For light celestial, and abortive fell. 
Whence needs each lesser nature is but scant
Receptacle unto that Good, which knows
No limit, measur’d by itself alone. 
Therefore your sight, of th’ omnipresent Mind
A single beam, its origin must own
Surpassing far its utmost potency. 
The ken, your world is gifted with, descends
In th’ everlasting Justice as low down,
As eye doth in the sea; which though it mark
The bottom from the shore, in the wide main
Discerns it not; and ne’ertheless it is,
But hidden through its deepness.  Light is none,
Save that which cometh from the pure serene
Of ne’er disturbed ether:  for the rest,
’Tis darkness all, or shadow of the flesh,
Or else its poison.  Here confess reveal’d
That covert, which hath hidden from thy search
The living justice, of the which thou mad’st
Such frequent question; for thou saidst—­’A man
Is born on Indus’ banks, and none is there
Who speaks of Christ, nor who doth read nor write,
And all his inclinations and his acts,
As far as human reason sees, are good,
And he offendeth not in word or deed. 
But unbaptiz’d he dies, and void of faith. 
Where is the justice that condemns him? where
His blame, if he believeth not?’—­What then,
And who art thou, that on the stool wouldst sit
To judge at distance of a thousand miles
With the short-sighted vision of a span? 
To him, who subtilizes thus with me,
There would assuredly be room for doubt
Even to wonder, did not the safe word
Of scripture hold supreme authority. 
     “O animals of clay!  O spirits gross I
The primal will, that in itself is good,
Hath from itself, the chief Good, ne’er been mov’d. 
Justice consists in consonance with it,
Derivable by no created good,
Whose very cause depends upon its beam.” 
     As on her nest the stork, that turns about
Unto her young, whom lately she hath fed,
While they with upward eyes do look on her;
So lifted I my gaze; and bending so
The ever-blessed image wav’d its wings,
Lab’ring with such deep counsel.  Wheeling round
It warbled, and did say:  “As are my notes
To thee, who understand’st them not, such is
Th’ eternal judgment unto mortal ken.” 
     Then still abiding in that ensign rang’d,
Wherewith the Romans over-awed the world,
Those burning splendours of the Holy Spirit
Took up the strain; and thus it spake again: 
“None ever hath ascended to this realm,
Who hath not a believer been in Christ,
Either before or after the blest limbs
Were nail’d upon the wood.  But lo! of those
Who call ‘Christ, Christ,’ there shall be many found,
 In judgment, further off from him by far,
Than such, to whom his name was never known. 
Christians like these the Ethiop shall condemn: 
When that the two assemblages shall part;
One rich eternally, the other poor. 
     “What may the