Hark, how a child can babble of the cells
Wherein, beneath the perishable brow,
Fancy invents, and Memory chronicles,
And Reason asks—as now:
Mapp'd are the known dominions of the thought,
But who shall find the palace of the soul?
Along what channels shall the source be sought,
The well-spring of the whole?
Look round, vain questioner,—all space survey,
Where'er thou lookest, lo, how clear is Mind!
The laws that part the darkness from the day,
And the sweet Pleïads bind,
The thought, the will, the art, the elaborate power
Of the Great Cause from whence the All began,
Gaze on the star, or bend above the flower,
Still speak of Mind to man.
But the arch soul of soul—from which the law
Is but the shadow, who on earth can see?
What guess cleaves upward through the deeps of awe,
Unspeakable, to thee?
As in Creation lives the Father Soul,
So lives the soul He breathed amidst the clay;
Round it the thoughts on starry axles roll,
Life flows and ebbs away.
If chaos smote the universe again,
And new Chaldeans shudder'd to explore
Amidst the maddening elements in vain
The harmonious Mind of yore,
Would not God live the same?—the Unseen Spirit,
Whether that life or wills or wrecks Creation?—
So lives, distinct, the god-spark we inherit,
When Mind is desolation.