In his essential reason, leading there That vast ideal host which all his works Through endless ages never will reveal. Thus then endow'd, the feeble creature man, The slave of hunger and the prey of death, 110 Even now, even here, in earth's dim prison bound, The language of intelligence divine Attains; repeating oft concerning one And many, past and present, parts and whole, Those sovereign dictates which in furthest heaven, Where no orb rolls, Eternity's fix'd ear Hears from coeval Truth, when Chance nor Change, Nature's loud progeny, nor Nature's self Dares intermeddle or approach her throne. Ere long, o'er this corporeal world he learns 120 To extend her sway; while calling from the deep, From earth and air, their multitudes untold Of figures and of motions round his walk, For each wide family some single birth He sets in view, the impartial type of all Its brethren; suffering it to claim, beyond Their common heritage, no private gift, No proper fortune. Then whate'er his eye In this discerns, his bold unerring tongue Pronounceth of the kindred, without bound, 130 Without condition. Such the rise of forms Sequester'd far from sense and every spot Peculiar in the realms of space or time; Such is the throne which man for Truth amid The paths of mutability hath built Secure, unshaken, still; and whence he views, In matter's mouldering structures, the pure forms Of triangle or circle, cube or cone, Impassive all; whose attributes nor force Nor fate can alter. There he first conceives 140 True being, and an intellectual world The same this hour and ever. Thence he deems Of his own lot; above the painted shapes That fleeting move o'er this terrestrial scene Looks up; beyond the adamantine gates Of death expatiates; as his birthright claims Inheritance in all the works of God; Prepares for endless time his plan of life, And counts the universe itself his home.