'There's not one atom of yon earth

But once was living man; Nor the minutest drop of rain, That hangeth in its thinnest cloud, But flowed in human veins; And from the burning plains Where Libyan monsters yell, From the most gloomy glens Of Greenland's sunless clime, To where the golden fields Of fertile England spread Their harvest to the day, Thou canst not find one spot Whereon no city stood.

'How strange is human pride! I tell thee that those living things,

To whom the fragile blade of grass
That springeth in the morn
And perisheth ere noon,

Is an unbounded world;

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I tell thee that those viewless beings, Whose mansion is the smallest particle Of the impassive atmosphere,

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Of hypocritical assent he turns,

of him,

Than on the dome of kings? Is mother

earth

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A step-dame to her numerous sons who earn
Her unshared gifts with unremitting toil;
A mother only to those puling babes
Who, nursed in ease and luxury, make men
The playthings of their babyhood and mar
In self-important childishness that peace
Which men alone appreciate?

'Spirit of Nature, no!

The pure diffusion of thy essence throbs
Alike in every human heart.

Thou aye erectest there

Thy throne of power unappealable;
Thou art the judge beneath whose nod
Man's brief and frail authority

Is powerless as the wind
That passeth idly by;

Thine the tribunal which surpasseth
The show of human justice

As God surpasses man!

'Spirit of Nature! thou

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Life of interminable multitudes;
Soul of those mighty spheres
Whose changeless paths through Heaven's
deep silence lie;

Soul of that smallest being,

The dwelling of whose life
Is one faint April sun-gleam;-

Man, like these passive things,
Thy will unconsciously fulfilleth;
Like theirs, his age of endless peace,
Which time is fast maturing,
Will swiftly, surely, come;

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And the unbounded frame which thon pervadest,

Will be without a flaw Marring its perfect symmetry!

IV

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