Here now the human being stands, adorning This loveliest Earth with taintless body and mind. Blest from his birth with all bland impulses, Which gently in his truthful bosom wake All kindly passions and all pure desires. Him (still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing, Which from the exhaustless store of human weal Draws on the virtuous mind), the thoughts that rise In time-destroying infiniteness, gift With self-enshrined eternity, that mocks The unprevailing hoariness of age: And Man, once fleeting o’er the transient scene, Swift as an unremembered vision, stands Immortal upon Earth. _No longer now He slays the Lamb who looks him in the face_, And horribly devours his mangled flesh, Which, still avenging Nature’s broken law, Kindled all putrid humours in his frame-- All evil passions and all vain belief-- Hatred, despair, and loathing in his mind, The germs of misery, death, disease, and crime. No longer now the wingèd habitants, That in the woods their sweet lives sing away, Flee from the form of Man. * * * * * All things are void of terror. Man has lost His terrible prerogative, and stands An equal amidst equals. Happiness And Science dawn, though late, upon the Earth. Peace cheers the mind, Health renovates the frame. Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here, Reason and passion cease to combat there; Whilst each, unfettered, o’er the Earth extends Its all-subduing energies, and wields The sceptre of a vast dominion there; Whilst every shape and mode of matter lends Its force to the omnipotence of Mind, Which from its dark mine drags the gem of Truth To decorate its paradise of Peace.” In rapt vision the prophet-poet apostrophises the “New Earth”: “O happy Earth! reality of Heaven, To which those restless souls, that ceaselessly Throng through the human universe, aspire. * * * * * Of purest spirits, thou pure dwelling-place, Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime, Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come. O happy Earth! reality of Heaven. Genius has seen thee in her passionate dreams; And dim forebodings of thy loveliness, Haunting the human heart, have there entwined Those rooted hopes of some sweet place of bliss. * * * * * and the souls That, by the paths of an aspiring change, Have reached thy haven of perpetual Peace, There rest from the eternity of toil, That framed the fabric of thy perfectness.” From the Essay, in the form of a note, which he subjoined to the passage we have quoted, we extract the principal arguments:--