And whilst distraught ambition compasses,
    And is encompassed, while as craft deceives,
    And is deceived:  whilst man doth ransack man,
    And builds on blood, and rises by distress;
    And th’ Inheritance of desolation leaves
    To great-expecting hopes:  He looks thereon,
    As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye,
    And bears no venture in Impiety.

    Thus, Lady, fares that man that hath prepared
    A rest for his desire; and sees all things
    Beneath him; and hath learned this book of man,
    Full of the notes of frailty; and compared
    The best of glory with her sufferings: 
    By whom, I see, you labour all you can
    To plant your heart! and set your thoughts as near
    His glorious mansion as your powers can bear.’

520. Spires.

    And spires whose “silent finger points to Heaven."’ [’Excursion,’
    Book vi. l. 19.]

An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire-steeples, which as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars, and sometimes, when they reflect the brazen light of a rich though rainy sunset, appear like a pyramid of flame burning heaven-ward.  See ’The Friend,’ by S. T. Coleridge, No. 14, p. 223.

521. Sycamores.

    ’That sycamore which annually holds
    Within its shade as in a stately tent.’ [’Excursion,’ Book vii. ll. 622-3.]

      ’This sycamore oft musical with Bees;
      Such tents the Patriarch loved.’  S.T.  COLERIDGE.

522. The Transitory.

    ‘Perish the roses and the flowers of Kings.’
     [’Excursion,’ Book vii. l. 990.]

The ‘Transit gloria mundi’ is finely expressed in the Introduction to the Foundation-charters of some of the ancient Abbeys.  Some expressions here used are taken from that of the Abbey of St. Mary’s, Furness, the translation of which is as follows: 

’Considering every day the uncertainty of life, that the roses and flowers of Kings, Emperors, and Dukes, and the crowns and palms of all the great, wither and decay; and that all things, with an uninterrupted course, tend to dissolution and death:  I therefore,’ &c.

523. Dyer and ’The Fleece.’

     —–­’Earth has lent
    Her waters, Air her breezes.’ [’Excursion,’ Book viii. ll. 112-3.]

In treating this subject, it was impossible not to recollect, with gratitude, the pleasing picture, which, in his Poem of the Fleece, the excellent and amiable Dyer has given of the influences of manufacturing industry upon the face of this Island.  He wrote at a time when machinery was first beginning to be introduced, and his benevolent heart prompted him to augur from it nothing but good.  Truth has compelled me to dwell upon the baneful effects arising out of an ill-regulated and excessive application of powers so admirable in themselves.