Not only around our infancy
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.

Lowell contrasts the romantic notion that spiritual radiance belongs chiefly to childhood with the claim that moments of revelation recur throughout ordinary life. “Infancy” evokes the idea (familiar from Romantic poetry) that children perceive a heavenliness adults lose; Lowell counters that even amid morally compromised company—“souls that cringe and plot”—people still ascend “Sinais” without recognizing it. Sinai, the biblical mountain of revelation and law, becomes a metaphor for daily, often unnoticed encounters with conscience, awe, or moral truth. The passage suggests that the sacred is not confined to exceptional times or pure settings; it can break through routine and corruption alike, though we frequently fail to name or honor it.