How nearer God we were! He glows above

With scarce an intervention, presses close

And palpitatingly, his soul o'er ours:

We feel him, nor by painful reason know!

The everlasting minute of creation

Is felt there; now it is, as it was then;

All changes at his instantaneous will,

Not by the operation of a law

Whose maker is elsewhere at other work.

His hand is still engaged upon his world—