“To write a poem, man should be as pure As frost-flowers; every thought should be in tune To heavenly truth, and Nature’s perfect law, Bathing the soul in beauty, joy, and peace. His heart should ripen like the purple grape; His country should be all the universe; His friends the best and wisest of all time. He should be universal as the light, And rich as summer in ripe-fruited love. He should have power to draw from common things Essential truth!—and, rising o’er all fear Of papal devils and of pagan gods, Of ancient Satans, and of modern ghosts, Should recognise all spirits as his friends, And see the worst but harps of golden strings Discordant now, but destined at the last To thrill, inspired with God’s own harmony, And make sweet music with the heavenly host. He should forget his private preference Of country or religion, and should see All parties and all creeds with equal eye; His the religion of true harmony; Christ the ideal of his lofty aim; The viewless Friend, the Comforter, and Guide, The joy in grief, whose every element Of life received in child-like faith, Becomes a part of impulse, feeling, thought— The central fire that lights his being’s sun. He should not limit Nature by the known; Nor limit God by what is known of him; Nor limit man by present states and moods; But see mankind at liberty to draw Into their lives all Nature’s wealth, and all Harmonious essences of life from God, And so, becoming god-like in their souls, And universal in their faculties, Informing all their age, enriching time, And blinding up the temple of the world With massive structures of eternity. He shall not fail to see how infinite God is above humanity, nor yet That God is throned in universal man, The greater mind of pure intelligence, Unlimited by states, moods, periods, creeds, Self-adequate, self-balanced in his love, And needing nothing and conferring all, And asking nothing and receiving all, Akin by love to every loving heart, By nobleness to every noble mind, By truth to all who look through natural forms, And feel the throbbing arteries of law In every pulse of nature and of man.”