So, when the soul finds here no true content, And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take, She doth return from whence she first was sent, And flies to him that first her wings did make. Wit, seeking truth, from cause to cause ascends, And never rests till it the first attain; Will, seeking good, finds many middle ends, But never stays till it the last do gain. Now God the truth, and first of causes is; God is the last good end, which lasteth still; Being Alpha and Omega named for this: Alpha to wit, Omega to the will. Since then her heavenly kind she doth display In that to God she doth directly move, And on no mortal thing can make her stay, She cannot be from hence, but from above. One passage more, the conclusion and practical summing up of the whole: O ignorant poor man! what dost thou bear, Locked up within the casket of thy breast? What jewels and what riches hast thou there! What heavenly treasure in so weak a chest! Think of her worth, and think that God did mean This worthy mind should worthy things embrace: Blot not her beauties with thy thoughts unclean, Nor her dishonour with thy passion base. Kill not her quickening power with surfeitings; Mar not her sense with sensuality; Cast not her serious wit on idle things; Make not her free-will slave to vanity. And when thou think'st of her eternity, Think not that death against our nature is; Think it a birth; and when thou go'st to die, Sing like a swan, as if thou went'st to bliss. And if thou, like a child, didst fear before, Being in the dark where thou didst nothing see; Now I have brought thee torch-light, fear no more; Now when thou diest thou canst not hood-wink'd be. And thou, my soul, which turn'st with curious eye To view the beams of thine own form divine, Know, that thou canst know nothing perfectly, While thou art clouded with this flesh of mine. Take heed of over-weening, and compare Thy peacock's feet with thy gay peacock's train: Study the best and highest things that are, But of thyself an humble thought retain. Cast down thyself, and only strive to raise The story of thy Maker's sacred name: Use all thy powers that blessed Power to praise, Which gives the power to be, and use the same. In looking back over our path from the point we have now reached, the first thought that suggests itself is--How much the reflective has supplanted the emotional! I do not mean for a moment that the earliest poems were without thought, or that the latest are without emotion; but in the former there is more of the skin, as it were--in the latter, more of the bones of worship; not that in the one the worship is but skin-deep, or that in the other the bones are dry.