Like fire from off thy finger into each,
So exquisitely perfect is the same. 
But ’t is pure fire, and they mere matter are;
It has them, not they it:  and so I choose
For man, thy last premeditated work
(If I might add a glory to the scheme)
That a third thing should stand apart from both, 210
A quality arise within his soul,
Which, intro-active, made to supervise
And feel the force it has, may view itself,
And so be happy.”  Man might live at first
The animal life:  but is there nothing more? 
In due time, let him critically learn
How he lives; and, the more he gets to know
Of his own life’s adaptabilities,
The more joy-giving will his life become. 
Thus man, who hath this quality, is best. 220

But thou, king, hadst more reasonably said: 
“Let progress end at once—­man make no step
Beyond the natural man, the better beast,
Using his senses, not the sense of sense.” 
In man there’s failure, only since he left
The lower and inconscious forms of life. 
We called it an advance, the rendering plain
Man’s spirit might grow conscious of man’s life,
And, by new lore so added to the old,
Take each step higher over the brute’s head. 230
This grew the only life, the pleasure-house,
Watch-tower and treasure-fortress of the soul,
Which whole surrounding flats of natural life
Seemed only fit to yield subsistence to;
A tower that crowns a country.  But alas,
The soul now climbs it just to perish there! 
For thence we have discovered (’t is no dream—­
We know this, which we had not else perceived)
That there’s a world of capability
For joy, spread round about us, meant for us, 240
Inviting us; and still the soul craves all,
And still the flesh replies, “Take no jot more
Than ere thou clombst the tower to look abroad! 
Nay, so much less as that fatigue has brought
Deduction to it.”  We struggle, fain to enlarge
Our bounded physical recipiency,
Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life,
Repair the waste of age and sickness:  no,
It skills not! life’s inadequate to joy,
As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take. 250
They praise a fountain in my garden here
Wherein a Naiad sends the water-bow
Thin from her tube; she smiles to see it rise. 
What if I told her, it is just a thread
From that great river which the hills shut up,
And mock her with my leave to take the same? 
The artificer has given her one small tube
Past power to widen or exchange—­what boots
To know she might spout oceans if she could? 
She cannot lift beyond her first thin thread; 260
And so a man can use but a man’s joy
While he sees God’s.  Is it for Zeus to boast,
“See, man, how happy I live, and despair—­
That I may be still happier—­for thy use!”
If this were so, we could not thank our Lord,