But to be thought—and near and far-
Where here among it all we are.
Mind is thought, and is to see,
Is science; or it once may be.

There is a world before us here
Of atoms-such as things appear,
Where all is but in dim relation,
All in sumless complication :
All atoms and all elements

Wonder and mystery; what and whence
And how soe'er they be and why-
Mystery and study deep and high.

Of all the scheme that One has wrought Was loftiest Plato's earnest thought, And that Timæus for all days,

For Proclus and the world to gaze ;

Pythagoras thought the mystery Of Number, that so much may be ;

55

And Zenon had a 56 thesis deep,

A truth that other ages keep;
And Epicurus knew to tell

What high Lucretius sang so well

And Dalton's thought is forth; and we

Have well to think what things may be:

(55) Definite Proportions.

(56) See Donovan's Chemistry, p. 362; 4th edit.

Things thus all science to be thought,
In number, in proportion wrought,
All once, it may be, to be known
In one first element alone,

The primal plasm of that one Mind
Where seems all being, whence design'd:
Things thus in some such! science wrought,
So much in science to be sought,

Such power, such wisdom won and thought!

All the elements are powers,
Mighty, and in spirit ours,

All to be thought, and high and far,

By him that studies what they are.

More may be won, as truths aspire,
That glorious thing, that power of Fire,
The vivid thing, the living might

Of motion, act in heat and light,

The principle, the ever rife,

The life of suns, where worlds have life,
That element the whence may be

The wondrous all of Mind's decree

That souls in what seems Nature see;

That, centraliz'd into a world

Into th' abyss with millions hurl❜d,

This earth—our globe, their star—, is whirl'd,

A world where, with their land and sea,
The race of men awhile may be,

Their Etna thundering scarce a thought
Of what within the depth is wrought,
And that at last-perhaps before

These swiftest thoughts have echoed o'er-
Full forth may flame, and all aspire

Till every element be fire,

And mind-for what are worlds to mind?—

Another form and force may find

That principle, that power all rife,

The element of act and life,

The all-aspiring, unconfin'd,

That most is mind's 29, that most is mind 29

And where in glory, where in light

The Magus thought the Living Might 29.

And thought speeds not in consciousness
With that the mightiest thing that is,
So much which is of all we know,
And Volta won and wielded so;
And which for us a power may be
How much—we see not, but may see.

'The everlasting hills ""-they stand-They look eternal o'er the land,

(57)

"the everlasting hills."-Gen. xlix. 26.

F

And by the sea, that long has roll'd Where mountains were and realms of old, And ocean's depth as seems the sky's

Where Andes and Imaus rise,

Where there old mountains were before,

And then a sea and then a shore.

There is for us full well to seek Thought that not now aspirings speakSome science far of times and powers That has not been but may be ours.

There are all the stars on high.
The thought they kindle cannot die.
The thought they light must still aspire,
High, higher, and for ever higher.

Then it is that most I feel

The thing that never words reveal,
And think for farther power wherein

More sense of what there is to win,
When to the stars I look-where there
Such thoughts have been, such glories are;
Which the Chaldean watch'd to seek,

And the Egyptian and the Greek.

From the still chamber where I keep

My vigils when I cannot sleep
While all the stars are shining so

And I of them so little know,

From this far world, this dim and far
Isle in the deep where systems are,
Far forth upon the ocean-sky

I gaze, and am in soul on high :
How distant and how dim soe'er,
Rapt in all vision glory there,

Where suns I see the
:

every star A sun of planet worlds afar,

Worlds where wondrous things of life,
Thoughts and passions all are rife-
There where thousand suns I see

All present, all reality—

Far forth till circling systems seem
Mass'd in faint stars, or some white gleam
Dim as the shadow of a dream-
Bright, burning millions there that roll
Beyond my mind, beyond my soul;

In some one scheme, by some one might,
A Power of which a thought like light
Is as my dream in starry night.

And though I thus but see the star
So dimly and am thus afar,

Nor hear the choral symphony

Of whirling spheres around on high,

58

Which one of deep, accorded5 soul,

That thought the harmony", the whole,

(58) See particularly the xvth chapter of Iamblichus's Life