157
Sincere, and humble Spirit, teaches love;
For knowledge is delight; and such delight
Breeds love; yet, suited as it rather is
To thought and to the climbing intellect,
It teaches less to love, than to adore;
If that be not indeed the highest Love!"
"Yet," said I, tempted here to interpose,
"The dignity of Life is not impaired
By aught that innocently satisfies
The humbler cravings of the heart; and He
Is a still happier Man, who, for those heights
Of speculation not unfit, descends;
And such benign affections cultivates
Among the inferior Kinds; not merely those
That he may call his own, and which depend,
As individual objects of regard,
Upon his care,—from whom he also looks
For signs and tokens of a mutual bond,—
But others, far beyond this narrow sphere,
Whom, for the very sake of love, he loves.
Nor is it a mean praise of rural life
And solitude, that they do favour most,
