If unreligious, let him be at once, Among ten thousand innocents, enrolled A pupil in the many-chambered school, Where superstition weaves her airy dreams. 610 "Life's autumn past, I stand on winter's verge; And daily lose what I desire to keep: Yet rather would I instantly decline To the traditionary sympathies Of a most rustic ignorance, and take 615 A fearful apprehension from the owl Or death-watch: and as readily rejoice, If two auspicious magpies crossed my way;-- To this would rather bend[354] than see and hear The repetitions wearisome of sense, 620 Where soul is dead, and feeling hath no place; Where knowledge, ill begun in cold remark On outward things, with formal inference ends; Or, if the mind turn inward, she recoils At once--or, not recoiling, is perplexed-- 625 Lost in a gloom of uninspired research;[355] Meanwhile, the heart within the heart, the seat Where peace and happy consciousness should dwell, On its own axis restlessly revolving, Seeks, yet can nowhere find, the light of truth.[356][EQ] 630 "Upon the breast of new-created earth Man walked; and when and wheresoe'er he moved, Alone or mated, solitude was not. He heard, borne on the wind,[357] the articulate voice Of God;[ER] and Angels to his sight appeared 635 Crowning the glorious hills of paradise; Or through the groves gliding like morning mist Enkindled by the sun. He sate--and talked With winged Messengers;[ES] who daily brought To his small island in the ethereal deep 640 Tidings of joy and love.--From those pure heights[358] (Whether of actual vision, sensible To sight and feeling, or that in this sort Have condescendingly been shadowed forth Communications spiritually maintained, 645 And intuitions moral and divine) Fell Human-kind--to banishment condemned[ET] That flowing years repealed not: and distress And grief spread wide;[EU] but Man escaped the doom Of destitution;--solitude was not. 650 --Jehovah[EV]--shapeless Power above all Powers, Single and one, the omnipresent God, By vocal utterance, or blaze of light, Or cloud of darkness, localised in heaven;[EW] On earth, enshrined within the wandering ark;[EX] 655 Or, out of Sion, thundering from his throne Between the Cherubim[EY]--on the chosen Race Showered miracles,[EZ] and ceased not to dispense Judgments, that filled the land from age to age With hope, and love, and gratitude, and fear;[FA] 660 And with amazement smote;--thereby to assert His scorned, or unacknowledged, sovereignty. And when the One, ineffable of name, Of[359] nature indivisible, withdrew