xxxviii.
Well pleas’d am I to sit me But in sooth
Well pleas’d am I to sit me down in peace,
While Phantasy, an untir’d traveller
Goes forth; and I shall thank thee for the rhyme
That with the Poets of the distant years
Makes me hold converse. ’Twas a strange belief!
And evil was the hour when men began
To humanize their God, and gave to stocks
And stones the incommunicable name[1].
It is not strange that simple men should rear
The grassy altar to the glorious sun,
And pile it with spring flowers and summer fruits,
And when the glorious sun smil’d on their rites
And made the landskip lovely, the warm heart
With no unholy zeal might swell the hymn
Of adoration. When the savage hears
The thunder burst, and sees the lurid sky
Glow with repeated fires, it is not strange
Well pleas’d am I to sit me down in peace,
While Phantasy, an untir’d traveller
Goes forth; and I shall thank thee for the rhyme
That with the Poets of the distant years
Makes me hold converse. ’Twas a strange belief!
And evil was the hour when men began
To humanize their God, and gave to stocks
And stones the incommunicable name[1].
It is not strange that simple men should rear
The grassy altar to the glorious sun,
And pile it with spring flowers and summer fruits,
And when the glorious sun smil’d on their rites
And made the landskip lovely, the warm heart
With no unholy zeal might swell the hymn
Of adoration. When the savage hears
The thunder burst, and sees the lurid sky
Glow with repeated fires, it is not strange
- ↑ Men, serving either calamity or tyranny, did ascribe unto
stones and stocks the incommunicable name.
Wisdom of Solomon, xiv. 21.
