University of Virginia Library

The Revelation of The Spirit Through The Material World

We call material this fair world of ours,
And so it seems to gross, material eyes;
That see no beauty in earth's fairest flowers,
No heavenly splendors in her sunset skies.
But are there not, in yonder gorgeous scene,
A beauty and a grandeur not of earth;
A glory breaking from yon cloudy screen
Revealing to the soul its nobler birth?
Can things material such fair forms assume,
And thus delight and charm the human mind;
Or doth the Spirit with its rays illume
Their inmost depths, from matter now refined;
That man may thus with it communion hold,
And learn of higher things than sense has told?
Poem No. 760; c. 26 July 1873