The senses loving Earth or well or ill <br />Ravel yet more the riddle of our lot. <br />The mind is in their trammels, and lights not <br />By trimming fear-bred tales; nor does the will <br />To find in nature things which less may chill <br />An ardour that desires, unknowing what. <br />Till we conceive her living we go distraught, <br />At best but circle-windsails of a mill. <br />Seeing she lives, and of her joy of life <br />Creatively has given us blood and breath <br />For endless war and never wound unhealed, <br />The gloomy Wherefore of our battle-field <br />Solves in the Spirit, wrought of her through strife <br />To read her own and trust her down to death.<br /><br />George Meredith<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sense-and-spirit/
