University of Virginia Library

But, why are Books such half-almighty Things,
Making, or marring, whatsoe'er they touch,
With force internal? Whence their wond'rous spell?
Bethink thee, reader! and the answer comes.
The universe itself was once a Thought,
A thought Divine, in depths creative hid;
And so, whate'er this mortal scene invests
Of human action, is but plastic thought
Itself revealing, in some forms without
Apparent. What is half these eyes behold
Of boundless, beautiful, sublime, or vast,
But thought embodied into outer shape,
Or, answ'ring symbol? Arches, cities, domes
And temples, fleets and armies, trades and towns,
Yea, all the might and moral of mankind
To this significance at length arrives,
And backward into thought may be resolved
By fair reduction. Now, if Books be thought
By printing clothed, and palpably endow'd
For its vocation, whether art, or lore,
Poetic vision, or prosaic truth,
Kingdoms immense, or individual Souls
The aim of its predestined mission be,—
Forth to its work that printed Thought proceeds;
And who shall track it, as it rounds the world?
Who can imagine, when 'tis once abroad,
(However humble was its natal home)
The Work it dares, the wonder it achieves?
Black as a Fiend, or like some Angel bright
That Thought in action, may itself approve;
For printing, like an omnipresence, gives
Its power expansion; far and wide it moves,
Reaches all hearts, a host of minds affects,
And executes what none, save God, controls!
Oh, 'tis enough to harrow breath and blood
With chilling horror, thus to feel, and know,
That when some Thinker, who debauch'd his soul
And put damnation into print for fame,
Is cited to the last and long accompt,
His thought is living! like a demon, still
Haunting the world of passion with its power,
Or poison; breathing a perpetual curse,
And dropping hemlock into sensual hearts
Which love the venom which a lie instils;
And thus, for ever! not perchance to cease,
Till Thought and Thinker shall together stand,
Cursed by their victims, at the bar of God!

So great are Books: and what the Bible, then,
By printing voiced, and through all regions sent
To speak the errand of celestial Love!
Here was the Prologue, in consummate form
Develop'd; here the Prelude looks divine:
That God in words, descending into Man,
And there achieving all its creed affirms
Of goodness, that the Bible thus should have
An Organ ready for its godlike mouth,
Here is the Wisdom which on high o'errules,
Making all hist'ry but her echo'd will!

But now, the world is waiting: prescient Hearts
In mute expectance, big with wonder beat,
Predicting what these powers commingled mean,
Or, Who from out the heaven of truth shall come
Mankind to marshal, in this pregnant hour?
Shall Prince, or Potentate, or armèd Force
Girt by the squadrons which the world arrays,
March in the van of Liberty, and Light?
“E'en by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts!”
Again that motto to Almighty ways
Becomes embodied, and to life transform'd:
For lo! the Reformation's human spring,
Unknown, unseen, in cloister'd shade retired,
Is framed and fashion'd by the Hand Eterne:
Here, from the depths of convent-gloom, He calls
The Man He loves, the instrument He wields,
And moulds him for the mighty Work decreed.
But Him, who now a beacon o'er mankind
Flames in the lustre of his far renown,
The Spirit summons from no royal scene,
From throne, nor palace, nor ancestral hall;
But chooses, in the wisdom of free will,
A fameless Monk, of poverty and prayer,
And leaves the palace for a miner's home.