Seek not, in outward things,
The origin and birth
Of animal, and plant, and seed,
In air, or sea, or earth;
In vain their history we trace
Through ages vast, through time and space.

From One Eternal Mind
Have come the forms we see;
Those countless forms, whose difference make
Nature's variety;
Each stamped with impress of its kind,
And each to its own sphere confined.

No atom but obeys
The One Creative Will;
Whose Word, beneficent and good,
The universe doth fill;
Without which naught was made, or born,
Which was before Creation's morn.

Globule and secret cell
A history contain;
Which Science, with its marvellous powers,
Still seeks to read in vain;
To the All Perfect Mind alone
Their origin, and types are known.

In Nature's primal plan
Prophetic types we see;
Which lead us onward up to Man,
Their end, and destiny;
A unity of mind and thought
Through every form and being wrought.

But, in her labyrinth lost,
Too oft we miss the clue;
Which, midst her ever varying forms,
Runs through the old, and new;
And in phenomena we rest,
As of the truth itself possest.

Rest not, O Soul, till thou
That clue, that thread shall find;
Without whose constant, guiding help,
We wander dark and blind;
In endless mazes led astray,
Missing the strait and narrow way.

For this still upward leads;
Steep is the mount of Thought;
Which we, aspiring still, must climb,
Till to the summit brought;
Where, with clear vision, we discern
Nature's vast realm, her mysteries learn.