29 Then her self-being nature shines in this,
That she performs her noblest works alone:
'The work, the touchstone of the nature is;
And by their operations things are known.'
[1] That the soul hath a proper operation without the body.
SPIRITUALITY OF THE SOUL.
1 But though this substance be the root of sense,
Sense knows her not, which doth but bodies know:
She is a spirit, and heavenly influence,
Which from the fountain of God's Spirit doth flow.
2 She is a spirit, yet not like air or wind;
Nor like the spirits about the heart or brain;
Nor like those spirits which alchymists do find,
When they in everything seek gold in vain.
3 For she all natures under heaven doth pass,
Being like those spirits, which God's bright face do see,
Or like Himself, whose image once she was,
Though now, alas! she scarce his shadow be.
4 For of all forms, she holds the first degree,
That are to gross, material bodies knit;
Yet she herself is bodiless and free;
And, though confined, is almost infinite.
5 Were she a body,[1] how could she remain
Within this body, which is less than she?
Or how could she the world's great shape contain,
And in our narrow breasts contained be?
6 All bodies are confined within some place,
But she all place within herself confines:
All bodies have their measure and their space;
But who can draw the soul's dimensive lines?
7 No body can at once two forms admit,
Except the one the other do deface;
But in the soul ten thousand forms do fit,
And none intrudes into her neighbour's place.