By Pagan and by Christian! O'er each sphere
Presides an angel, to direct its course,
And feed, or fan, its flames; or to discharge
Other high trusts unknown; for who can see
Such pomp of matter, and imagine mind
(For which alone inanimate was made)
More sparingly dispensed? that nobler son,
Far liker the great Sire !-'Tis thus the skies
Inform us of superiors numberless,
As much, in excellence, above mankind,
As above earth, in magnitude, the spheres.
These, as a cloud of witnesses, hang o'er us :
In a throng'd theatre are all our deeds.
Perhaps a thousand demigods descend
On every beam we see, to walk with men.
Awful reflection! strong restraint from ill'
Yet here, our virtue finds still stronger aid From these ethereal glories sense surveys. Something, like magic, strikes from this blue vault : With just attention is it view'd? we feel A sudden succour, unimplored, unthought. Nature herself does half the work of man. Seas, rivers, mountains, forests, deserts, rocks, The promontory's height, the depth profound Of subterranean excavated grots,
Black-brow'd, and vaulted high, and yawning wide,
If ample of dimension, vast of size,
From Nature's structure, or the scoop of Time;
E'en these an aggrandizing impulse give ;
Of solemn thought enthusiastic neights
E'en these infuse.-But what of vast in these.
Nothing-or we must own the skies forgot.
Much less in art.-Vain Art! thou pigmy power
How dost thou swell, and strut, with human pride,
To show thy littleness! What childish toys,
Thy watery columns squirted to the clouds!
Thy bason'd rivers and imprison'd seas!
Thy mountains moulded into forms of men!
Thy hundred-gated capitals! or those
Where three days' travel left us much to ride;
Gazing on miracles by mortals wrought,
Arches triumphai, theatres immense,
Or nodding gardens pendent in mid air!
Or temples proud to meet their gods half-way!
Yet these affect us in no common kind:
What then the force of such superior scenes?
Enter a temple, it will strike an awe :
What awe from this the Deity has built?
A good man seen, though silent, counsel gives.
The touch'd spectator wishes to be wise.
In a bright mirror His own hands have made,
Here we see something like the face of God.
Seems it not then enough to say, Lorenzo,
To man abandon'd, Hast thou seen the skies?'
And yet, so thwarted Nature's kind design
By daring man, he makes her sacred awe
(That guard from ill) his shelter, his temptation 940
To more than common guilt, and quite inverts
Celestial Art's intent. The trembling stars
See crimes gigantic, stalking through the gloom
With front erect, that hide their head by day,
And making night still darker by their deeds.
Slumbering in covert, till the shades descend,
Rapine and Murder, link'd, row prowl for prey.
The iniser earths his treasure; and the thief,
Watching the mole, half beggars him ere morn.
Now plots and foul conspiracies awake,
And, muffling up their horrors from the moon,
Havock and devastation they prepare,
And kingdoms tottering in the field of blood.
Now sons of riot in mid-revel rage.
What shall I do?-suppress it? or proclaim?-
Why sleeps the thunder? Now, Lorenzo! now
His best friend's couch the rank adulterer
Ascends secure, and laughs at gods and men.
Preposterous madmen, void of fear or shame
Lay their crimes bare to these chaste eyes of heaven,
Yet shrink and shudder at a mortal's sight.
Were moon and stars for villains only made,
To guide, yet screen them, with tenebrious light?
No; they were made to fashion the sublime
Of human hearts, and wiser make the wise.
Those ends were answer'd once, when mortals lived
Of stronger wing, of aquiline ascent,
In theory sublime. O how unlike
Those vermin of the night, this moment sung,
Who crawl on earth, and cn her venom feed!
Those ancient sages, human stars! they met
Their brothers of the skies at midnight hour,
Their counsel ask'd, and what they ask'd obey'd.
The Stagirite, and Plato, he who drank
The poisoned bowl, and he of Tusculum,
With him of Corduba, (immortal names!)
In these unbounded and Elysian walks,
An area fit for gods and godlike men,
They took their nightly round, through radiant paths, By seraphs trod; instructed, chiefly, thus,
To tread in their bright footsteps here below,
To walk in worth still brighter than the skies.
There they contracted their contempt of earth;
Of hopes eternal kindled there the fire;
There, as in near approach, they glow'd, and grew 985 (Great visitants!) more intimate with God,
More worth to men, more joyous to themselves.
Through various virtues they, with ardour, ran
The zodiac of their learn'd illustrious lives.
In Christian hearts, O for a Pagan zeal!
A needful, but opprobrious prayer! as much
Our ardour less, as greater is our light.
How monstrous this in morals! Scarce more strange
Would this phenomenon in nature strike,
A sun that froze us, or a star that warm'd.
What taught these heroes of the moral world?
To these thou givest thy praise, give credit too.
These doctors ne'er were pension'd to deceive thee,
And Pagan tutors are thy taste.-They taught,
That narrow views betray to misery;
That wise it is to comprehend the whole;
That virtue rose from Nature; ponder'd well,
The single base of virtue built to Heaven;
That God and Nature our attention claim;
That Nature is the glass reflecting God,
As, by the sea, reflected is the sun,
Too glorious to be gazed on in his sphere;
That mind immortal loves immortal aims;
That boundless mind affects a boundless space;
That vast surveys, and the sublime of things,
The soul assimilate, and make her great;
That, therefore, heaven her glories, as a fund
Of inspiration, thus spreads out to man.
Such are their doctrines; such the Night inspired.
And what more true? what truth of greater weight? The soul of man was made to walk the skies, Delightful outlet of her prison here!
There, disencumber'd from her chains, the ties
Of toys terrestrial, she can rove at large;
There freely can respire, dilate, extend,
In full proportion let loose all her powers,
And, undeluded, grasp at something great.
Nor as a stranger does she wander there,
But, wonderful herself, through wonder strays;
Contemplating their grandeur, finds her own;
Dives deep in their economy divine,
Sits high in judgment on their various laws,
And, like a master, judges not amiss.
Hence greatly pleased, and justly proud, the soul
Grows conscious of her birth celestial; breathes 1030
More life, more vigour, in her native air,
And feels herself at home among the stars,
And, feeling, emulates her country's praise
What call we, then, the firmament, Lorenzo ?-As earth the body, since the skies sustain
The soul with food that gives immortal life,
Call it the noble pasture of the mind,
Which there expatiates, strengthens, and exults,
And riots through the luxuries of thought.
Call it the garden of the Deity,
Blossom'd with stars, redundant in the growth
Of fruit ambrosial, moral fruit to man.
Call it the breast-plate of the true High-priest,
Ardent with gems oracular, that give
In points of highest moment, right response;
And ill neglected, if we prize our peace.
Thus have we found a true astrology;
Thus have we found a new and noble sense,
In which alone stars govern human fates.
O that the stars (as some have feign'd) let fall
Bloodshed and havoc on embattled realms,
And rescued monarchs from so black a guilt!
Bourbon! this wish how generous in a foe?
Wouldst thou be great, wouldst thou become a god,
And stick thy deathless name among the stars,
For mighty conquests on a needle's point?
Instead of forging chains for foreigners;
Bastile, thy tutor; grandeur, all thy aim?
And yet thou know'st not what it is. How great,
How glorious, then appears the mind of man,
When in it all the stars and planets roll!
And what it seems, it is. Great objects make
Great minds, enlarging as their views enlarge,
Those still more godlike as these more divine.
And more divine than these, thou canst not see. Dazzled, o'erpower'd, with the delicious draught 1066 Of miscellaneous splendours, how I reel
From thought to thought, inebriate, without end!
An Eden this! a Paradise unlost!
I meet the Deity in every view,
And tremble at my nakedness before him '
O that I could but reach the tree of life'
For here it grows unguarded from our taste;
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