Ordained to guide the embodied spirit 840 home, From toilsome life to never-ending rest. Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desires That give assurance of their own success, And that, infused from Heaven, must thither tend." So reads he nature whom the lamp of truth Illuminates. Thy lamp, mysterions Word! Which whoso sees, no longer wanders lost, With intellects bemazed in endless doubt, But runs the road of wisdom. Thou hast built, With means that were not till by thee employed, 850 Worlds that had never been hadst Thou in strength Been less, or less benevolent than strong. A teaching voice; but 'tis the praise of thine That whom it teaches it makes prompt to learn, 859 And with the boon gives talents for its use. Till Thou art heard, imaginations vain Possess the heart, and fables false as hell, Yet deemed oracular, lure down to death The uninformed and heedless souls of men. We give to Chance, blind Chance, ourselves as blind, The glory of thy work, which yet appears Perfect and unimpeachable of blame, Challenging human scrutiny, and proved Then skilful most when most severely judged. But Chance is not; or is not where Thou reignest: 870 Thy Providence forbids that fickle power (If power she be that works but to con For which we shunned and hated thee before. Fires all the faculties with glorious joy. A loud Hosanna sent from all thy works, 888 Her veil opaque, discloses with a smile Thou art the source and centre of all minds, Their only point of rest, Eternal Word! From thee departing, they are lost and Not one of them was mute; And all and each that passed that way Did join in the pursuit. And now the turnpike gates again The toll-men thinking, as before, And so he did, and won it too, Now let us sing, Long live the king! And when he next doth ride abroad 330 340 350 Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, All this, and more endearing still than all, Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall, Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and brakes That humour interposed too often makes; Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours, |