the cherubic chaffinch

I have waited to post some of my favourite quotes from Aurora Leigh in hopes that I would have time to connect some of my thoughts around them and perhaps glean quotes from elsewhere that support and further illuminate the topic but I have come to the conclusion that it is perhpas better to write out the quotes within the amount of time I have now then not at all. If I have more time later I may come back and deal with them more thoroughly but this shall have to suffice for now.

The bird's not moved, that pecks at a spring-shoot;
Nor yet the horse, before a quarry a-graze:
But man, the two-fold creature, apprehends
The two-fold manner, in and outwardly,
And nothing in the world comes single to him,
A mere itself, - cup, column, or candlestick,
All patterns of what shall be in the Mount;
The whole temporal show related royally,
And built up to eternal significance
Through the open arms of God. 'There's nothing great
Nor small,' has said a poet of our day,
Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve
And not be thrown out by the matin's bell:
And truly, I reiterate, nothing's small!
No lilly-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim;
And, (glancing on my own thin, veined wrist,)
In such a little tremor of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more from the first similitude.

Truth, so far, in my book! a truth which draws
From all things upward.

-E.B.B.'s Aurora Leigh Book 7, lines 800-828