And none forewent another; so the spring
The well-head, and the stream which they forth bring,
Are but one selfsame essence, nor in aught
Do differ, save in order, and our thought
No chime of time discerns in them to fall,
But three distinctly bide one essence all.”
(ll. 99–142.)
From this point on to the close, the “Hymn” celebrates the glory of God in his works. Drummond possessed an imagination that delighted as Milton’s did in the contemplation of the universe as a vast mechanical scheme of sun and planets. (ll. 180–232.) His philosophic mind, however, led him to conceive of nature in the manner of the Platonists. God, or true being, according to Plotinus is a unity, everywhere present (“Enneads,” VI. v. 4); and matter, the other extreme of his philosophy, is an empty show, a shadow in a mirror. (“Enneads,” III. vi. 7.) In closing the account of the works of God, Drummond thus writes:
“Whole and entire, all in thyself thou art,
All-where diffus’d, yet of this All no part;