"Shall human reason frame a rule to draw / Before its puny court the cognizance / Of a Divine eternal ordinance / With warrants of its own?"
— Frere, John Hookham (1769-1846)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Date
November 1824
Metaphor
"Shall human reason frame a rule to draw / Before its puny court the cognizance / Of a Divine eternal ordinance / With warrants of its own?"
Metaphor in Context
With Him the past abides--the eternal past--
The future is fulfill'd--and first and last
Stand obvious to the immeasurable sense,
Mere digits in the vast circumference.
Thro' chinks and crevices we dimly trace
Existence in the forms of time and place;
Predicamental loopholes, poor and small,
That bound our vision through the dungeon-wall:
The future, or the present, or the past,
The there or here--a simultaneous, vast
Infinite omnipresence--First and last
Centre in Him, the ineffably sublime,
Beyond all thought or language. If a crime--
I feel it or I fear it even thus,
In words of human usage to discuss
The Eternal Essence, and delineate
Infinitude--Shall the puny prate
Be suffer'd, which would limit and confine,
In an imaginary moral line,
The compass of eternal power and law?
Shall human reason frame a rule to draw
Before its puny court the cognizance
Of a Divine eternal ordinance
With warrants of its own? Not more uncouth
The fines or forfeits in a barber's booth,
Or regulations in a billiard-room--
If quoted and applied to guide the doom
Of ermined judges in the learned hall
Bent on a serious plea--than those you call
Your axioms absolute and general.
The future is fulfill'd--and first and last
Stand obvious to the immeasurable sense,
Mere digits in the vast circumference.
Thro' chinks and crevices we dimly trace
Existence in the forms of time and place;
Predicamental loopholes, poor and small,
That bound our vision through the dungeon-wall:
The future, or the present, or the past,
The there or here--a simultaneous, vast
Infinite omnipresence--First and last
Centre in Him, the ineffably sublime,
Beyond all thought or language. If a crime--
I feel it or I fear it even thus,
In words of human usage to discuss
The Eternal Essence, and delineate
Infinitude--Shall the puny prate
Be suffer'd, which would limit and confine,
In an imaginary moral line,
The compass of eternal power and law?
Shall human reason frame a rule to draw
Before its puny court the cognizance
Of a Divine eternal ordinance
With warrants of its own? Not more uncouth
The fines or forfeits in a barber's booth,
Or regulations in a billiard-room--
If quoted and applied to guide the doom
Of ermined judges in the learned hall
Bent on a serious plea--than those you call
Your axioms absolute and general.
Provenance
Searching "rule" and "reason" in HDIS (Poetry); found again searching "court" and "reason"
Citation
Frere, John Hookham, Aristophanes, Theognis, Bartle Frere, and William Edward Frere. The Works: In Verse and Prose. Vol. I. London: Pickering, 1872.
Date of Entry
06/15/2004
Date of Review
05/20/2009
