Aloft the birds fly ever from their dwelling,
  And men, who seek for food, at thy clear dawning. 
  E’en though a mortal stay at home and serve thee,
  Much joy to him, Dawn, goddess (bright), thou bringest.

The “morning call” might, indeed, suggest the ritual, but it proves only a morning prayer or offering.  Is this poem of a “singularly refined character,” or “preeminently sacerdotal” in appearance?  One other example (in still a different metre) may be examined, to see if it bear on its face evidence of having been made with “reference to ritual application,” or of being “liturgical from the very start.”

  To INDRA (Rig Veda, I.11).

  ’Tis Indra all (our) songs extol,
  Him huge as ocean in extent;
  Of warriors chiefest warrior he,
  Lord, truest lord for booty’s gain.

  In friendship, Indra, strong as thine
  Naught will we fear, O lord of strength;
  To thee we our laudations sing,
  The conqueror unconquered.[25]

  The gifts of Indra many are,
  And inexhaustible his help
  Whene’er to them that praise he gives
  The gift of booty rich in kine.

  A fortress-render, youthful, wise,
  Immeasurably strong was born
  Indra, the doer of every deed,
  The lightning-holder, far renowned.

  ’Twas thou, Bolt-holder, rent’st the cave
  Of Val, who held the (heavenly) kine;[26]
  Thee helped the (shining) gods, when roused
  (To courage) by the fearless one.[27]

  Indra, who lords it by his strength,
  Our praises now have loud proclaimed;
  His generous gifts a thousand are,
  Aye, even more than this are they.

This is poetry.  Not great poetry perhaps, but certainly not ground out to order, as some of the hymns appear to have been.  Yet, it may be said, why could not a poetic hymn have been written in a ritualistic environment?  But it is on the hymns themselves that one is forced to depend for the belief in the existence of ritualism, and we claim that such hymns as these, which we have translated as literally as possible, show rather that they were composed without reference to ritual application.  It must not be forgotten that the ritual, as it is known in the Br[=a]hmanas, without the slightest doubt, from the point of view of language, social conditions, and theology, represents an age that is very different to that illustrated by the mass of the hymns.  Such hymns, therefore, and only such as can be proved to have a ritualistic setting can be referred to a ritualistic age.  There is no convincing reason why one should not take the fully justified view that some of the hymns represent a freer and more natural (less priest-bound) age, as they represent a spirit freer and less mechanical than that of other hymns.  As to the question which hymns, early or late, be due to poetic feeling, and which to ritualistic mechanism or servile imitation, this can indeed be decided by a judgment based only on the literary quality, never on the accident of subsequent rubrication.