Which leans upon its neighbour for support,
And lifts the eye for sanction, or assent,
To weakness still more helpless than its own!

Two thousand years the sanctuary's veil
Has now been rent asunder, shewing all
That, to the patient and unsandall'd foot,
Egress and regress freely are allowed
Through that most glorious temple, where abstract,
And long a stranger to the vulgar eye,
Thought held her silent rule, and mission'd forth
Her sealed and unquestion'd messengers.
Yet those who follow nature when the track
Is finer than a hair--those who can cleave
The subtile and combined elements
That form a drop of water--those can shrink
From the more holy alchemy enjoin'd,
Call'd for by that disgust the heart conceives
At the usurping empire of pretence;
At all those useless and disgraceful chains,
Which tie us down, and imp with aptest wings,
Falsehood and selfishness, who ought to creep
In their own reptile slime, and dart away
When eyes perceiv'd their presence. Oh! could those
Adventure in too perilous a path,
If without other guide than the bright stars,
The love of what is lofty and divine,
Or the desire of gaining for mankind,
Now fettered and held down to poison'd food,
Its unpolluted birth-right