Correspondences
Correspondences
Original Text
Poems (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1844): 41-42. Internet Archive
1All things in nature are beautiful types to the soul that can read them;
2Nothing exists upon earth, but for unspeakable ends,
3Every object that speaks to the senses was meant for the spirit;
4Nature is but a scroll; God's handwriting thereon.
5Ages ago when man was pure, ere the flood overwhelmed him,
6While in the image of God every soul yet lived,
7Every thing stood as a letter or word of a language familiar,
8Telling of truths which now only the angels can read.
9Lost to man was the key of those sacred hieroglyphics,
10Stolen away by sin, till by heaven restored.
11Now with infinite pains we here and there spell out a letter,
12Here and there will the sense feebly shine through the dark.
13When we perceive the light that breaks through the visible symbol,
14What exultation is ours! We the discovery have made!
15Yet is the meaning the same as when Adam lived sinless in Eden,
16Only long hidden it slept, and now again is revealed.
17Man unconsciously uses figures of speech every moment,
18Little dreaming the cause why to such terms he is prone,
19Little dreaming that every thing here has its own correspondence
20Folded within its form, as in the body the soul.
21Gleams of the mystery fall on us still, though much is forgotten,
22And through our commonest speech, illumine the path of our thoughts.
23Thus doth the lordly sun shine forth a type of the Godhead;
24Wisdom and love the beams that stream on a darkened world.
25Thus do the sparkling waters flow, giving joy to the desert,
26And the fountain of life opens itself to the thirst.
27Thus doth the word of God distil like the rain and the dew-drops;
28Thus doth the warm wind breathe like to the Spirit of God;
29And the green grass and the flowers are signs of the regeneration.
30O thou Spirit of Truth, visit our minds once more,
31Give us to read in letters of light the language celestial
32Written all over the earth, written all over the sky --
33Thus may we bring our hearts once more to know our Creator,
34Seeing in all things around, types of the Infinite Mind.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire / Sharine Leung
RPO Edition
2012
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