It shall read or hear of crime, and cast itself into the commission; It shall note a generous deed, and glow for a moment as the doer; It shall imagine pride or pleasure, treading on the edges of temptation; Or heed of God and of His Christ, and grow transformed to glory. Therefore, it is wise and well to guide the mind aright, That its aptness may be sensitive to good, and shrink with antipathy from evil: For use will mould and mark it, or nonusage dull and blunt it;-- So to talk of spirit by analogy with substance; And analogy is a truer guide, than many teachers tell of, Similitudes are scattered round, to help us, not to hurt us; Moses, in his every type, and the Greater than Moses, in His parables, Preach, in terms that all may learn, the philosophic lessons of analogy: And here, in a topic immaterial, the likeness of analogy is just; By habits, knit the nerves of mind, and train the gladiator shrewdly: For thought shall strengthen thinking, and imagery speed imagination, Until thy spiritual inmate shall have swelled to the giant of Otranto. Nevertheless, heed well, that this Athlete, growing in thy brain, Be a wholesome Genius, not a cursed Afrite: And see thou discipline his strength, and point his aim discreetly; Feed him on humility and holy things, weaned from covetous desires; Hour by hour and day by day, ply him with ideas of excellence, Dragging forth the evil but to loathe, as a Spartan's drunken Helot: And win, by gradual allurements, the still expanding soul, To rise from a contemplated universe, even to the Hand that made it.