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IV. And peace is torn from its defencelessness; Cursed from its birth, even from its cradle doomed To abjectness and bondage!

Throughout this varied and eternal world Soul is the only element, the block That for uncounted ages has remained. The moveless pillar of a mountain's weight Is active, living spirit. Every grain Is sentient both in unity and part, And the minutest atom comprehends A world of loves and hatreds; these beget; Evil and good: hence truth, and falsehood spring; Hence will, and thought, and action, all the germs Of pain or pleasure, sympathy or hate, That variegate the eternal universe. Soul is not more polluted than the beams Of heaven's pure orb, ere round their rapid lines The taint of earth-born atmospheres arise. Man is of soul and body, formed for deeds Of high resolve, on fancy's boldest wing To soar unwearied, fearlessly to turn The keenest pangs to peacefulness, and taste The joys which mingled sense and spirit yield. Or he is formed for abjectness and woe, To grovel on the dunghill of his fears, To shrink at every sound, to quench the flame Of natural love in sensualism, to know That hour as blest when on his worthless days The frozen hand of death shall set its seal, Yet fear the cure, though hating the disease.