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Your further help? The mine of real life
Dig for us; and present us, in the shape
Of virgin ore, that gold which we by pains
Fruitless as those of aery Alchemists
Seek from the torturing crucible. There lies
Around us a Domain where You have long
Held spiritual sway, have guided and consoled,
And watched the outward course and inner heart.
Give us, for our abstractions, solid facts;
For our disputes, plain pictures. Say what Man
He is who cultivates yon hanging field;
What qualities of mind She bears, who comes,
For morn and evening service, with her pail,
To that green pasture; place before our sight
The Family who dwell within yon House
Fenced round with glittering laurel; or in that
Below, from which the curling smoke ascends.
Or rather, as we stand on holy earth
And have the Dead around us, take from them
Your instances; for they are both best known,
And by frail Man most equitably judged.
Epitomize the life; pronounce, You can,
Authentic epitaphs on some of these
