What hand but thine supply the solar light,
Ever bestowing, yet for ever bright?
What hand but thine the starry train array,
Or give the Moon to shed her borrow'd ray?
What hand but thine the azure convex spread?
What hand but thine compose the ocean's bed?
To the vast main the sandy barrier throw,
And with the feeble curb restrain the foe?
What hand but thine the wintry flood assuage,
Or stop the tempest in its wildest rage?
Thee infinite! what finite can explore?
Imagination sinks beneath thy pow'r ;
Thee could the ablest of thy creatures know,
Lost were thy unity, for he were thou:
Yet present to all sense thy pow'r remains,
Reveal'd in nature, nature's Author reigns.
In vain would error from conviction fly,
Thou every where art present to the eye.
The sense how stupid, and the sight how blind,
That fails this universal truth to find!
Go! all the sightless realms of space survey;
Returning trace the planetary way;
The Sun that in his central glory shines,
While ev'ry planet round his orb inclines;
Then at our intermediate globe repose,
And view yon lunar satellite that glows;
Or cast along the azure vault thine eye,
When golden day enlightens all the sky;
Around, behold Earth's variegated scene,
The mingling prospects, and the flow'ry green;
The mountain's brow, the long extended wood,
Or the rude rock that threatens o'er the flood;
And say, are these the wild effects of chance?
Oh, strange effect of reas'ning ignorance!
Nor pow'r alone confess'd in grandeur lies, The glittering planet or the painted skies : Equal the elephant's or emmet's dress The wisdom of Omnipotence confess; Equal the cumbrous whale's enormous mass, With the small insect in the crowded grass; The mite that gambols in its acid sea, In shape a porpoise, though a speck to thee: Ev'n the blue down the purple plum surrounds, A living world, thy failing sight confounds, To him a peopled habitation shows,
Where millions taste the bounty God bestows.
Great Lord of life, whose all-controlling might
Through wide creation beams divinely bright;
Nor only does thy pow'r in forming shine,
But to annihilate, dread King! is thine.
Shouldst thou withdraw thy still-supporting hand,
How languid Nature would astonish'd stand!
Thy frown the ancient realm of night restore,
And raise a blank-where systems smil'd before!
See in corruption, all-surprising state,
How struggling life eludes the stroke of fate;
Shock'd at the scene, though sense averts its eye,
Nor stops the wondrous process to descry;
Yet juster thought the mystic change pursues,
And with delight Almighty Wisdom views.
The brute the vegetable world surveys,
Sees life subsisting ev'n from life's decays:
Mark there, self-taught, the pensive reptile come,
Spin his thin shroud, and living build his tomb;
With conscious care his former pleasures leave,
And dress him for the bus'ness of the grave;
Thence, pass'd the short-liv'd change, renew'd he
springs,
Admires the skies, and tries his silken wings;
With airy flight the insect roves abroad,
And scorns the meaner earth he lately trod.
Thee, potent, let delivered Israel praise,
And to thy name their grateful homage raise.
Thee, potent God! let Egypt's land declare,
That felt thy justice awfully severe.
How did thy frown benight the shadow'd land!
Nature revers'd, how own thy high command!
When jarring elements their use forgot,
And the sun felt thy overcasting blot;
When earth produc'd the pestilential brood,
And the foul stream was crimson'd into blood.
How deep the horrors of that awful night!
How strong the terror, and how wild the fright!
When o'er the land thy sword vindictive pass'd,
And men and infants breath'd at once their last,
How did thy arm thy favour'd tribes convey!
Thy light conducting point the patent way!
Obedient ocean to their march divide
The wat'ry wall distinct on either side;
While through the deep the long procession led,
And saw the wonders of the oozy bed.
Nor long they march'd, till, black'ning in the rear,
The vengeful tyrant and his host appear;
Plunge down the steep, the waves thy nod obey,
And whelm the threat'ning storm beneath the sea.
Nor yet thy pow'r thy chosen train forsook,
When through Arabia's sands their way they took:
By day thy cloud was present to the sight,
Thy fiery pillar led their march by night;
Thy hand amidst the waste their table spread,
With feather'd viands, and with heav'nly bread;
When the dry wilderness no streams supplied,
Gush'd from the yielding rock the vital tide.
What limits can Omnipotence confine?
What obstacles oppose thy arm divine?
Since stones and waves their settled laws forego,
Since seas can harden, and since rocks can flow!
On Sinai's top, the Muse with ardent wing
The triumphs of Omnipotence would sing ;
When o'er its airy brow thy cloud display'd,
Involv'd the nations in its awful shade;
When shrunk the Earth from thy approaching. face,
And the rock trembled to its rooted base:
Yet there thy majesty divine appear'd,
There shone thy glory, and thy voice was heard ;
Ev'n in the blaze of that tremendous day,
Idolatry its impious rites could pay!
Oh, shame to thought!-thy sacred throne invade, And brave the bolt that linger'd round its head!
O THOU, who, when th' Almighty form'd this all,
Upheld the scale and weigh'd each balanc'd ball;
And as his hand completed each design,
Number'd the work, and fix'd the seal divine !
O Wisdom infinite! creation's soul,
Whose rays diffuse new lustre o'er the whole, What tongues shall make thy charms celestial known?
What hand, fair goddess! paint thee but thy own?
What though in nature's universal store
Appear the wonders of almighty pow'r ;
Pow'r, unattended, terror would inspire,
Aw'd must we gaze, and comfortless admire.
But when fair Wisdom joins in the design
The beauty of the whole result's divine.
Hence life acknowledges its glorious cause,
And matter owns its great Disposer's laws;
Hence in a thousand different models wrought,
Now fix'd to quiet, now allied to thought;
Hence flow the forms and properties of things,
Hence rises harmony, and order springs ;
Else, had the mass a shapeless chaos lay,
Nor ever felt the dawn of Wisdom's day.
See how, associate, round their central Sun
Their faithful rings the circling planets run;
Still equi-distant, never yet too near,
Exactly tracting their appointed sphere.
Mark how the Moon our flying orb pursues,
While from the Sun her monthly light renews,
Breathes her wide influence on the world below,
And bids the tides alternate ebb and flow.
View how in course the constant seasons rise,
Deform the earth, or beautify the skies:
First, Spring advancing, with her flow'ry train;
Next, Summer's hand, that spreads the silvan scene;
Then, Autumn, with her yellow harvests crown'd,
And trembling Winter close the annual round.
The vegetable tribes observant trace,
From the tall cedar to the creeping grass :
The chain of animated beings scale,
From the small reptile to th' enormous whale
From the strong eagle stooping through the skies,
To the low insect that escapes thy eyes;
And see, if see thou canst, in ev'ry frame,
Eternal Wisdom shine confess'd the same:
As proper organs to the least assign'd,
As proper means to propagate the kind,
As just the structure, and as wise the plan,
As in this lord of all-debating man!
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