Eternity is written in the skies. And whose eternity?-Lorenzo! thine; Mankind's eternity. Nor faith alone, 664 Virtue grows here; here springs the sovereign cure Of almost every vice, but chiefly thre Wrath, pride, ambition, and impure desire. 365 Though not on morals bent. Ambition, Pleasuro! Those tyrants I for thee so lately fought,* Thou, to whom midnight is immoral noon, And the sun's noontide blaze prime dawn of day, 670 Not by thy climate, but capricious crime, Commencing one of our antipodes ! In thy nocturnal rove one moment halt, 675 Why from yon arch, that infinite of space, 680 With infinite of lucid orbs replete, Which set the living firmament on fire, f35 Whose love lets down these silver chains of light; To draw up man's ambition to himself, And bind our chaste affections to his throne. Thus the three viriues, least alive on earth, 690 And welcomed on heaven's coast with most applause · An humble, pure, and heavenly minded heart, Are here inspired ;-and canst thou gaze too long? Nor stands thy wrath deprived of its reproof, *In Night the Eighth. Or unupbraided by this radiant choir. 695 The planets of each system represent 700 None sins against the welfare of the whole; Affords an emblem of millennial love. Nothing in nature, much less conscious being, 705 Thus man his sovereign duty learns in this And know, of all our supercilious race, Thou most inflammable' thou wasp of men! Man's angry heart, inspected, would be found As rightly set, as are the starry spheres: 710 "Tis Nature's structure broke, thy stubborn Will Canst thou descend from converse with the skies, 715 And seize thy brother's throat?-For what?-a clod? And (kinder still!) our intellectual night. And see, Day's amiable sister sends Her invitation, in the softest rays Of mitigated lustre; courts thy sight, 720 725 Which suffers from her tyrant brother's blaze. Nor is the profit greater than the joy, If human hearts at glorious objects glow, And admiration can inspire delight. What speak I more than I this moment feel? 735 With pleasing stupor first the soul is struck, By what divine enchantment was it raised, 740 In endless speculation, and adore? 745 One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine, How boundless in magnificence and might! O what a confluence of ethereal fires, From urns unnumber'd, down the steep of heaven, 750 Nor tarries there; I feel it at my heart : Who sees it unexalted, or unawed? 755 Who sees it, and can stop at what is seen? Inanimate, all animating birth! Work worthy him who made it! worthy praise! 760 Thy praise divine !—But though man, drown'd in sleep, Withholds his homage, not alone I wake; Bright legions swarm unseen, and sing, unheard By mortal ear, the glorious Architect, In this his universal temple, hung With lustres, with innumerable lights, The temple and the preacher! O how loud 765 Dovotion! daughter of Astronomy' An undevout astronomer is mad True; all things speak a God; buc in the small 770 775 Ye starr'd and planeted inhabitants! what is it? What are these sons of wonder? Say, proud Arch, 780 Of limit, built! built in the taste of heaven! Vast concave! ample dome! wast thou design'd Not so; that thought alone thy state impairs, 785 But when I drop mine eye, and look on man, 790 The vast displosion dissipates the clouds, Shock'd ether's billows dash the distant skies; Thus (but far more) the' expanding round flies off, And leaves a mighty void, a spacious womb, 796 800 From ages dark, obtuse, and steep'd in sense : For sure to sense they truly are divine, And half absolved idolatry from guilt, Nay, turn'd it into virtue. Such it was 805 In those, who put forth all they had of man Unlost, to lift their thought, nor mounted higher · But, weak of wing, on pianets perch'd, and thought What was their highest must be their adored. But they how weak, who could no higher mount? And are there, then, Lorenzo! those to whom Unseen, and unexistent, are the same? And if incomprehensible is join'd, 811 815 Who dare pronounce it madness to believe? Of human thought? The more of wonderful 830 Man's distance how immense! On such a theme, Know this, Lorenzo! (seem it ne'er so strange) 835 The scene thou secst attests the truth I sing, How my mind, opening at this scene, imbibes 840 845 |