University of Virginia Library

—‘Behold my gorgeous temple. Seest thou not
The builder of the comprehensive fane,
For veneration multitudinous
Decreed? Proud of his handy-work is he,
And feels therein exalted, eternized:
I, to whose pride contributed his art,
Humbled alone, see, in its loftiness,
What casts me into shade, shame, and contempt;
And, in its durability and strength,
Odious comparison, which makes me seem
But as an insect most ephemeral,
That buzzes in the noon around some oak,
And dies ere sunset, living, in good sooth,
A sunny life, but brief; and, with much stir,
Attracting little notice, and less fame.
—How to the fading point his eyesight strains:
Think ye, that there whereto it aches, 'tis fixed?
No—through the distance-abrogating lens;
By which the delicate diffusive touch,
Of vision exquisite, to the remote,
And punctual is applied; within the deep
Of air expatiateth he, and finds
Space for free speculation: and, be sure,
That ever and anon his fancy rears
Some magic structure on the baseless wind;
And, in the combinations of the clouds,
Orders of architecture new conceives,
And hopes, ere long, to raise the like on earth.
Hence, in imagination's mere excess,
All he hath done as nothing worth he scorns,
Measured with what he yet hath power to do;
Or might have done, but for dull circumstance,
That thralled the outgoings of the plastic soul.
And, of a truth, within the Spirit of Man
Abides an instinct for the infinite.
Whatever from without the mind imbibes
Of substance, or of quality sublime,
Or beautiful, capricious accident,
Or attribute immutable; howe'er
By fancy realized to intellect,
Or by imagination's power august
Made portion of the intellect: within
The Essence of our Being, in the Soul,
There is a standard, that all things sublime
Compares with a sublimer archetype,
Than human faculty is sentient of,
In nature's grandest works, or art of man—
Sea, sky, or mountain—city, or pyramid;
And all things beauteous, with more beautiful,
Things bright, with brighter. Nay, the Sun himself
Is dim before her; for the Soul of man
Is of Jehovah most expressive Star,
Best Image of his glory. With herself
All things compareth she; and lo, all things
Are dwarfed in her supernal magnitude.
The mightiest is subdued, the loveliest shamed;
And, in the flood of her effulgence, she
Doth merge the glorious, and magnificent.
What then hath Earth to sate her appetite,
Or aught that's visible, even heaven itself?
She sighs for miracles, yet yearneth still,
And is herself the one great miracle.
Therefore is Man not what he is, mere clay,
Because he feels he is so, and compares
Himself with something nobler in himself;
Whence such sublime ability to feel,
After this wonderous fashion; and to endure
Patient the indignation, that would else
Consume this frail, and earthly tenement
To a white wreck of ashes; or smite down
This cunning architecture—(call it such)—
To ruin hoar, the Deity within
Departed long from the neglected shrine.’