The Ways of the Spirit [2]

The Ways of the Spirit - II

Aroused from Matter's sleep when Nature strove
    Into the half lights of the embodied mind
    She left not all imprisonment behind
But trailed an ever lengthening chain, and the love

Of shadows and half lustres went with her.
    In timid mood were shaped our instruments;
    Horizon and surface barriered thought and sense,
Forbidden to look too high, too deep to peer.

An algebra of signs, a scheme of sense,
    A symbol language without depth or wings,
    A power to handle deftly outward things
Are our scant earnings of intelligence.

Yet towards a greater Nature paths she keeps
Threading the grandeur of her climbing steeps.