act;
Since impotence absurdly should ensue,
Distinction be the same, and one be ten, or two.

Not so, in intellectual splendors bright,
The soul's irradiance burns with native light,
With vision of internal powers profound,
A pure essential unit, incompound;
Celestial Queen, with conscious scepter graced,
And rights in prime of vital action placed!
Hence by identity all thought subsists,
And one, in the existing one, exists;
The one indissoluble must exist,
And deathless thro' eternity subsist.

T HOU S OLE P REROGATIVE , S UPREME OF R IGHT , D EEP S OURCE OF P RINCIPLE , AND Light OF Light ,
W HOSE I S WILL B E , WHOSE Will B E EVER WAS ,
O F S ELF E SSENTIAL C OESSENTIAL C AUSE !
If not unhallow'd, nor the song profane,
Nor voice of matin elevation vain;
Prime, as the lark with earliest rapture springs,
And warbling soars to G OODNESS , warbling sings,
T O T HEE permissive sings with venial lays,
And wings his pittance of ascending praise —
O! whence to Us? or whence to aught? but T HEE !
The word, the bliss, the privilege, — to Be —
Or if to Be, for T HEE alone to Be,
Derivative G REAT A UTHOR S OLE ! from T HEE
T HOU V OLUNTARY G OODNESS ! thus immense
To pour the largess of perceptive sense,
Sense to perceive, to feel, to find, to know,
That we enjoy, and Y OU A LONE bestow.
Could increation crave T HY V ITAL S KILL ,
The VIRTUAL F IAT of C REATIVE Will ?
Less can T HY F LOW of P LENITUDE receive
Reversion from the goods I TS B OUNTY gave.

Come then, O Gratitude, endearing guest,
In all thy feeling soft suggestions drest,
And heave the swell of each exulting breast!
Thou Sentiment of friendship's cordial tye!