Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/256

 246 CONS OLA TIONS OF SOLITUDE

Yet, when the book I open, and begin,

Through cloud of comment, the commands to read "Let him who would cast stones be free from sin,"

" Clothe ye the naked and the hungry feed," Or, " As ye love yourselves your neighbors love," Or, " Be ye perfect even as God above ; "

��Still farther when I read : " Do to another As thou wouldst have another do to thee,"

And find that man is named of man the brother, And all mere outcasts who lack charity ;

While the great Father, imaged as a dove,

Proclaims the peaceful government of love, —

Then do I learn that every man his creed

Less from its doctrine than his heart derives ;

'Tis still the wish is father to the deed ;

Our gods are but the portraits of our lives ;

And different natures from the self-same law

Their different acts and different motives draw.

Yet, if from precepts to great Nature's face I turn my gaze, what glorious scene appears !

What beautiful diversity of race

Through the wide world the boundless prospect cheers

Herb, mineral, animal, in infinite kind.

Ranged orderly by one creative Mind !

If I look farther, I perceive I stand

Upon a frail, unpropped, revolving ball. Where sea is ever battling with the land.

Earth a mere crust, like an o'erarching wall That spans a vault so thin, almost a breath The shell could shatter, flaming fire beneath.

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