Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void;
Thou, Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

There remains the plain man to be dealt with. What, he reiterates, has
the poet to say for his orthodoxy? If he can combine his poetical
illusions about the divinity of nature and the superlative and awesome
importance of the poet himself with regular attendance at church; if
these phantasies do not prevent him from sincerely and thoughtfully
repeating the Apostle's creed, well and good. The plain man's religious
demands upon the poet are really not excessive, yet the poet, from the
romantic period onward, has taken delight in scandalizing him.

In the eighteenth century poets seem not to have been averse to
placating their enemies by publishing their attendance upon the
appointed means of grace. Among the more conservative poets, this
attitude lasted over into the earlier stages of the romantic movement.
So late a poet as Bowles delighted to stress the "churchman's ardor" of
the poet. [Footnote: See his verse on Southey and Milton.] Southey also
was ready to exhibit his punctilious orthodoxy. Yet poor Southey was the
unwitting cause of the impiety of his brothers for many years, inasmuch
as Byron's _A Vision of Judgment,_ with its irresistible satire on
Southey, sounded the death-knell of the narrowly religious poet.