Thus then endow'd, the feeble creature man,
The slave of hunger and the prey of death, 110
Even now, even here, in earth's dim prison bound,
The language of intelligence divine
Attains; repeating oft concerning one
And many, past and present, parts and whole,
Those sovereign dictates which in furthest heaven,
Where no orb rolls, Eternity's fix'd ear
Hears from coeval Truth, when Chance nor Change,
Nature's loud progeny, nor Nature's self
Dares intermeddle or approach her throne.
Ere long, o'er this corporeal world he learns 120
To extend her sway; while calling from the deep,
From earth and air, their multitudes untold
Of figures and of motions round his walk,
For each wide family some single birth
He sets in view, the impartial type of all
Its brethren; suffering it to claim, beyond
Their common heritage, no private gift,
No proper fortune. Then whate'er his eye
In this discerns, his bold unerring tongue
Pronounceth of the kindred, without bound, 130
Without condition. Such the rise of forms
Sequester'd far from sense and every spot
Peculiar in the realms of space or time;
Such is the throne which man for Truth amid
The paths of mutability hath built
Secure, unshaken, still; and whence he views,
In matter's mouldering structures, the pure forms
Of triangle or circle, cube or cone,
Impassive all; whose attributes nor force
Nor fate can alter.
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