NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 43 



material imagery does it not body fortli creations of its own, 

 which had no being else, and with the reflex glories of this 

 atom orb, people a universe ? Does not the spread of thought 

 in inappreciable time traverse all space like omnipresence ? 

 Has it not whilome cleft the dark-lined horizon of Now, and 

 felt the Future shiver in cold prophetic beamings on its 

 plumes ? 



Says not the sage Poet 



" Imagination which from earth to sky, 

 And from the depths of human phantasy, 

 As from a thousand prisms and mirrors fill 

 The universe with golden beams!" 



The universe ! Aye, there is its peculiar home ! Reason 

 may deal with things of earth, cope with her physical laws, 

 and teach the arm of flesh to wrest from their hard grasp 

 shelter and food : but the rarer empyrean will not sustain its 

 heavy plumes ; when the 



" Spirit, the Promethean spark, 



has passed beneath them then, possessed of an immortal 

 vigor, the self-same drooping vans bathing in silver-exhala- 

 tions at far starry fonts, take on the youth and splendor of 

 eternity, and in long, weariless flights traverse infinity, ques- 

 tioning the seraphim, front to front, of God and mysteries . 



Here is the mission of Imagination ! We are of earth, 

 earthy ; and all its grosser essences thrice winnowed through 

 life, through death, and through decay, meet once again in The 

 I Am, without extension, weight, or form, The ultimation of 

 material being buoyant and strong as angels are, aud meet 

 to bow with them before God's throne, and bide the awful 

 Future. 



And as Imagination here has wrought His will, has 

 faithfully tasked the poor wings of Reason lent it but for 



