When man sinks awed, watching a myriad globes,
How shrunk his purpose and his works appear!
All his achievement ne’er can weave such robes;
He can but gaze, despair confounds his fear:
Yet there’s a link that binds weak man to God,
And earth hath heavens as bright as all those stars;
Beauty, ever-living, need but inspire the sod,
And, lo! the substance of those golden cars.
Spirit of Beauty, quicken, purge my soul;
Raise it more near the substance of thy form;
Then, mounting gradual, I shall reach the goal,
Where individual life’s no longer warm;
Where Beauty in itself transpicuous shines,
And, universal, dazzles life’s dim mines.