AUTHOR of being, source of light,
With unfading beauties bright,
Fulness, goodness, rolling round
Thy own fair orb without a bound:
Whether thee thy suppliants call
Truth, or good, or one, or all,
EI or IAO; Thee we hail,
Essence that can never fail,
Grecian or barbaric name,
Thy stedfast being still the same.
Thee, when morning greets the skies
With rosy cheeks and humid eyes;
Thee, when sweet declining day
Sinks in purple waves away;
Thee will I sing, O parent Jove,
And teach the world to praise and love.
Yonder azure vault on high,
Yonder blue, low, liquid sky,
Earth on its firm basis plac'd,
And with circling waves embrac'd,
All creating power confess,
All their mighty Maker bless.
Thou shak'st all nature with thy nod,
Sea, earth, and air, confess the God
Yet does thy powerful hand sustain
Both earth and heaven, both firm and main
Scarce can our daring thoughts arise
To thy pavilion in the skies;
Nor can Plato's self declare
The bliss, the joy, the rapture there.
Barren above thou dost not reign,
But circled with a glorious train,
The sons of God, the sons of light,
Ever joying in thy sight:
(For thee their silver harps are strung,)
Ever beauteous, ever young;
Angelic forms their voices raise,
And through Heaven's arch resound thy praise.
The feather'd fowls that swim the air,
And bathe in liquid ether there,
The lark, sweet herald of their choir,
Leading them higher still and higher,
Listen and learn; th' angelic notes
Repeating in their warbling throats:
And ere to soft repose they go,
Teach them to their lords below:
On the green turf, their mossy nest,
The evening anthem swells their breast.
Thus, like thy golden chain on high,
Thy praise unites the earth and sky.
Source of light, thou bidst the sun
On his burning axle run;
The stars like dust around him fly,
And show the area of the sky.
He drives so swift his race above,
Mortals can't perceive him move;
So smooth his course, oblique or straight,
Olympus shakes not with his weight.
As the queen of solemn night
Fills at hi vase her orb of light,
Imparted lustre ; thus we see
The solar virtue shines by thee.
EIRESIONE we'll no more,
Imaginary power, adore;
Since oil, and wool, and cheering wine,
And life-sustaining bread are thine.
Thy herbage, O great Pan, sustains
The flocks that graze our Attic plains;
The olive, with fresh verdure crown'd,
Rises pregnant from the ground;
At thy command it shoots and springs,
And a thousand blessings brings.
Minerva only is thy mind,
Wisdom and bounty to mankind.
The fragrant thyine, the bloomy rose,
Herb, and flower, and shrub that grows
On Thessalian Tempe's plain,
Or where the rich Sabeans reign,
That treat the taste, or smell, or sight,
For food, for med'cine, or delight:
Planted by thy parent care,
Spring, and smile, and flourish there.
O ye nurses of soft dreams,
Reedy brooks, and winding streams,
Or murmuring o'er the pebbles sheen,
Or sliding thro' the meadows green,
Or where thro' matted sedge you creep,
Travelling to your parent deep:
Sound his praise, by whom you rose,
That sea, which neither ebbs nor flows.
O ye immortal woods and groves,
Which th' enamour'd student loves;
Beneath whose venerable shade,
For thought and friendly converse made,
Fam'd HECADEM, old hero, lies,
Whose shrine is shaded from the skies,
And through the gloom of silent night
Projects from far its trembling light;
You, whose roots descend as low,
As high in air your branches grow;
Your leafy arms to heaven extend,
Bend your heads, in homage bend:
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