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ALL things in Nature are beautiful types to the soul that will read them; | |
Nothing exists upon earth, but for unspeakable ends. | |
Every object that speaks to the senses was meant for the spirit: | |
Nature is but a scroll,Gods handwriting thereon. | |
Ages ago, when man was pure, ere the flood overwhelmed him, | 5 |
While in the image of God every soul yet lived, | |
Everything stood as a letter or word of a language familiar, | |
Telling of truths which now only the angels can read. | |
Lost to man was the key of those sacred hieroglyphics, | |
Stolen away by sin,till with Jesus restored. | 10 |
Now with infinite pains we here and there spell out a letter; | |
Now and then will the sense feebly shine through the dark. | |
When we perceive the light which breaks through the visible symbol, | |
What exultation is ours! we the discovery have made! | |
Yet is the meaning the same as when Adam lived sinless in Eden, | 15 |
Only long-hidden it slept and now again is restored. | |
Man unconsciously uses figures of speech every moment, | |
Little dreaming the cause why to such terms he is prone, | |
Little dreaming that everything has its own correspondence | |
Folded within it of old, as in the body the soul. | 20 |
Gleams of the mystery fall on us still, though much is forgotten, | |
And through our commonest speech illumines the path of our thoughts. | |
Thus does the lordly sun shine out a type of the Godhead; | |
Wisdom and Love the beams that stream on a darkened world. | |
Thus do the sparkling waters flow, giving joy to the desert, | 25 |
And the great Fountain of Life opens itself to the thirst. | |
Thus does the word of God distil like the rain and the dew-drops, | |
Thus does the warm wind breathe like to the Spirit of God, | |
And the green grass and the flowers are signs of the regeneration. | |
O thou Spirit of Truth! visit our minds once more! | 30 |
Give us to read, in letters of light, the language celestial, | |
Written all over the earth,written all over the sky: | |
Thus may we bring our hearts at length to know our Creator, | |
Seeing in all things around types of the Infinite Mind. | |
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