The Christian Scholar :: :: University of Virginia Library

“The Ship in which we sail seems at a stand;
“Another seems to pass tho' fix'd to land;
“And hills and plains seem toward the stern to fly,
“While with wing'd sails ourselves are hurrying by.

“The Stars in their ethereal caves above
“Seem motionless, yet doubtless ever move,
“Since they to distant settings, when they rise,
“Haste, with bright bodies measuring out the skies.
“Thus too the Sun and Moon seem fix'd in Heaven,
“While they are on their courses onward driven.

“Mountains amid the sea in distance seen,
“With space for mighty fleets to pass between,
“Appear all one,—one island of firm land
“Together join'd, though far apart they stand.

“Halls seem to turn and columns round to reel
“With boys, when they themselves have ceased to wheel ;

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“They scarce believe but o'er their heads the hall
“Totters with all its roofs about to fall.

“Her morning beam, trembling with ruddy blaze,
“When Nature o'er the hills begins to raise,
“The Sun upon those hills appears to stand,
“With fervid fires touching them close at hand,
“Scarce twice ten thousand arrow-shots apart
“From us, or scarce five hundred of the dart:—
“Yet 'tween them and the sun huge spaces lie
“Of Ocean, and vast regions of the sky;
“And many thousand climes may intervene
“With varied tribes and forest kinds between.

“Water—a finger's depth—which at our feet
“Stops 'tween the stones within the pavèd street,
“Gives under ground a prospect, vast and deep
“As 'tween the earth and sky the ethereal sweep;
“Clouds down in earth are seen, Heavens as on high,
“And bodies hidden in a wondrous sky.

“In the mid river should our horse stand still,
“We look down on the rapid waters, till
“Borne down athwart on the still horse we seem,
“Labouring confusedly against the stream,
“And, wheresoe'er we look, all we survey,
“Seems flowing down alike, and borne away.

“In porticoes or long arcades that lean
“On pillars of like size, like space between,
“The lengthening vistas seem from end to end
“Contracting, as in distance they extend,

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“Pavement and roof, right and left sides draw near,
“And darkly in a point at length appear.

“At sea the Sun seems to uplift his fires
“From out the waves, and in the waves retires;
“For nought but sea and sky are seen from thence;
“Nor think this shakes the evidence of sense.

“Shipping in port all maim'd appears to be,
“With rigging broke, and struggling 'gainst the sea;
“Straight seem the oars which o'er the spray appear,
“And straight the helm which rises in the rear;
“While parts that 'neath the fluid glass decline
“Seem chang'd, refracted, upward turn'd supine,
“And floating on the surface of the brine.

“When winds through heaven bear the thin clouds at night,
“The splendid Constellations seem in flight
“To glide against the clouds, and fleet on high
“To other regions of the untravell'd sky.

“If, placed beneath, the hand should press one eye,
“It so may be that objects we descry,
“Themselves unchang'd, are double to behold;
“Fire-flowering candles seem anon twofold;
“All household sights a doubled form retain,
“Men's faces seem twofold, their bodies twain.

“When Sleep the limbs hath in sweet slumber bound,
“And all the body lies in rest profound,

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“Yet to ourselves awake we seem, aright
“Our limbs to move, in darkness of the night
“The sun itself to view and light of day;—
“Pent in one place abroad we seem to stray,
“Skies, seas, streams, mountains passing on to change,
“And over mighty plains on foot to range;
“In night's stern stillness sounds we hear around,
“And give reply in slumber's silence bound.”

With visible motion her diurnal round!”

Wordsworth, vol. i. 43.

Thus e'en in seeing do our senses fail,
And knowledge on them built is found thus frail,
Although the unconscious mind is present still,
To guide, correct, or frustrate at her will:
Thus God must still be present at our side,
And with His own mysterious language guide,
E'en in this world wherein we walk by sight.
Then how shall feeble man be thought aright
To judge of things which, vast and manifold,
Surround us, and wherein the human mind,
By use distorted and by nature blind,
Puts forth with sightless orbs her hands to reach,—
Till God Himself shall through our spirits teach?

E'en as the sun which nature's face reveals,
While the celestial mansion it conceals;
Thus Sense may things disclose our path around,
But hides the secret Godhead more profound;—

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Until remov'd from objects of the sense,
Converse we with the hid Magnificence,
And God gives hearing ear and seeing eye.
Then from “the temple” of Philosophy
Are men beheld all wandering forth abroad,
As those that in the dark have lost their road.
That glorious temple in the height serene
Is Christ our Light, in Whom all things are seen,
E'en as they are, and shall be, and have been;
While with our very eyes He doth converse,
And reads to us the speaking universe.

Errare, atque viam palantes quærere vitæ.”

See b. ii. lin. 1 to 16.