III
Ye thoughts and apprehensions are
The Heavenly streams which fill the soul with rare
Transcendent perfect pleasures.
At any time
As if ye still were in your prime,
Ye open all His heavenly treasures.
His joys accessible are found
To you, and those things enter which surround
The soul. Ye living things within!
Where had all joy and glory been
Had ye not made the soul those things to know,
Which seated in it make the fairest shew?
IV
I know not by what secret power
Ye flourish so: but ye within your bower
More beautiful do seem,
And better meat
Ye daily yield my soul to eat,
Than even the objects I esteem
Without my soul. What were the sky,
What were the sun, or stars, did ye not lie
In me, and represent them there
Where else they never could appear!
Yea, what were bliss without such thoughts to me,
What were my life, what were the Deity?
V
O ye Conceptions of delight!
Ye that inform my soul with life and light!
Ye representatives, and springs
Of inward pleasure!
Ye joys, ye ends of outward treasure!
Ye inward and ye living things!
The thought or joy conceived is
The inward fabric of my standing bliss:
It is the very substance of my mind
Transform'd and with its objects lined,
The quintessence, elixir, spirit, cream:
'Tis strange that things unseen should be supreme.
VI
The eye's confined, the body's pent
In narrow room: limbs are of small extent,
But thoughts are always free;
And as they're best
So can they even in the breast
Rove o'er the world with liberty:
Can enter ages, present be
In any kingdom, into bosoms see.
Thoughts, thoughts can come to things and view
What bodies can't approach unto:
They know no bar, denial, limit, wall,
But have a liberty to look on all.
VII
Like bees they fly from flower to flower,
Appear in every closet, temple, bower,
And suck the sweet from thence
No eye can see:
As tasters to the Deity,
Incredible their excellence,
For evermore they will be seen,
Nor ever moulder into less esteem.
They ever shew an equal face,
And are immortal in their place:
Ten thousand Ages hence they are as strong,
Ten thousand Ages hence they are as young.