Upborne, with indefatigable course
I seek the glowing borders of the east,
Where the bright sun, emerging from the deeps,
With his first glories gilds the sparkling seas,
And trembles o'er the waves; ev'n there thy hand
Shall through the wat❜ry desert guide my course,
And o'er the broken surges pave my way,
While on the dreadful whirls I hang secure,
And mock the warring ocean. If, with hopes
As fond as false, the darkness I expect
To hide, and wrap me in its mantling shade,
Vain were the thought; for thy unbounded ken
Darts through the thick'ning gloom, and pries
through all
The palpable obscure. Before thy eyes
The vanquish'd night throws off her dusky shroud,
And kindles into day: the shade and light
To man still various, but the same to thee:
On thee is all the structure of my frame
Dependant. Lock'd within the silent womb
Sleeping I lay, and rip'ning to my birth;
Yet, Lord, thy out-stretch'd arm preserv'd me there,
Before I mov'd to entity, and trod
The verge of being. To thy hallow'd name
I'll pay due honours; for thy mighty hand
Built this corporeal fabric, when it laid
The ground-work of existence. Hence I read
The wonders of thy art. This frame I view
With terror and delight; and, wrapt in both,
I startle at myself. My bones, unform'd
As yet, nor hardening from the viscous parts,
But blended with th' unanimated mass,
Thy eye distinctly view'd; and, while I lay
Within the earth, imperfect, nor perceiv'd
The first faint dawn of life, with ease survey'd
The vital glimmerings of the active seeds,
Just kindling to existence, and beheld
My substance scarce material. In thy book
Was the fair model of this structure drawn,
Where every part, in just connexion join'd,
Compos'd and perfected th' harmonious piece,
Ere the dim speck of being learn'd to stretch
Its ductile form, or entity had known
To range and wanton in an ampler space.
How dear, how rooted in my inmost soul,
Are all thy counsels, and the various ways
Of thy eternal providence! the sum
So boundless and immense, it leaves behind
The low account of numbers; and outflies
All that imagination e'er conceived:
Less numerous are the sands that crowd the shores,
The barriers of the ocean. When I rise
From my soft bed, and softer joys of sleep,
I rise to thee. Yet lo! the impious slight
Thy mighty wonders. Shall the sons of vice
Elude the vengeance of thy wrathful hand,
And mock thy ling'ring thunder, which withholds
Its forky terrors from their guilty heads?
Thou great tremendous GoD!-Avaunt, and fly
All ye who thirst for blood!-for, swoln with pride,
Each haughty wretch blasphemes thy sacred name,
And bellows his approaches to affront
Thy glorious Majesty. Thy foes I hate
Worse than my own. O Lord! explore my soul! See if a flaw or stain of sin infects
My guilty thoughts; then, lead me in the way That guides my feet to thy own Heaven and thee.
A SUMMER EVENING'S MEDITATION.
"Tis past! the sultry tyrant of the south
Has spent his short-lived rage: more grateful hours
Move silent on: the skies no more repel
The dazzled sight; but, with mild maiden beams
Of temper'd light, invite the cherish'd eye
To wander o'er their sphere; where, hung aloft,
Dian's bright crescent, like a silver bow
New strung in Heaven, lifts high its beamy horns,
Impatient for the night, and seems to push
Her brother down the sky. Fair Venus shines,
Ev'n in the eye of day; with sweetest beam
Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood
Of soften'd radiance from her dewy locks.
The shadows spread apace; while meeken'd Eve,
Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires
Through the Hesperian gardens of the west,
And shuts the gates of day. "Tis now the hour
When Contemplation, from her sunless haunts,
The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth
Of unpierc'd woods, where, wrapt in silent shade,
She mus'd away the gaudy hours of noon,
And fed on thoughts unripen'd by the Sun,
Moves forward; and with radiant finger points
To yon blue concave swell'd by breath divine,
Where, one by one, the living eyes of Heaven
wake, quick kindling o'er the face of ether
One boundless blaze, ten thousand trembling fires
And dancing lustres, where th' unsteady eye,
Restless and dazzled, wanders unconfin'd
O'er all this field of glories: spacious field,
And worthy of the master: he whose hand
With hieroglyphics elder than the Nile,
Inscrib'd the mystic tablet; hung on high
To public grace; and said, ‘Adore, O man,
The finger of thy God!' From what pure wells
Of milky light, what soft o'erflowing urn,
Are all these lamps so fill'd? these friendly lamps,
For ever streaming o'er the azure deep
To point our path and light us to our home.
How soft they slide along their lucid spheres!
And, silent as the foot of time, fulfil
Their destin'd courses: Nature's self is hush'd,
And, but a scatter'd leaf which rustles through
The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard
To break the midnight air; though the rais'd ear,
Intensely list'ning, drinks in ev'ry breath.
How deep the silence, yet how loud the praise!
But are they silent all? or is there not
A tongue in ev'ry star that talks with man,
And woos him to be wise? nor woos in vain.
This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
At this still hour the self collected soul
Turns inward and beholds a stranger there
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank;
An embryo God; a spark of fire divine,
Which must burn on for ages, when the sun
(Fair transitory creature of a day)
Has clos'd his golden eye, and, wrapt in shades,
Forgets his wonted journey through the east.
Ye citadels of light, and seats of gods!
Perhaps my future home, from whence the soul.
Revolving periods past, may oft look back,
With recollected tenderness, on all
The various busy scenes she left below,
Its deep-laid projects and its strange events,
As on some fond and doating tale that sooth'd
Her infant hours.-O be it lawful now
To tread the hallow'd circle of your courts,
And with mute wonder and delighted awe
Approach your burning confines!Seiz'd in
thought,
On fancy's wild and roving wing I sail
From the green borders of the peopled Earth,
And the pale Moon, her duteous fair attendant!
From solitary Mars; from the vast orb
Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk
Dances in ether like the lightest leaf;
To the dim verge, the suburbs of the system,
Where cheerless Saturn 'midst his wat❜ry moons,
Girt with a lucid zone, in gloomy pomp,
Sits like an exil'd monarch: fearless thence
I launch into the trackless deeps of space,
Where, burning round, ten thousand suns appear,
Of elder beam; which ask no leave to shine
Of our terrestrial star, nor borrow light
From the proud regent of our scanty day;
Sons of the morning, first-born of creation,
And only less than him who marks their track,
And guides their fiery wheels. Here must I stop,
Or is there aught beyond? What hand unseen
Impels me onward through the glowing orbs
Of habitable nature, far remote,
To the dead confines of eternal night,
To solitudes of vast unpeopled space,
The deserts of creation, wide and wild,
Where embryo systems and unkindled suns
Sleep in the womb of Chaos? Fancy droops,
And thought, astonish'd, stops her bold career.
But, oh thou mighty Mind! whose pow'rful word
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