the body's doing, are not both degraded? and if the body be oppressed for the soul's sake, are not both the losers?
O Earth, O Earth, return!
Arise from out the dewy grass!
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumberous mass.
Turn away no more ;
Why wilt thou turn away?
The starry shore,
The watery floor,
Are given thee till the break of day."
For so long, during the night of law and oppression of material form, the divine evidences hidden under sky and sea are left her; even "till the break of day." "Will she not get quit of this spiritual bondage to the heavy body of things, to the encumbrance of deaf clay and blind vegetation, before the light comes that shall redeem and reveal? But the earth, being yet in subjection to the creator of men, the jealous God who divided nature against herself—father of woman and man, legislator of sex and race—makes blind and bitter answer as in sleep, "her locks covered with grey despair."
Prisoned on this watery shore,
Starry Jealousy does keep my den;
Cold and hoar,
Weeping o'er,
I hear the father of the ancient men."
Thus, in the poet's mind, Nature and Religion are the two fetters of life, one on the right wrist, the other on the left; an obscure material force on this hand, and
