V.

"One boundless Mind first Cause of All—
That mighty fact not Physics—no,"
Nor Metaphysics can o'erthrow;
Our subtlest faculties impress
Our Reason favours it, no less.
So far seems plain. But must we call
That Cause all good—that infinite Will
Omnipotent? with Evil still
So rampant? even the babe unborn
By reckless Sires' diseases torn?
The God-made cat before your hearth
Torturing the God-made mouse for mirth?

"Well, these things outrage all our sense
Of Justice—Love—Benevolence
Or Veneration; moral powers
That most exalt this soul of ours
In Being's scale; the organs, these
High sentiments, whereby alone
Perhaps 'twas meant that we should seize,
Become impressed by—apprehend
As much as need be dimly known
Of Essences that Sense transcend;
These instincts—surely in us made
Ere birth in every varying grade—
Joined to man's structure from the first
(That brain, which they so shape and mould—
By them, not they by it, controlled)
Surely as hunger is or thirst—
These instincts, so God-made, we say—
page 334 Make what allowances you list
For Evil's uses, ends, excuses—
Are jarred, revolted every way
That any Evil should exist!

"What then! why should the Power that gave
To man that menial standard, found
As true, complete, as wish could crave
To gauge the sensuous Universe
As its majestic shows unfurled—
Be deemed to mock, as stinted, bound
By some defect, some flaw unsound,
Man's dearer need with any worse
A standard of his moral World?
Our Love, distinctly his own dower
As is that calculating power
As surely our one gauge, the best—
His spiritual Creation's test;
Why should it be less true, complete?
Why should it only prove a cheat?