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Lies open: we have heard from You a voice
At every moment softened in its course
By tenderness of heart; have seen your Eye,
Even like an Altar lit by fire from Heaven,
Kindle before us.—Your discourse this day,
That, like the fabled Lethe, wished to flow
In creeping sadness, through oblivious shades
Of death and night, has caught at every turn
The colours of the Sun. Access for you
Is yet preserved to principles of truth,
Which the Imaginative Will upholds
In seats of wisdom, not to be approached
By the inferior Faculty that moulds,
With her minute and speculative pains,
Opinion, ever changing!—I have seen
A curious Child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped Shell;
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy; for murmurings from within
Were heard,—sonorous cadences! whereby,
To his belief, the Monitor expressed
