| |
| 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,—God’s 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. | |
| |
