quote · Legacy record

Thy nature, immortality! who knows? And yet who knows it not? It is but life In stronger thread of brighter colour spun, And spun for ever, dipt by cruel fate In Stygian die, how black, how brittle here! How short our correspondence with the sun! And while it lasts, Inglorious! Our best deeds, How wanting in their weight! our highest joys, Small cordials to support us in our pain, And give us strength to suffer. But how great To mingle interests, converse, amities, With all the sons of reason, scatter’d wide Through habitable space, wherever born, Howe’er endowed! To live free citizens Of universal nature! To lay hold By more than feeble faith on the Supreme! To call heaven’s rich unfathomable mines (Mines, which support archangels in their state,) Our own! To rise in science as in bliss, Initiate in the secrets of the skies! To read creation; read its mighty plan In the bare bosom of the Deity! The plan, and execution, to collate! To see, before each glance of piercing thought, All cloud, all shadow blown remote; and leave No mystery—but that of love divine, Which lifts us on the Seraph’s flaming wing, From earth’s aceldama, this field of blood, Of inward anguish, and of outward ill, From darkness, and from dust, to such a scene! Love’s element! True joy’s illustrious house! From earth’s sad contrast (now deplor’d) more fair! What exquisite vicissitude of fate! Blest absolution of our blackest hour!

Thy nature, immortality! who knows? And yet who knows it not? It is but life In stronger thread of brighter colour spun, And spun for ever, dipt by cruel fate In Stygian die, how black, how brittle here! How short our correspondence with the sun! And while it lasts, Inglorious! Our best deeds, How wanting in their weight! our highest joys, Small cordials to support us in our pain, And give us strength to suffer. But how great To mingle interests, converse, amities, With all the sons of reason, scatter’d wide Through habitable space, wherever born, Howe’er endowed! To live free citizens Of universal nature! To lay hold By more than feeble faith on the Supreme! To call heaven’s rich unfathomable mines (Mines, which support archangels in their state,) Our own! To rise in science as in bliss, Initiate in the secrets of the skies! To read creation; read its mighty plan In the bare bosom of the Deity! The plan, and execution, to collate! To see, before each glance of piercing thought, All cloud, all shadow blown remote; and leave No mystery—but that of love divine, Which lifts us on the Seraph’s flaming wing, From earth’s aceldama, this field of blood, Of inward anguish, and of outward ill, From darkness, and from dust, to such a scene! Love’s element! True joy’s illustrious house! From earth’s sad contrast (now deplor’d) more fair! What exquisite vicissitude of fate! Blest absolution of our blackest hour!

In print by 1888 AD · industrial

Recorded in a printed collection by this date; the original date of these words is still unknown.