A saint, the Church’s Rock, the mystic Keys Grasped in his hand;[99] and lo! with upright sword 310 Prefiguring his own impendent doom, The Apostle of the Gentiles; both prepared To suffer pains with heathen scorn and hate Inflicted;--blessed Men, for so to Heaven They follow their dear Lord! Time flows--nor winds, 315 Nor stagnates, nor precipitates his course, But many a benefit borne upon his breast For human-kind sinks out of sight, is gone, No one knows how; nor seldom is put forth An angry arm that snatches good away, 320 Never perhaps to reappear. The Stream Has to our generation brought and brings Innumerable gains; yet we, who now Walk in the light of day, pertain full surely To a chilled age, most pitiably shut out 325 From that which _is_ and actuates, by forms, Abstractions, and by lifeless fact to fact Minutely linked with diligence uninspired, Unrectified, unguided, unsustained, By godlike insight. To this fate is doomed 330 Science, wide-spread and spreading still as be Her conquests, in the world of sense made known. So with the internal mind it fares; and so With morals, trusting, in contempt or fear Of vital principle’s controlling law, 335 To her purblind guide Expediency; and so Suffers religious faith. Elate with view Of what is won, we overlook or scorn The best that should keep pace with it, and must, Else more and more the general mind will droop, 340 Even as if bent on perishing. There lives No faculty within us which the Soul Can spare,[100] and humblest earthly Weal demands, For dignity not placed beyond her reach, Zealous co-operation of all means 345 Given or acquired, to raise us from the mire, And liberate our hearts from low pursuits. By gross Utilities enslaved we need More of ennobling impulse from the past, If to the future aught of good must come 350 Sounder and therefore holier than the ends Which, in the giddiness of self-applause, We covet as supreme. O grant the crown That Wisdom wears, or take his treacherous staff From Knowledge!--If the Muse, whom I have served 355 This day, be mistress of a single pearl Fit to be placed in that pure diadem; Then, not in vain, under these chesnut boughs Reclined, shall I have yielded up my soul To transports from the secondary founts 360 Flowing of time and place, and paid to both Due homage; nor shall fruitlessly have striven, By love of beauty moved, to enshrine in verse Accordant meditations, which in times Vexed and disordered, as our own, may shed 365