Written in Butler’s Sermons by Matthew Arnold

Affections, Instincts, Principles, and Powers, Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control⁠— So men, unravelling God’s harmonious whole, Rend in a thousand shreds this life of ours. Vain labour! Deep and broad, where none may see, Spring the foundations of the shadowy throne Where man’s one Nature, queen-like, sits alone, Centred in a majestic unity; And rays her powers, like sister islands, seen Linking their coral arms under the sea: Or cluster’d peaks, with plunging gulfs between Spann’d by aerial arches, all of gold, Whereo’er the chariot wheels of Life are roll’d In cloudy circles, to eternity.