No coward soul is mine
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere
I see Heaven’s glories shine
And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear
In this passage, the speaker describes the way that her "faith" effectively armors her against "fear." In seeing "Heaven's glories shine," she feels secure in the knowledge that she will be protected from "the world's storm-troubled sphere." What she means is that her faith is a connection to a divine force that gives her strength and reassurance. The use of the word "arming" suggests that the speaker's faith is an ironclad thing, impervious to doubt or detraction.
Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men’s hearts, unutterably vain,
Worthless as withered weeds
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main
In this middle stanza, the speaker harshly criticizes the weakness of other people's beliefs. She references the "thousand creeds" as "worthless" like "withered weeds." These phrases depict these "creeds" as shallow and without value. The comparison to "idlest froth amid the boundless main" implies that these lesser beliefs pale in comparison to the true religion which the speaker follows. She is comparing her faith to the main flow of a stream and these other beliefs to "froth" at the water's surface. She is explicitly saying that these other beliefs are just trivial deviations from the correct path.
With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears
In these lines, the speaker describes her perception of God. She offers a version of God that is all-encompassing, portraying a monumental force that is part of all aspects of existence. The use of the phrase "eternal years" shows that her God is one that exists beyond a human conception of time. Similarly, the lengthy list of verbs in the third line ("changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears") demonstrates the many different actions that her God "animates." This portrayal is integral to the speaker's faith, as it suggests that she has trust in a power infinitely greater than herself.
