Inaninate, all-animating birth!
Work worthy Him who made it! Worthy praise!
All praife! praise more than human! nor deny'd
Thy praise Divine!-But though man, drown'd in fleep, With-holds his homage, not alone I wake;
Bright legions swarm unseen, and sing, unheard 765,
By mortal ear, the glorious Architect,
In This His univerfal temple hung
With luftres, with innumerable lights,
That fhed religion on the foul; at once,
The Temple, and the Preacher ! O how loud
It calls devotion! genuine growth of night!
Devotion! daughter of aftronomy!
An undevout aftronomer is mad.
True; All things speak a God; but in the small,
Men trace out Him; in great, He feizes man;
Seizes, and elevates, and wraps, and fills
With new inquiries, 'mid affociates new.
Tell me, ye ftars! ye planets! tell me, all
Ye ftarr'd, and planeted, inhabitants! What is it? What are thefe fons of wonder? Say, proud arch, 780 (Within whose azure palaces they dwell)
Built with divine ambition! in difdain
Of limit built! built in the tafte of heaven !
Vast concave! ample dome! waft thou design'd
A meet apartment for the Deity?—
Not fo; That thought alone thy ftate impairs,
Thy lofty finks, and fhallows thy profound,
And freightens thy diffufive; dwarfs the whole,
And makes an univerfe an Orrery.
But when I drop mine eye, and look on man,
Thy right regain'd, thy grandeur is restor'd,
O Nature! wide flies off the expanding round.
As when whole magazines, at once, are fir'd,
The fmitten air is hollow'd by the blow;
The vaft difplofion diffipates the clouds ;
Shock'd æther's billows dash the distant skies;
Thus (but far more) th' expanding round flies off,
And leaves a mighty void, a spacious womb,
Might teem with new creation; re-inflam'd
Thy luminaries triumph, and affume
Divinity themselves. Nor was it strange,
Matter high-wrought to fuch furprizing pomp,
Such godlike glory, stole the style of gods,
From ages dark, obtufe, and fteep'd in sense;
For, fure, to fenfe, they truly are divine;
And half-abfolv'd idolatry from guilt;
Nay, turn'd it into virtue. Such it was
In those, who put forth all they had of man
Unlost, to lift their thought, nor mounted higher; But, weak of wings, on planets perch'd; and thought 810 What was their higheft, must be their ador'd.
But They how weak, who could no higher mount? And are there, then, Lorenzo! Thofe, to whom
Unfeen, and Unexiftent, are the fame ?
And if incomprehenfible is join'd,
Who dare pronounce it madness, to believe?
Why has the mighty Builder thrown afide
All measure in His work; ftretch'd out His line
So far, and spread amazement o'er the whole?
Then (as He took delight in wide extremes), 820 Deep in the bofom of His universe,
Dropt down that reasoning mite, that infect, man,
To crawl, and gaze, and wonder at the scene?-
That man might ne'er presume to plead amazement
For difbelief of wonders in himself.
Shall God be less miraculous, than what
His hand has form'd ? Shall myfteries descend
From un-myfterious? Things more elevate,
Be more familiar? Uncreated lie
More obvious than Created, to the grasp
Of human thought? The more of wonderful
Is heard in Him, the more we should affent.
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;
Man's distance how immense! On fuch a theme,
Know this, Lorenzo! (feem it ne'er fo ftrange)
Nothing can satisfy, but what confounds ;
Nothing, but what astonishes, is true.
The scene thou seest, attests the truth I sing,
And every star sheds light upon thy creed.
These stars, this furniture, this coft of heaven,
If but reported, thou hadft ne'er believ'd ;
But thine eye tells thee, the romance is true.
The grand of nature is th' Almighty's oath,
In reason's court, to filence unbelief.
How my mind, opening at this fcene, imbibes The moral emanations of the skies,
While nought, perhaps, Lorenzo lefs admires !
Has the Great Sovereign fent ten thousand worlds 850
To tell us, He refides above them All,
In glory's unapproachable recefs?
And dare earth's bold inhabitants deny
The fumptuous, the magnific embaffy
A moment's audience? Turn we, nor will hear
From whom they come, or what they would impart
For man's emolument; fole cause that stoops
Their grandeur to man's eye? Lorenzo! roufe;
Let thought, awaken'd, take the lightning's wing,
And glance from east to west, from pole to pole.
Who fees, but is confounded, or' convinc'd?
Renounces Reason, or a God adores?
Mankind was fent into the world to fee:
Sight gives the science needful to their peace;
That obvious fcience afks fmall learning's aid.
Wouldst thou on metaphyfic pinions foar?
Or wound thy patience amid logic thorns?
́Or travel history's enormous round ?
Nature no fuch hard task injoins: She gave
A make to man directive of his thought;
A make fet upright, pointing to the stars,
As who fhall fay, "Read thy chief lesson there."
Too late to read this manufcript of heaven,
When, like a.parchment-fcroll, fhrunk up by flames, It folds Lorenzo's leffon from his fight.,
Leffon how various! Not the God alone,
I fee His Minifters; I fee, diffus'd
In radiant orders, effences fublime,
Of various offices, of various plume,
In heavenly liveries, diftinctly clad,
Azure, green, purple, pearl, or downy gold,
Or all commix'd; they ftand, with wings outfpread,
Listening to catch the Master's least command,
And fly through Nature, ere the moment ends
Numbers innumerable !-Well conceiv'd
By Pagan, and by Chriftian! O'er each sphere
Prefides an angel, to direct its course,
And feed, or fan, its flames; or to discharge
Other high trufts unknown. For who can fee
of matter, and imagine, Mind,
Such pomp
For which alone Inanimate was made,
More fparingly difpens'd? That nobler fon,
Far liker the great Sire !-'Tis thus the kies
Inform us of fuperiors numberless,
As much, in Excellence, above mankind,
As above Earth, in Magnitude, the Spheres.
Thefe, as a cloud of witneffes, hang o'er us;
In a throng'd theatre are all our deeds;
perhaps, a thousand demigods defcend
On every beam we fee, to walk with men.
Aweful reflection! Strong reftraint from ill!
Yet, here, our virtue finds still stronger aid
From thefe ethereal glories Senfe surveys.
Something, like magic, strikes from this blue vault;
With juft attention is it view'd? We feel
A fudden fuccour, unimplor'd, unthought;
Nature herself does half the work of Man.
Seas, rivers, mountains, forefts, defarts, rocks,
The promontory's height, the depth profound
|