L'univers tout entier réfléchit ton image,
Et mon âme à son tour réfléchit l'univers.
Ma pensée, embrassant tes attributs divers,
Partout autour de toi te découvre et t'adore,
Se contemple soi même, et t'y découvre encore ;
Ainsi l'astre du jour éclate dans les cieux,
Se réfléchit dans l'onde, et se peint à mes yeux.
C'est peu de croire en toi, bonté, beauté suprême !
Je te cherche partout, j'aspire à toi, je t'aime !
Mon âme est un rayon de lumière et d'amour
Qui, du foyer divin détaché pour un jour,
De désirs dévorants loin de toi consumée,
Brûle de remonter à sa source enflammée,
Je respire, je sens, je pense, j'aime en toi!
Ce monde qui te cache est transparent pour moi ;
C'est toi que je découvre au fond de la nature,
C'est toi que je bénis dans toute créature.
Pour m'approcher de toi, j'ai fui dans ces déserts :
Là, quand l'aube, agitant son voile dans les airs,
Entr'ouvre l'horizon qu'un jour naissant colore,
Et sème sur les monts les perles de l'aurore,
Pour moi c'est ton regard qui, du divin séjour,
S'entr'ouvre sur le monde et lui répand le jour.

Salvation, principle and end of Thyself and of the world!
Thou who with a glance renderest immensity fruitful,
Soul of the universe, God, Father, Creator,

Under all these different names I believe in Thee, Lord,
And without having need to hear Thy word,

I read in the face of the heavens my glorious symbol.

Extension reveals to my eye Thy greatness,

The earth Thy goodness, the stars Thy splendor.
Thou Thyself art produced in Thy shining work!

All the entire universe reflects Thy image,

And my soul in its turn reflects the universe.

My thought embracing Thy diverse attributes,

Everywhere around Thee discovers Thee and adores Thee;
Contemplates itself, and yet discovers Thee there :
Thus the day star shines in the heavens,

Is reflected in the wave, and is painted on my eye.

It is little to believe in Thee, goodness, supreme beauty;
I seek Thee everywhere, I aspire to Thee, I love Thee?

My soul is a ray of light and of love,

Which detached from the Divine centre for a day,
Consumed with devouring desires far from Thee,
Burns to re-ascend to its burning source.

I breathe, I feel, I think, I love in Thee!

That world which conceals Thee is transparent for me.
It is Thou whom I discover at the foundation of nature,

It is Thou whom I bless in every creature.

To approach Thee, I have fled into the deserts;
There, when the day-break, waving its veil in the air,
Half-opens the horizon which colors a rising day,
And sows upon the mountains the pearls of the dawn,
For me it is Thy glance which from the Divine dwelling
Opens upon the world and sheds over it the day.

These lines are from the poem Dieu, addressed to the brave

Abbé Lamennais :

Comme une goutte d'eau dans l'Océan versée,
L'infini dans son sein absorb ma pensée ;
Là, reine de l'espace et de l'éternité,
Elle ose mesurer le temps, l'immensité,
Aborder le néant, parcourir l'existence,
Et concevoir de Dieu l'inconcevable essence.
Mais sitôt que je veux peindre ce que je sens,
Toute parole expire en efforts impuissants:
Mon âme croit parler; ma langue embarassée
Frappe l'air de vains sons; ombre de ma pensée.
Dieu fit pour les esprits deux langages divers :
En sons articulés l'un vole dans les airs;
Ce langage borné s'apprend parmi les hommes ;
Il suffit aux besoins de l'exil où nous sommes,
Et, suivant des mortels les destins inconstants,
Change avec les climats ou passe avec les temps.
L'autre, éternel, sublime, universel, immense,
Est le langage inné de toute intelligence;
Ce n'est point un son mort dans les airs répandu,
C'est un verbe vivant dans le cœur entendu ;
On l'entend, on l'explique, on le parle avec l'âme ;
Ce langage senti touche, illumine, enflamme:
De ce que l'âme êprouve interprètes brûlants,
Il n'a que des soupirs, des ardeurs, des élans;
C'est la langue du ciel que parle la prière,
Et que le tendre amour comprend seul sur la terre.
Aux pures régions où j'aime à m'envoler,
L'enthousiasme aussi vient me la révéler;

Lui seul est mon flambeau dans cette nuit profonde,
Et mieux que la raison il m'explique le monde.
Viens donc il est mon guide, et je veux t'en servir
A ses ailes de feu, viens, laisse-toi ravir.

Déjà l'ombre du monde à nos regards s'efface;
Et, dans l'ordre éternel de la réalité,

Nous voilà face à face avec la vérité !

Cet astre universel, sans déclin, sans aurore,

C'est Dieu, c'est ce grand tout, qui soi-même s'adore!
Il est ; tout est en lui: l'immensité, les temps,

De son être infini sont les purs éléments;
L'espace est son séjour,, l'éternité son âge;
Le jour est son regard, le monde est son image:
Tout l'univers subsist à l'ombre de sa main ;
L'être à flots éternels découlant de son sein,
Comme un fleuve nourri par cette source immense,
S'en échappe, et revient finir où tout commence.
Sans borne comme lui, ses ouvrages parfaits
Bénissent en naissant la main qui les a faits :
Il peuple l'infini chaque fois qu'il respire;
Pour lui, vouloir c'est faire, exister c'est produire !
Tirant tout de soi seul, rapportant tout à soi,
Sa volonté suprême est sa suprême loi.
Mais cette volonté, sans ombre et sans faiblesse,
Est à la fois puissance, ordre, équité, sagesse.

302

THE GOD OF PLATO, CHRIST'S GOD.

Sur tout ce qui peut être il l'exerce à son gré;
Le néant jusqu'à lui s'élève par degré:
Intelligence, amour, force, beauté, jeunesse,
Sans s'épuiser jamais, il peut donner sans cesse ;
Et, eomblant le néant de ses dons précieux,

Des derniers rangs de l'etre il peut tirer des dieux !
Mais ces dieux de sa main, ces fils de sa puissance,
Mesurent d'eux à lui l'éternelle distance,
Tendant par la nature à l'être qui les fit:
Il est leur fin à tous, et lui seul se suffit!
Voilà, voilà Dieu que tout esprit adore,
Qu' Abraham a servi, que rêvait Pythagore,
Que Socrate annonçait, qu'entrevoyait Platon;
Ce Dieu que l'univers révèle à la raison,
Que la justice attend, que l'infortune espère,
Et que le Christ enfin vint montrer à la terre !
Ce n'est plus lá ce Dieu par l'homme fabriqué,
Ce Dieu par l' imposture à l'erreur expliqué,
Ce Dieu défiguré par la main des faux prêtres,
Qu'adoraient en tremblant nos crédules ancêtres :
Il est seul, il est un, il est juste, il est bon;

La terre voit son œuvre, et le ciel sait son nom!

As a drop of water in the full ocean,

The Infinite in His bosom absorbs my thought;
There, queen of space and of eternity,

It dares to measure time, and immensity,

To approach the nothing, to run over existence,

And to conceive the inconceivable essence of God.

But so soon as I wish to picture what I feel,

Every word expires in powerless efforts;

My soul believes that it speaks; my embarrassed tongue
Strikes the air with vain sounds; shadow of my thought.
God made for souls two different languages;
In articulated sounds the one flies into the air;
This limited language is learned among men ;
It suffices for the wants of the exile in which we are,
And following the uncertain destinies of mortals,
Changes with the climates, or passes with the times,
The other, eternal, sublime, universal immense,
Is the innate language of all intelligence;

It is not a dead sound cast into air,

It is a living word in the understanding heart;

We know it, we explain it, we speak it with the soul;
This language felt, touches, illumines, inflames :
Burning interpreter of what the soul experiences,
It has only sighs, ardors, raptures,

This is the language of heaven which prayer speaks,
And which on earth tender love alone comprehends.

In the pure regions whither I love to fly,
Enthusiasm also comes to reveal it to me;

It alone is my torch in this profound night;

And better than reason it explains to me the world,

Come then it is my guide, and I wish to serve thee with it;

On the wings of fire, come, suffer thyself to be ravished.
Already the shadow of the world is effaced from our view;
We escape from time, we leap over space;

SHELLEY.

And in the eternal order of reality,
We are here face to face with truth.

This universal star, without setting, without rising,
This is God, this is the great All who worships Himself;
He is, All is in Him: immensity, times

Are the pure elements of His infinite being;

Space in His dwelling-eternity His age;

The whole universe subsists by the shadow of His hand,

Being in eternal billows flowing from His bosom

Like a river fed by this immense source

Escapes from Him, and returns to finish where all begins.

Like Himself without bounds, His perfect works

Bless as they are produced, the hand which has made them;

He peoples the infinite each time that He breathes;

For Him to will is to do, to exist is to produce!

Drawing everything from Himself, relating all to Himself.
His Supreme will is His Supreme law,

But this will without shadow and without weakness,

Is at once power, order, equity, wisdom.

Upon all which can be, He exercises it at His pleasure,
The nothing is by degrees clevated to Himself:
Intelligence, love, power, beauty, youth,

He can give unceasingly, without exhausting Himself.
And filling the nothing with His precious gifts
From the last ranks of being He can draw the gods.
But these gods of his hand; these sons of his might,
Measure from them to Him, eternal distance,

Tending by nature to the Being who has made them.
He is the end of all things, and He alone suffices Himself.
Behold! behold the God whom every spirit adores ;
Whom Abraham served, of whom Pythagoras dreamed,
Whom Socrates announced, with whom Plato conversed;
That God whom the universe reveals to reason,
Whom justice waits for, whom the unfortunate hopes for,
And whom at length Christ came to show to the world;
This is not that Deity fabricated by man,

That God ill explained by imposture

That God, disfigured by the hands of false priests,

Whom our credulous ancestors trembling worshipped;

He alone is, He is One, He is just, He is good;

The earth sees His work, and the heaven knows His name.

303

Among English poets, the representative Pantheist is Shelley. He denies explicitly the existence of a personal or creative God.

Infinity within,

Infinity without, belie creation

The interminable spirit it contains

Is nature's only God.

His God is the soul, life, or activity, of nature.

Throughout the varied and eternal world,

Soul is the only element, the block
That for immortal ages has remained
The moveless pillar of a mountain's weight,
Is active living spirit.

304

SHELLEY'S SPIRIT OF NATURE PERSONAL.

Spirit of nature! here!

In this interminable wilderness
Of worlds, at whose immensity
Even soaring fancy staggers.

Here is thy fitting temple,
Yet not the lightest leaf

That quivers to the passing breeze
Is less instinct with Thee.

Yet not the meanest worm

That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead
Less shares thy eternal breath.

Spirit of nature ! thou!
Imperishable as this scene,

Here is thy fitting temple.

Throughout these infinite orbs of mingling light,
Of which yon earth is one, is wide diffused

A spirit of activity and life,

That knows no term, cessation, or decay;
That fades not when the lamp of earthly life,
Extinguished in the dampness of the grave,
Awhile there slumbers, more than when the babe
In the dim newness of its being feels
The impulse of sublunary things,
And all is wonder to unpractised sense :
But, active, stedfast, and eternal, still

Guides the fierce whirlwind, in the tempest roars,
Cheers in the day, breathes in the balmy groves,
Strengthens in health, and poisons in disease;
And in the storm of change, that ceaselessly
Rolls round the eternal universe, and shakes
Its undecaying battlement, presides,
Apportioning with irresistible law

The place each spring of its machine shall find.

In the following lines this Spirit of Nature' seems to be identified with 'Necessity':

Shelley denies that he 'deifies the principle of the universe.' He calls the Divinity a pervading Spirit, co-eternal with the universe; and yet unconsciously as it were, he acknowledges a personal and creative God, possessing will, and to whose wisdom the world owes its happiness and its harmonies :

Spirit of Nature! thou

Life of interminable multitudes;