e Life."

--
60. the seventh plate of graven lead: one of the plates on which
John's Gospel was graven. It contained, it appears, the 11th chapter,
in which Jesus says to Martha, 25th verse, "I am the Resurrection
and the Life." The Boy uttered the words with such expression
as 'twere HIS mouth first proclaiming them.
--

Whereat he opened his eyes wide at once, {65}
And sat up of himself, and looked at us;
And thenceforth nobody pronounced a word:
Only, outside, the Bactrian cried his cry
Like the lone desert-bird that wears the ruff,
As signal we were safe, from time to time. {70}

--
69. the lone desert-bird: the ruff may possibly be referred to.
See Webster, s.v.
--

First he said, "If a man declared to me,
This my son Valens, this my other son,
Were James and Peter,--nay, declared as well
This lad was very John,--I could believe!
--Could, for a moment, doubtlessly believe: {75}
So is myself withdrawn into my depths,
The soul retreated from the perished brain
Whence it was wont to feel and use the world
Through these dull members, done with long ago.
Yet I myself remain; I feel myself: {80}
And there is nothing lost. Let be, awhile!"

--
76. withdrawn into my depths: into the depths of his absolute being,
of the "what Is"; see the doctrine of the trinal unity of man
which follows.
--

{This is the doctrine he was wont to teach,
How divers persons witness in each man,
Three souls which make up one soul: first, to wit,
A soul of each and all the bodily parts, {85}
Seated therein, which works, and is what Does,
And has the use of earth, and ends the man
Downward; but, tending upward for advice,
Grows into, and again is grown into
By the next soul, which, seated in the brain, {90}
Useth the first with its collected use,
And feeleth, thinketh, willeth,--is what Knows:
Which, duly tending upward in its turn,
Grows into, and again is grown into
By the last soul, that uses both the first, {95}
Subsisting whether they assist or no,
And, constituting man's self, is what Is--
And leans upon the former, makes it play,
As that played off the first: and, tending up,
Holds, is upheld by, God, and ends the man {100}
Upward in that dread point of intercourse,