INSPIRATION

   What else is spirit than the very breath
   That animates our hearts and keeps from death
   The body that sustains our consciousness?
   If any more than that, we can but guess.

   Our sciences do not admit of mind,
   Some nothingness by which we are designed,
   For only what is physical is real,
   Say bland materialists, devoid of zeal.

   Yet can we not infer some principle,
   Some premise that is more than figural
   Declaring there is something that transcends
   The physical and points to higher ends?

        Whence comes this very verse if not from mind,
        By which ideas and meters are aligned?

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