Analysis of Queen Mab: Part VI (excerpts)

"Throughout these infinite orbs of mingling light,
   Of which yon earth is one, is wide diffus'd
   A Spirit of activity and life,
   That knows no term, cessation, or decay;
   That fades not when the lamp of earthly life,
   Extinguish'd in the dampness of the grave,
   Awhile there slumbers, more than when the babe
   In the dim newness of its being feels
   The impulses of sublunary things,
   And all is wonder to unpractis'd sense:
   But, active, steadfast and eternal, still
   Guides the fierce whirlwind, in the tempest roars,
   Cheers in the day, breathes in the balmy groves,
   Strengthens in health, and poisons in disease;
   And in the storm of change, that ceaselessly
   Rolls round the eternal universe and shakes
   Its undecaying battlement, presides,
   Apportioning with irresistible law
   The place each spring of its machine shall fill;
   So that when waves on waves tumultuous heap
   Confusion to the clouds, and fiercely driven
   Heaven's lightnings scorch the uprooted ocean-fords,
   Whilst, to the eye of shipwreck'd mariner,
   Lone sitting on the bare and shuddering rock,
   All seems unlink'd contingency and chance,
   No atom of this turbulence fulfils
   A vague and unnecessitated task,
   Or acts but as it must and ought to act.
   Even the minutest molecule of light,
   That in an April sunbeam's fleeting glow
   Fulfils its destin'd, though invisible work,
   The universal Spirit guides; nor less,
   When merciless ambition, or mad zeal,
   Has led two hosts of dupes to battlefield,
   That, blind, they there may dig each other's graves,
   And call the sad work glory, does it rule
   All passions: not a thought, a will, an act,
   No working of the tyrant's moody mind,
   Nor one misgiving of the slaves who boast
   Their servitude to hide the shame they feel,
   Nor the events enchaining every will,
   That from the depths of unrecorded time
   Have drawn all-influencing virtue, pass
   Unrecogniz'd or unforeseen by thee,
   Soul of the Universe! eternal spring
   Of life and death, of happiness and woe,
   Of all that chequers the phantasmal scene
   That floats before our eyes in wavering light,
   Which gleams but on the darkness of our prison,
       Whose chains and massy walls
       We feel, but cannot see.

"Spirit of Nature! all-sufficing Power,
   Necessity! thou mother of the world!
   Unlike the God of human error, thou
   Requir'st no prayers or praises; the caprice
   Of man's weak will belongs no more to thee
   Than do the changeful passions of his breast
   To thy unvarying harmony: the slave,
   Whose horrible lusts spread misery o'er the world,
    And the good man, who lifts with virtuous pride
   His being in the sight of happiness
   That springs from his own works; the poison-tree,
   Beneath whose shade all life is wither'd up,
   And the fair oak, whose leafy dome affords
   A temple where the vows of happy love
   Are register'd, are equal in thy sight:
   No love, no hate thou cherishest; revenge
   And favouritism, and worst desire of fame
   Thou know'st not: all that the wide world contains
   Are but thy passive instruments, and thou
   Regard'st them all with an impartial eye,
   Whose joy or pain thy nature cannot feel,
       Because thou hast not human sense,
       Because thou art not human mind.

"Yes! when the sweeping storm of time
   Has sung its death-dirge o'er the ruin'd fanes
   And broken altars of the almighty Fiend
   Whose name usurps thy honours, and the blood
   Through centuries clotted there has floated down
   The tainted flood of ages, shalt thou live
   Unchangeable! A shrine is rais'd to thee,
       Which, nor the tempest-breath of time,
       Nor the interminable flood
       Over earth's slight pageant rolling,
          Availeth to destroy--
   The sensitive extension of the world.
       That wondrous and eternal fane,
   Where pain and pleasure, good and evil join,
   To do the will of strong necessity,
       And life, in multitudinous shapes,
   Still pressing forward where no term can be,
       Like hungry and unresting flame
   Curls round the eternal columns of its strength."