Fire takes the little cot beside the mere,
And leaps upon the upland village: fire
Up clambers to the castle on the crag;
And whom the fire has spared the hunger kills;
And earth draws all into her thousand graves.

"Ah me! the little linnet knows the branch
Whereon to build; the honey-pasturing bee
Knows the wild heath, and how to shape its cell;
Upon the poisonous berry no bird feeds;
So well their mother, Nature, helps her own.
Mothers forsake not;--can a Father hate?
Who knows but that He yearns--that Sire Unseen -
To clasp His children? All is sweet and sane,
All, all save man! Sweet is the summer flower,
The day-long sunset of the autumnal woods;
Fair is the winter frost; in spring the heart
Shakes to the bleating lamb. O then what thing
Might be the life secure of man with man,
The infant's smile, the mother's kiss, the love
Of lovers, and the untroubled wedded home?
This might have been man's lot. Who sent the woe?
Who formed man first? Who taught him first the ill way?
One creature, only, sins; and he the highest!

"O Higher than the highest! Thou Whose hand
Made us--Who shaped'st that hand Thou wilt not clasp,
The eye Thou open'st not, the sealed-up ear!
Be mightier than man's sin: for lo, how man
Seeks Thee, and ceases not: through noontide cave