The Lantern

Book 146

PG

The mind of thee upon these lines of ours,

Till thou see through the nature of all things,

And how exists the interwoven frame.

But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made

Completely solid, hither and thither fly

Forevermore unconquered through all time,

Now come, and whether to the sum of them

There be a limit or be none, for thee

Let us unfold; likewise what has been found

To be the wide inane, or room, or space

Wherein all things soever do go on,

Let us examine if it finite be

All and entire, or reach unmeasured round

And downward an illimitable profound.

Thus, then, the All that is is limited

In no one region of its onward paths,

For then 'tmust have forever its beyond.

And a beyond 'tis seen can never be

For aught, unless still further on there be

A somewhat somewhere that may bound the same--

So that the thing be seen still on to where

The nature of sensation of that thing

Can follow it no longer. Now because

Confess we must there's naught beside the sum,

There's no beyond, and so it lacks all end.