XVI.

And let not this seem strange: the devotee 370 Lives not in earth, but in his ecstasy; Around him days and worlds are heedless driven, His Soul is gone before his dust to Heaven. Is Love less potent? No--his path is trod, Alike uplifted gloriously to God; Or linked to all we know of Heaven below, The other better self, whose joy or woe Is more than ours; the all-absorbing flame Which, kindled by another, grows the same,[fo] Wrapt in one blaze; the pure, yet funeral pile, 380 Where gentle hearts, like Bramins, sit and smile. How often we forget all time, when lone, Admiring Nature's universal throne, Her woods--her wilds--her waters--the intense Reply of _hers_ to our intelligence! Live not the Stars and Mountains? Are the Waves Without a spirit? Are the dropping caves Without a feeling in their silent tears?[393] No, no;--they woo and clasp us to their spheres, Dissolve this clog and clod of clay before 390 Its hour, and merge our soul in the great shore. Strip off this fond and false identity!-- Who thinks of self when gazing on the sky? And who, though gazing lower, ever thought, In the young moments ere the heart is taught Time's lesson, of Man's baseness or his own? All Nature is his realm, and Love his throne.