That intense meditation fixed
On his procedure,—pity mixed
With the fulfilment of decree.
Motionless, thus, he spoke to me,
Who fell before his feet, a mass,
No man now.
Then follows the Sentence, excluding him from the heaven of spirit, and leaving him to the world of sense, hopeless for ever of anything higher—a sentence which seemed to him at first to be rather a reward than a punishment, as he thought of “earth’s resources—vast exhaustless beauty, endless change of wonder!” Even a fern-leaf a museum in itself!
The answer of the Voice to this shallow thought leads us into the very loftiest regions of the imagination, suggesting views of the future of the redeemed which make the soul thrill with eager expectancy—
XXIV.
Then the Voice, “Welcome so to rate