{
 "id": "philip-james-bailey/proem",
 "title": "Proem",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Philip James Bailey",
 "poet_slug": "philip-james-bailey",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Festus",
 "book_slug": "festus",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 2,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1845,
  "venue": "Festus (1845)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/festusapoem07bailgoog"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/philip-james-bailey_festus",
  "file": "proem.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/festusapoem07bailgoog",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011636373"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 323,
  "n_stanzas": 15,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
  "max_indent": 1
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Without all fear, without presumption, he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who wrote this work would speak respecting it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A few brief words, and face his friend the world;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Revising, not reversing, what hath been.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Poetry is itself a thing of God;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He made His prophets poets; and the more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We feel of poesie do we become",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like God in love and power⁠—under-makers.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All great lays, equals to the minds of men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deal more or less with the Divine, and have",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For end some good of mind or soul of man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mind is this world’s, but the soul is God’s;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wise man joins them here all in his power.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The high and holy works, amid lesser lays,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stand up like churches among village cots;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And it is joy to think that in every age,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "However much the world was wrong therein,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The greatest works of mind or hand have been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Done unto God. So may they ever be!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It shows the strength of wish we have to be great,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sublime humility of might.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "True fiction hath in it a higher end",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than fact; it is the possible compared",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With what is merely positive, and gives",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the conceptive soul an inner world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A higher, ampler, Heaven than that wherein",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The nations sun themselves. In that bright state",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are met the mental creatures of the men",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose names are writ highest on the rounded crown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Fame’s triumphal arch; the shining shapes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which star the skies of that invisible land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, whosoe’er would enter, let him learn;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis not enough to draw forms fair and lively,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their conduct likewise must be beautiful;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A hearty holiness must crown the work,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As a gold cross the minster-dome, and show,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like that instonement of divinity,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the whole building doth belong to God.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And for the book before us, though it were,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What it is not, supremely little, like",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The needled angle of a high church spire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its sole end points to God the Father’s glory,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From all eternity seen; making clear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His might and love in saving sinful man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One bard shows God as He deals with states and kings;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Another, as He dealt with the first man;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Another, as with Heaven and earth and hell;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ours, as He loves to order a chance soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chosen out of the world, from first to last.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all along it is the heart of man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Emblemed, created and creative mind.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is a statued mind and naked heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which is struck out. Other bards draw men dressed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In manners, customs, forms, appearances,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Laws, places, times, and countless accidents",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of peace or polity: to him these are not;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He makes no mention, takes no compt of them:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But shows, however great his doubts, sins, trials,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whatever earthborn pleasures soil man’s soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What power soever he may gain of evil,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That still, till death, time is; that God’s great Heaven",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stands open day and night to man and spirit;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For all are of the race of God, and have",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In themselves good. The life-writ of a heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose firmest prop and highest meaning was",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hope of serving God as poet-priest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the belief that He would not put back",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love-offerings, though brought to Him by hands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unclean and earthy, e’en as fallen man’s",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must be; and most of all, the thankful show",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of His high power and goodness in redeeming",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And blessing souls that love Him, spite of sin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And their old earthy strain⁠—these are the aims,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The doctrines, truths, and staple of the story.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What theme sublimer than soul being, saved?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis the bard’s aim to show the mind-made world",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Without, within; how the soul stands with God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the unseen realities about us.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is a view of life spiritual",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And earthly. Let all look upon it, then,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the same light it was drawn and colored in;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In faith, in that the writer too hath faith,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Albeit an effect, and not a cause.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Faith is a higher faculty than reason,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though of the brightest power of revelation;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the snow-headed mountain rises o’er",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lightning, and applies itself to Heaven.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We know in day-time there are stars about us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just as at night, and name them what and where",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By sight of science; so by faith we know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Although we may not see them till our night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That spirits are about us, and believe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That, to a spirit’s eye, all Heaven may be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As full of angels as a beam of light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of motes. As spiritual, it shows all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Classes of life, perhaps, above our kind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Known to tradition, reason, or God’s word,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose bright foundations are the heights of Heaven.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As earthly, it embodies most the life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of youth, its powers, its aims, its deeds, its failings;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, as a sketch of world-life, it begins",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And ends, and rightly, in Heaven and with God;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While Heaven is also in the midst thereof.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "God, or all good, the evil of the world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And man, wherein are both, are each displayed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mortal is the model of all men.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The foibles, follies, trials, sufferings⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And manifest and manifold are they⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a young, hot, unworld-schooled heart that has",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had its own way in life, and wherein all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May see some likeness of their own⁠—’tis these",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Attract, unite, and, sunlike, concentrate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ever-moving system of our feelings.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hero is the world-man, in whose heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One passion stands for all, the most indulged.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The scenes wherein he plays his part are life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A sphere whose centre is co-heavenly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With its divine original and end.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like life, too, as a whole, the story hath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A moral, and each scene one, as in life⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One universal and peculiar truth⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shining upon it like the quiet moon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Illustrating the obscure unequal earth;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And though these scenes may seem to careless eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Irregular and rough and unconnected,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like to the stones at Stonehenge⁠—though convolved,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in primeval mystery⁠—still an use,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A meaning, and a purpose may be marked",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among them of a temple reared to God:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The meaning alway dwelling in the word,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In secret sanctity, like a golden toy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mid Beauty’s orbed bosom. Scenes of earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Heaven are mixed, as flesh and soul in man.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now, the religion of the book is this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Followed out from the book God writ of old.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All creatures being faulty by their nature,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And by God made all liable to sin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God only could atone⁠—and unto none",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Except Himself⁠—for universal sin.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is thus that God did sacrifice to God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Himself unto Himself, in the great way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Triune mystery. His death, as man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was real as our own; and as, except",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the destruction of all life, there could",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be no atonement for its sin, while life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Doth necessarily result from God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As thought and outward action from ourselves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So the atonement must be to and by Him;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which makes it justice equally with love;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For all His powers and attributes are equal,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And must make one in any act of His;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And every act of God is infinite.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He acts through all in all: the truth we know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He doth Himself inbreathe; the ill we do,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He hath atoned for; and the scriptures show",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That God doth suffer for the sins of those",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom He hath made, that are liable to sin.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In all of us He hath His agony;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We are the cross, and death of God, and grave.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Him love then all the more, and worship Him",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who lived and died, and rose from death for us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And is and reigns forever God in all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let each man think himself an act of God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His mind a thought, his life a breath of God;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And let each try, by great thoughts and good deeds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To show the most of Heaven he hath in him.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Many who read the word of life, much doubt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether salvation be of grace or faith,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Election, or repentance, or good works,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or God’s high will: reconcile all of them.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each of the persons of the Triune God",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hath had His dispensation, hath it now;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Father by His prophets, and the Son",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In His own days, by His own deeds; and now",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Spirit, by the ministry of Christ;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thus, by law, by gospel, and by grace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The scheme of God’s salvation is complete.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Salvation, then, is God-like, threefold; so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That under one or other, all may come;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By will of God alone, by faith in Christ,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And by repentance, and good works, and grace.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So there is one salvation of the Father,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One of the Son, another of the Spirit;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each, the salvation of the Three in One.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mortal in this lay is saved of will,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In manner as this hymn unfolds, which hath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just warranty for every word from God’s.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O God! Thou wondrous One in Three,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As mortals must Thee deem;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou only canst be said to be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We but at best to seem.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For Thou dost save, and Thou may’st slay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Const make a mortal soul",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In Thee eternal; in a day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wilt bring to nought the whole.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou hardenest, and Thou openest hearts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As in Thy Word is shown;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou safest and destroyest parts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By Thy right will alone.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Let down Thy grace, then, Lord! on all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom Thou wilt save to live;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh! if they stumble, stop their fall!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh! if they fall, forgive!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They are forgiven from the first,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are predestined Thine;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And though in sin they were the worst,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In Thee they are divine.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They are, and were, and will be, Lord!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In one, in Heaven, in Thee,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Yea with the Spirit, and the Word,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One God in Trinity.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "These principles and doctrines pending not",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the action of the poem here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But over and above it, influencing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nevertheless the story, as the course",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of stars enwoven with our system, earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vary the view of this life’s hemisphere,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And mingle it more palpably with Heaven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with its changeless, ceaseless, boundless God.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is thus that by creating to and from",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eternity, and multiplying ever",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His own one Being through the universe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He doth eternize happiness, and make",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Good infinite by making all in Him.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There is but one great right and good; and ill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wrong are shades thereof, not substances.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nothing can be antagonist to God.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Necessity, like electricity,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is in ourselves and all things, and no more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Without us than within us; and we live,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We of this mortal mixture, in the same law",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the pure colourless intelligence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which dwells in Heaven, and the dead Hadëan shades.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We will and act and talk of liberty;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all our wills and all our doings both",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are limited within this little life.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Free will is but necessity in play⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The clattering of the golden reins which guide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thunder-footed coursers of the sun.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ship which goes to sea informed with fire⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Obeying only its own iron force,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Reckless of adverse tide, breeze dead, or weak",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As infant’s parting breath, too faint to stir",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The feather held before it⁠—is as much",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The appointed thrall of all the elements,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the white-bosomed bark which wooes the wind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when it dies desists. And thus with man;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "However contrary he set his heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To God, he is but working out His will;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, at an infinite angle, more or less",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Obeying his own soul’s necessity.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He only hath freewill whose will is fate.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Evil and good are God’s right hand and left.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By ministry of evil good is clear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And by temptation virtue; as of yore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the grave rose God. Let this be deemed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enough to justify the portion weighed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the great spirit Evil, named herein.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If evil seem the most, yet good most is:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As water may be deep and pure below",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Although the face be filmy for a time.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And if the spirit of evil seem more in",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The work than God, it is but to work His will,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who therefore is all that the, other seems.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And evil is in almost every scene",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of life more or less forward. Above all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mystery of the Trinity is held,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose mystery is its reasonableness.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All that is said of Deity is said",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In love and reverence. Be it so conceived.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What comes before and after the great world⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deep in the secretest abyss of Light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Being’s most reserved immensity⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God alone knows eternally, who rends",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mantling Heavens with his hands; but with",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The present is communion creatural:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He liveth in the sacrament of life.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And for the soul of man delineate here⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The outline half invisible⁠—is shown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The self-sought grace, the self-aspiring truth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And natural religion of the heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Contrasting Godhood with humanity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ever; whereas the Spirit aye unites.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Temptation, and its workings in the heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose faint and false resistance but assists⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ambition, thirst of secret lore, joy, love⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Riverlike, doubling sometimes on itself⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Adventure, pleasure, travel heavenly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And earthly, friendship, passion, poesie,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Viewed ever in their spiritual end⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And power, celestial happiness and earth’s",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Millenial foretaste, ill annihilate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The restoration of the angels lost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And one salvation universal given",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To all create⁠—all these, related, form,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With much beside, the body of the work:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The islands, seas, and mainland of its orb.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thus much then for this book. It aims to mark",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The various belief as well as doubts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which hold or search by turns the mind of youth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unresting anywhere. Its heresies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If such they be, are charitable ones;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For they who read not in the blest belief",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That all souls may be saved, read to no end.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We were made to be saved. We are of God.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor bates the book one tittle of the truth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To smoothe its way to favour with the fearful.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All rests with those who read. A work or thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is what each makes it to himself, and may",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be full of great dark meanings, like the sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With shoals of life rushing; or like the air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Benighted with the wing of the wild dove,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sweepng miles broad o’er the far western woods,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With mighty glimpses of the central light⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or may be nothing⁠—bodiless, spiritless.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now therefore to his work and to the world",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The writer bids, God speed! It matters not",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If they agree or differ. Each perchance",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May bear true witness to another end.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let then what hath been, be. It boots not here",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To palliate misdoings. ’Twere less toil",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To build Colossus than to hew a hill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into a statue. Hail and farewell, all!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}