University of Virginia Library

Far as Imagination's wing can roam
Or free conception take its daring flight,
We love to image an Almighty power
Unfolding boundlessness of life, and love
For ever. Throned in secrecies of awe,
Unfathomably within Himself retired,
We vision worlds, as creatures of His will
Around Him summon'd: but the stooping grace
Of Love creative, when it moulds a flower,
Or makes an insect happy, thrills the heart
Like tearful music, and attunes within
Anthems of silent wonder. While the great
In Godhead magnifies adoring mind,
In His minuteness how we greet His name!
Since in the circle of an atom's range
Dwell the same Attributes which made and move
A universe, with all its breathing worlds!
If God, in great things, be supremely great,
To feeling, looks He greater still, in small:
For, when the Worker and His work appear
To human sense in harmony combined,
Religion, then, is reason at its height:
And our imagined Infinite is graced
With attributes, where just proportion reigns.
But, when some particle, or pulse, infolds
A Mind which makes eternity its home,
And through the chambers of immensity
Moves to and fro, creatively divine,
Then, dazzled reason into faith absorb'd,
Worships the Mystery; and with wonder glows
To watch the working of our God complete,
In all things center'd—no where circumscribed!
Yes, while He wheels ten thousand worlds along,
In the same instant, lo! He stoops to count
The tiny populace a sunbeam holds,
Time the quick beating of an insect's heart,
Or close the eyelids of a babe for rest:
As if nought else eternal Thought embraced
Each atom feels the concentrated God;
While our protection, by its grandeur, proves
All mercies waft th' Almighty on their wings!

And thus, if bold Analogy may dare
The human with divine to parallel,
With touching grace a moral sight appeals
To saintly Virtue, in the heart enshrined,
When he, who storm'd with supernatural force
Round the vile Popedom, till its pillars shook,
Sank to the level of a simple child,
And won frail childhood to the creed he framed.
The son of thunder, soften'd to a breeze,
Behold him shroud the lightning of his soul
In shading meekness; while the hand which hurl'd
The false Decretals to devouring fire,
Plies o'er some little book, or teaching page
Where infancy may learn the name to lisp
Of Jesus; or its budding mind unfold
In faith and freshness, to the call of heaven.

His was the heart that glow'd with all the grace
Which pure compassion for the spirit breathes.
One living soul, from sin and hell redeem'd,
He weigh'd it in the balance of that Blood
Whose every drop with Deity was priced!
And thus, behold him, with paternal smile,
And graceful stoop of his gigantic mind
Bow to the task, a creed for youth condense,
In language artless as the lisping mouth
Of Childhood could pronounce, or read, or pray.
While reason's light through fancy's prism falls
In lines of error on the proud man's view,
Luther himself a child with children knew,
That Cross beneath, where nature must again
Be born. He felt, to know he nothing knew,
Was knowledge, passing what the world calls wise:
And so, if mysteries, like the mountains, cast
A shadow deep'ning as their truths advance
Nearer and nearer to the kindred heaven,
He left them, in the glory of their gloom,
Untouch'd by reason with its carnal gaze.

And like him, may we learn to pause, and pray;
Nor argue down the glory we deny.
If Grace hath spoken, 'tis for Guilt to hear
And learn by rev'rence more than mind can reach:
Since God unshrouded, would be God no more;
Remove the mystery, and the Almighty's gone!