7000

Sweet interchange of rays, receiv'd, return'd;
Enlightening, and enlighten'd! All, at once,
Attracting, and attracted! Patriot-like,
None fins against the welfare of the whole;
But their reciprocal, unselfish aid,

Affords an emblem of millennial love..

705.

Nothing in nature, much less conscious being,

Was e'er created folely for itself:

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

And know, of all our fupercilious race,

710

Thou most inflammable! Thou wafp of men!:

Man's angry heart, inspected, would be found
As rightly fet, as are the ftarry fpheres;

'Tis nature's structure, broke by stubborn will,
Breeds all that un-celeftial difcord there..
Wilt thou not feel the bias nature gave?
Canft thou defcend from converfe with the fskies,

7155

And feize thy brother's throat?-For what-a clod,.
An inch of earth? The planets cry, “ Forbear,”
They chace our double darkness; nature's gloom, 720
And (kinder still !) our intellectual night.

And fee, day's amiable fifter fends

Her invitation, in the fofteft rays

Of mitigated luftre; courts thy fight,.

Which fuffers from her tyrant-brother's blaze.
Night grants thee the full freedom of the fkies,
Nor rudely reprimands thy lifted eye;
With gain, and joy, fhe bribes thee to be wife.
Night opes the nobleft scenes, and sheds an awe,

725

Which

Which gives those venerable scenes full weight, 730
And deep reception, in th' intender'd heart;

While light peeps through the darkness, like a spy;
And darkness fhews 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 fpeak I more, than I, This moment, feel;
With pleasing ftupor first the foul is ftruck
(Stupor ordained to make her truly wife!)
Then into transport starting from her trance,
With love, and admiration, how the glows!
This gorgeous apparatus! This display!
This oftentation of creative power!
This theatre !-what eye can take it in ?
By what divine enchantment was it rais'd,
For minds of the first magnitude to launch
In endless fpeculation, and adore?

735

740

745

One fun by day, by night Ten thousand shine;
And light us deep into the Deity;

How boundless in magnificence and might!

750

O what a confluence of ethereal fires,

Form urns un-numbered, down the steep of heaven,

Streams to a point, and centres in my fight!
Nor tarries there; I feel it at my heart.

My heart, at once, it humbles, and exalts;

755

Lays it in duft, and calls it to the skies.

Who fees it unexalted? or unaw'd?

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

Inanimate,

Inanimate, all-animating birth!

760

Work worthy Him who made it! Worthy praise !
All praife! praise more than human!; nor deny'd
Thy praife Divine!-But though man, drown'd in sleep,
With-holds his homage, not alone I wake;

Bright legions swarm unseen, and fing, unheard
By mortal ear, the glorious Architect,

765

In This His univerfal temple hung
With luftres, with innumerable lights,
That shed religion on the foul; at once,

The Temple, and the Preacher ! O how loud
It calls devotion! genuine growth of night!
Devotion! daughter of astronomy!
An undevout aftronomer is mad.

True; All things fpeak a God; but in the fmall,
Men trace out Him; in great, He feizes man;
Seizes, and elevates, and wraps, and fills.
With new inquiries, 'mid associates new.

770

775

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 whofe azure palaces they dwell)

Built with divine ambition! in difdain

Of limit built! built in the taste of heaven!
Vaft concave! ample dome! waft thou defign'd
A meet apartment for the Deity?—

785

Not fo; That thought alone thy ftate impairs,

Thy lofty finks, and shallows thy profound,
And freightens thy diffusive; dwarfs the whole,
And makes an univerfe an Orrery.

But

But when I drop mine eye, and look on man,
Thy right regain'd, thy grandeur is reftor'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 dafh the diftant fkies;
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, ftole the style of gods,
From ages dark, obtufe, and steep'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

Unloft, to lift their thought, nor mounted higher;
But, weak of wings, on planets perch'd; and thought 810
What was their highest, 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 aside
All measure in His work; ftretch'd out His line
So far, and fpread amazement o'er the whole?

815

Then

Then (as He took delight in wide extremes),
Deep in the bofom of His universe,

Dropt down that reasoning mite, that infect, man,
To crawl, and gaze, and wonder at the scene?-

820

That man might ne'er presume to plead amazement
For disbelief of wonders in himself.

825

Shall God be lefs miraculous, than what

His hand has form'd ? Shall myfteries defcend
From un-myfterious? Things more elevate,
Be more familiar? Uncreated lie

830

More obvious than Created, to the grafp
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 so strange)
Nothing can fatisfy, but what confounds ;
Nothing, but what aftonishes, is true.

The scene thou seeft, attests the truth I fing,
And every ftar fheds light upon thy creed.
These stars, this furniture, this cost 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 scene, imbibes
The moral emanations of the skies,

While nought, perhaps, Lorenzo lefs admires!

835

840

845

Has