Is this that goodly edifice So gaz'd upon by greedy eyes? A scene where cruelty's exprest, Or stage of follies is at the best. Who can the music understand From the soft touch of Nature's hand, When man, her chiefest instrument, So harshly jars without consent. Do not her natural agents too Fail in her operations, so That he to whom they best appear, Sees but the tombs of what they were? Her chiefest actions then are such, That no external sense may touch; Shown doubtfully to the mind's sight By the dark fancy's glimmering light. The Night, indeed, which hideth all Things else, discloseth the stars pale And sickly faces; but our sense Cannot perceive their influence. They are the hidden books of Fate, Where what with pains we calculate And doubt, is only plainly known To those assist their motion. The close conveyances that move With silent virtue from above Incessantly on things below, Our duller eyes can never know. Nothing but colour, shape, and light, Create their species in our sight: All substances avoid the sense Close couched under accidents. In which, attir'd by Nature, we Their loose apparel only see: Spirits alone intuitive Can to the heart of essence dive. Why then should we desire to sleep, Grovelling like swine in mire, so deep, The mind for breath can find no way, Chok'd up, and crowded into clay? Stript of the flesh, in the clear spring Of truth she bathes her soaring wing, On whom do all ideas shine, Reflected from the glass divine. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR by JAMES DAVID CORROTHERS A PRAYER by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND by REGINALD HEBER A MINUET ON REACHING THE AGE OF FIFTY by GEORGE SANTAYANA HEART AND MIND by EDITH SITWELL |