"There is one chain of intellectual soul, In many links and various grades, throughout The scale of nature; from the climax bright, The first great Cause of all, Spirit supreme, Incomprehensible, and unconfined, To high archangels blazing near the throne, Seraphim, cherubim, virtues, aids, and powers, All capable of perfection in their kind;-- To man, as holy from his Maker's hand He stood in possible excellence complete, (Man, who is destined now to brighter glories,-- As nearer to the present God, in One His Lord and Substitute,--than angels reach;) Then man has fallen, with every varied shade Of character and capability, From him who reads his title to the skies, Or grasps, with giant-mind, all nature's wonders, Down to the monster-shaped, inhuman form, Murderer, slavering fool, or blood-stained savage; Then to the prudent elephant, the dog Half-humanized, the docile Arab horse, The social beaver, and contriving fox, The parrot, quick in pertinent reply, The kind-affectioned seal, and patriot bee, The merchant-storing ant, and wintering swallow, With all those other palpable emanations And energies of one Eternal Mind Pervading and instructing all that live, Down to the sentient grass and shrinking clay. In truth, I see not why the breath of life, Thus omnipresent, and upholding all, Should not return to Him and be immortal, (I dare not say the same,) in some glad state Originally destined for creation, As well from brutish bodies, as from man. The uncertain glimmer of analogy Suggests the thought, and reason's shrewder guess; Yet revelation whispers nought but this,-- 'Our Father careth when a sparrow dies,' And that 'the spirit of a brute descends,' As to some secret and preserving Hades.