Still the child betrays the passions of the man, and there are hymns, though few in number, in the Veda, so full of thought and speculation that at this early period no poet in any other nation could have conceived them.

Nor Aught nor Naught existed; yon bright sky / Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above. / What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed? / Was it the water's fathomles abyss? / There was not death — yet was there naught immortal, / There was no confine betwixt day and night; / The only One breathed breathless by itself, / Other than It there nothing since has been. / Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled / In gloom profound — an ocean without light — / The germ that still lay covered in the husk / Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat. / Then first came love upon it, the new spring / Of mind — yea, poets in their hearts discerned, / Pondering, this bond between created things / And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth / Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven? / Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose — / Nature below, and power and will above — / Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here, / Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang? /