By which the finer passages of sense Are occupied; and the Soul, that would incline And may it not be hoped, that, placed by Age In like removal tranquil though severe, We are not so removed for utter loss; But for some favour, suited to our need? What more than this, that we thereby should gain To the vast multitude; whose doom it is But, if to such sublime ascent the hopes Them only can such hope inspire whose minds To whom kind Nature, therefore, may afford Whose birth-right Reason, therefore, may ensure. In times when most existence with herself Is satisfied, I cannot but believe, That, far as kindly Nature hath free scope And Reason's sway predominates, even so far, That saps the Individual's bodily frame And lays the generations low in dust, Of one maternal spirit, bringing forth That tires not, nor betrays. Our Life is turned Out of her course, wherever Man is made An offering, or a sacrifice, a tool Or implement, a passive Thing employed And strength in evil? Hence an after-call Was Man created; but to obey the law Of life, and hope, and action. And 'tis known Our active powers, those powers themselves become And, by the substitution of delight, Suppress all evil; whence the Being moves In beauty through the world; and all who see Bless him, rejoicing in his neighbourhood." "Then," said the Solitary," by what power Of language shall a feeling Heart express Her sorrow for that multitude in whom We look for health from seeds that have been sown In sickness and for increase in a power That works but by extinction. On themselves They cannot lean, nor turn to their own hearts Or rather let us say, how least observed, How with most quiet and most silent death, With the least taint and injury to the air The Oppressor breathes, their human Form divine, The Sage rejoined, "I thank you-you have spared My voice the utterance of a keen regret, A wide compassion which with you I share. A most familiar object of our days, A Little-one, subjected to the Arts Of modern ingenuity, and made The senseless member of a vast machine, Serving as doth a spindle or a wheel; Think not, that, pitying him, I could forget The Slave of ignorance, and oft of want, And miserable hunger. Much too much Of this unhappy lot, in early youth By indigence, their ignorance is not less Nor less to be deplored. For who can doubt That tens of thousands at this day exist |