O Welcome Pure-eyed Faith, White

Witness This New-made World, Another Heav'n From Heaven Gate Not Farr, Founded In View On The Clear Hyaline, The Glassie Sea; Of Amplitude Almost Immense, With Starr's Numerous, And Every Starr Perhaps A World Of Destined Habitation.

If The Will, Which In The Law Of Our Nature, Were Withdrawn From Our Memory, Fancy, Understanding, And Reason, No Other Hell Could Equal, For A Spiritual Being, What We Should Then Feel From The Anarchy Of Our Powers. It Would Be Conscious Madness,--a Horrid Thought!

Virtue Could See To Do What Virtue Would By Her Own Radiant Light, Though Sun And Moon Were In The Flat Sea Sunk. And Wisdom's Self Oft Seeks To Sweet Retired Solitude, Where With Her Best Nurse Contemplation She Plumes Her Feathers And Lets Grow Her Wings, That In The Various Bustle Of Resort Were All-to Ruffled, And Sometimes Impair'd. He That Has Light Within His Own Clear Breast May Sit I' Th' Centre And Enjoy Bright Day; But He That Hides A Dark Soul And Foul Thoughts Benighted Walks Under The Midday Sun.

The End Then Of Learning Is To Repair The Ruins Of Our First Parents By Regaining To Know God Aright, And Out Of That Knowledge To Love Him, To Imitate Him, To Be Like Him, As We May The Nearest By Possessing Our Souls Of True Virtue, Which Being United To The Heavenly Grace Of Faith Makes Up The Highest Perfection.

[rhyme Is] But The Invention Of A Barbarous Age, To Set Off Wretched Matter And Lame Meter; ... Not Without Cause Therefore Some Both Italian And Spanish Poets Of Prime Note Have Rejected Rhyme, ... As Have Also Long Since Our Best English Tragedies, As... Trivial And Of No True Musical Delight; Which [truly] Consists Only In Apt Numbers, Fit Quantity Of Syllables, And The Sense Variously Drawn Out From One Verse Into Another, Not In The Jingling Sound Of Like Endings, A Fault Avoided By The Learned Ancients Both In Poetry And All Good Oratory.