VII.

Yet not for this could he the more incline
To cramping creeds, or any partial shrine;
His heart was but one endless protestation
Against the slightest shackles on free
Thought; Rather than not attain the end he sought,
His strong intolerant love of toleration,
His towering spirit of tyrannous liberty,
Had forced all mental bond-slaves to be free
Then all for Nature! "She alone for me!
"What!" he would cry in his impetuous style,
Climbing, perhaps some mountain-peak the while,

" What need of Temples! All around,!
Through Earth's expanse, through Heaven's profound,
A conscious Spirit, beauty-crowned,
A visible glory breathes and breaks,
And of these mountains, moors and lakes
A Holiest of the Holies makes!
Above—around—where'er you be.
The true Shekinah shining see!
With ever-fuming Incense there
page 62 An Altar burns for praise and prayer!
Whence better to the Lord of Love
Can sorrow waft its will above
Than from some desert-waste forlorn.
Where sadly, of all splendour shorn,
Creeps-in the stilly-dripping Morn?
Why not in deep prostration groan
On God for help when all alone
Where forests make their mighty moan?
Why not the exulting burst of praise
Pour forth where hills their great tops raise
Majestic in the silent blaze
Of Sunset over Ocean's haze?
What! shall the Spirit only draw
Near that unknown and nameless Awe
Where, beauteous though it be, there stands
Some puny work of human hands?
But I, O mystic Might! no less
As thy all-hallowed home will bless
Sublimest Nature's loveliness \
But I will dare, 0 Power Divine!
Revere One true transcendent Shrine
This flashing Universe of Thine!'