The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy

32 THE MYSTICAL HYMNS
Justice, supreme in might, whose general sway
The waters of the restless deep obey.
Etherial, earthly, for the pious glad,
Sweet to the good, but bitter to the bad :
All-wise, all-bounteous, provident, divine,
A rich increase of nutriment is thine ;
And to maturity whate'er may spring,
You to decay and dissolution bring.
Father of all, great nurse, and mother kind,
Abundant, blessed, all-spermatic mind :
Mature, impetuous, from whose fertile seeds
And plastic hand this changing scene proceeds.
All-parent pow'r, in vital impulse seen,
Eternal, moving, all-sagacious queen.
By thee the world, whose parts in rapid flow,
Like swift descending streams, no respite know 30,
On an eternal hinge, with steady course,
Is whirl'd with matchless, unremitting force.
30 As the world has an extended and composite essence,
and is on this account continually sepa,rated from itself, it
can alone be connected by a certain indivisible power im-
parted to it by divinity. Again, since from a natural appe-
tite, it is perpetually moved in an orderly manner towards
good, the nature of such an appetite and motion must
originate from a divine intellect and goodness. But since,
from its material imperfection, it cannot receive the whole
of divine infinity at once, but in a way adapted to its tem- a
poral nature ; hence it can only derive it gradually and
partially, as it were by drops, in a momentary succession.
So that the corporeal world is in a continual state of flowing