Here is a fine invocation: O Light, which mak'st the light which makes the day! Which sett'st the eye without, and mind within; Lighten my spirit with one clear heavenly ray, Which now to view itself doth first begin.
* * * * * Thou, like the sun, dost, with an equal ray, Into the palace and the cottage shine; And show'st the soul both to the clerk and lay, _learned and By the clear lamp of th' oracle divine.

[unlearned_ He is puzzled enough to get the theology of his time into harmony with his philosophy, and I cannot say that he is always triumphant in the attempt; but here at least is good argument in justification of the freedom of man to sin.
If by His word he had the current stayed Of Adam's will, which was by nature free, It had been one as if his word had said, "I will henceforth that Man no Man shall be." * * * * * For what is Man without a moving mind, Which hath a judging wit, and choosing will?
Now, if God's pow'r should her election bind, Her motions then would cease, and stand all still.
* * * * * So that if Man would be unvariable, He must be God, or like a rock or tree; For ev'n the perfect angels were not stable, But had a fall more desperate than we.
The poem contains much excellent argument in mental science as well as in religion and metaphysics; but with that department I have nothing to do.
I shall now give an outlook from the highest peak of the poem--to any who are willing to take the trouble necessary for seeing what another would show them.
The section from which I have gathered the following stanzas is devoted to the more immediate proof of the soul's immortality.
Her only end is never-ending bliss, Which is the eternal face of God to see, Who last of ends and first of causes is; And to do this, she must eternal be.
Again, how can she but immortal be, When with the motions of both will and wit, She still aspireth to eternity, And never rests till she attains to it?
Water in conduit-pipes can rise no higher Than the well-head from whence it first doth spring; Then since to eternal God she doth aspire, She cannot but be an eternal thing.
At first her mother-earth she holdeth dear, And doth embrace the world and worldly things; She flies close by the ground, and hovers here, And mounts not up with her celestial wings.
Yet under heaven she cannot light on ought That with her heavenly nature doth agree She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought, She cannot in this world contented be.
For who did ever yet, in honour, wealth, Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find?
Whoever ceased to wish, when he had health Or having wisdom, was not vexed in mind Then as a bee, which among weeds doth fall, Which seem sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay-- She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all, But, pleased with none, doth rise, and soar away; So, when the soul finds here no true content, And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take, She doth return from whence she first was sent, And flies to him that first her wings did make.
Wit, seeking truth, from cause to cause ascends, And never rests till it the first attain; Will, seeking good, finds many middle ends, But never stays till it the last do gain.
Now God the truth, and first of causes is; God is the last good end, which lasteth still; Being Alpha and Omega named for this: Alpha to wit, Omega to the will.
Since then her heavenly kind she doth display In that to God she doth directly move, And on no mortal thing can make her stay, She cannot be from hence, but from above.
One passage more, the conclusion and practical summing up of the whole: O ignorant poor man! what dost thou bear, Locked up within the casket of thy breast?
What jewels and what riches hast thou there! What heavenly treasure in so weak a chest! Think of her worth, and think that God did mean This worthy mind should worthy things embrace: Blot not her beauties with thy thoughts unclean, Nor her dishonour with thy passion base.
Kill not her quickening power with surfeitings; Mar not her sense with sensuality; Cast not her serious wit on idle things; Make not her free-will slave to vanity.
And when thou think'st of her eternity, Think not that death against our nature is; Think it a birth; and when thou go'st to die, Sing like a swan, as if thou went'st to bliss.
And if thou, like a child, didst fear before, Being in the dark where thou didst nothing see; Now I have brought thee torch-light, fear no more; Now when thou diest thou canst not hood-wink'd be.
And thou, my soul, which turn'st with curious eye To view the beams of thine own form divine, Know, that thou canst know nothing perfectly, While thou art clouded with this flesh of mine.
Take heed of over-weening, and compare Thy peacock's feet with thy gay peacock's train: Study the best and highest things that are, But of thyself an humble thought retain.
Cast down thyself, and only strive to raise The story of thy Maker's sacred name: Use all thy powers that blessed Power to praise, Which gives the power to be, and use the same.
In looking back over our path from the point we have now reached, the first thought that suggests itself is--How much the reflective has supplanted the emotional! I do not mean for a moment that the earliest poems were without thought, or that the latest are without emotion; but in the former there is more of the skin, as it were--in the latter, more of the bones of worship; not that in the one the worship is but skin-deep, or that in the other the bones are dry.
To look at the change a little more closely: we find in the earliest time, feeling working on historic fact and on what was received as such, and the result simple aspiration after goodness.

The next stage is good _doctrine_--I use the word, as St.Paul uses it, for instruction in righteousness--chiefly by means of allegory, all attempts at analysis being made through personification of qualities.

Here the general form is frequently more poetic than the matter.

After this we have a period principally of imitation, sometimes good, sometimes indifferent.