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.
Lorenzo! thou canst wake at midnight too,

365

Though not on morals bent. Ambition, Pleasuro!

Those tyrants I for thee so lately fought,*
Afford their harass'd slaves but slender rest.

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,
"Twixt stage and stage of riot and cabal,
And lift thine eye (if bold an eye to lift,
If bold to meet the face of injured Heaven)
To yonder stars: for other ends they shine
Than to light revellers from shame to shame,
And thus be made accomplices in guilt.

675

Why from yon arch, that infinite of space,

680

With infinite of lucid orbs replete,

Which set the living firmament on fire,
At the first glance, in such an overwhelm
Of wonderful on man's astonish'd sight
Rushes Omnipotence ?-To curb our pride,
Our reason rouse, and lead it to that Power

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
Kind neighbours; mutual amity prevails;
Sweet interchange of rays, received, return'd,
Enlightening and enlighten'd! all, at once,
Attracting and attracted! patriot-like,

700

None sins against the welfare of the whole;
But their reciprocal, unselfish aid,

Affords an emblem of millennial love.

Nothing in nature, much less conscious being,
Was e'er created solely for itself.

705

Thus man his sovereign duty learns in this
Material picture of benevolence.

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
Breeds all that uncelestial discord there.
Wilt thou not feel the bias Nature gave?

Canst thou descend from converse with the skies, 715

And seize thy brother's throat?-For what?-a clod?
An inch of earth? The planets cry, 'Forbear.'
They chase our double darkness, Nature's gloom,

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.
Night grants thee the full freedom of the skies,
Nor rudely reprimands thy lifted eye;
With gain and joy, she bribes thee to be wise.
Night opes the noblest scenes, and sheds an awe
Which gives those venerable scenes full weight,
And deep reception in the' entender'd heart;
While light peeps through the darkness like a spy, 730
And darkness shows its grandeur by the light!

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,
(Stupor ordain'd to make her truly wise!)
Then into transport starting from her trance
With love and admiration how she glows!
This gorgeous apparatus! this display!
This ostentation of creative power!
This theatre !-what eye can take it in?

By what divine enchantment was it raised,
For minds of the first magnitude to launch

740

In endless speculation, and adore?

745

One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine,
And light us deep into the Deity;

How boundless in magnificence and might!

O what a confluence of ethereal fires,

From urns unnumber'd, down the steep of heaven, 750
Streams to a point, and centres in my sight!

Nor tarries there; I feel it at my heart :
My heart, at once, it humbles and exalts;
Lays it in dust, and calls it to the skies

Who sees it unexalted, or unawed?

755

Who sees it, and can stop at what is seen?
Material offspring of Omnipotence !

Inanimate, all animating birth!

Work worthy him who made it! worthy praise!
All praise! praise more than human! nor denied

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,
That shed religion on the soul; at once

The temple and the preacher! O how loud
It calls devotion! genuine growth of Night'

765

Dovotion! daughter of Astronomy'

An undevout astronomer is mad

True; all things speak a God; buc in the small
Men trace out Him; in great, He seizes man;
Seizes, and elevates, and raps, and fills
With new inquiries, mid associates new.
Tell me, ye stars! ye planets! tell me, all

770

775

Ye starr'd and planeted inhabitants! what is it?

What are these sons of wonder? Say, proud Arch,
(Within whose azure palaces they dwell)
Built with divine ambition! in disdain

780

Of limit, built! built in the taste of heaven!

Vast concave! ample dome! wast thou design'd
A meet apartment for the Deity?—

Not so; that thought alone thy state impairs,
Thy lofty sinks, and shallows thy profound,
And strengthens thy diffusive; dwarfs the whole,
And makes a Universe an orrery.

785

But when I drop mine eye, and look on man,
Thy right regain'd thy grandeur is restored,
O Nature! wide flies off the' expanding round:
As when whole magazines, at once, are fired,
The smitten air is hollow'd by the blow,

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,
Might teem with new creation; reinflamed,
Thy luminaries triumph, and assume
Divinity themselves. Nor was it strange,
Matter high-wrought to such surprising pomp,
Such godlike glory, stole the style of gods,

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?
Why has the almighty Builder thrown aside
All measure in his work? stretch'd out his line
So far, and spread amazement o'er the whole ?
Then (as he took delight in wide extremes)
Deep in the bosom of his Universe
Dropp'd down that reasoning mite, that insect, man!
To crawl, and gaze, and wonder at the scene?- 821
That man might ne'er presume to plead amazement
For disbelief of wonders in himself.

Of human thought? The more of wonderful
Is heard in Him, the more we should assent.
Could we conceive him, God he could not be ;
Or he not God, or we could not be men.
A God alone can comprehend a God:

830

Man's distance how immense! On such a theme,

Know this, Lorenzo! (seem it ne'er so strange)
Nothing can satisfy, but what confounds;
Nothing but what astonishes, is true.

835

The scene thou secst attests the truth I sing,
And every star sheds light upon thy creed.
These stars, this furniture, this cost of heaven,
If but reported, thou hadst ne'er believed;
But thine eye tells thee, the romance is true.
The grand of Nature is the' Almighty's oath,
In Reason's court, to silence Unbelief.

How my mind, opening at this scene, imbibes

840

845