Thy virtual energy the frame of things
Pervading actuates: as at first thy hand
Diffus'd.through endless space this limpid sky,
Vast ocean without storm, where these huge globes
Sail undisturb’d, a rounding voyage each ;
Observant all of one unchanging law.
Şimplicity divine ! by this sole rule,
The Maker's great establishment, these worlds
Revolve harmonious, world attracting world
With mutual love, and to their central sun
All gravitating : now with quicken'd pace
Descending tow'rd the primal orb, and now
Receding low, excursive from his bounds.

This spring of motion, this hid power infus'd
Through universal nature, first was known
To thee, great New.ton! Britain's justeft pride,
The boast of human race; whose towering thought,
In her amazing progress unconfin'd,
From truth to truth ascending, gain'd the height
Of science, whither mankind from afar

astonishid. Now beyond that height, By death from frail mortality set free, A pure intelligence he wings his way Through wondrous scenes, new-open’d 'in the world. Invisible, amid the general quire Of saints and angels, rapt with joy divine, Which fills, o’erflows, and ravishes the soul ! His:mind's clear vision from all darkness purg'd, For God himfelf shines forth immediate there, Through those eternal climes, the frame of things,

Gaze up

In its ideal harmony, to him
Stands all reveal'd.-

But how shall mortal wing
Attempt this blue profundity of heaven,
Unfathomable, endless of extent !
Where unknown suns to unknown fystems rise,
Whose numbers who shall tell ? stupenduous hoft!
In flaming millions through the vacant hung,
Sun beyond fun, and world to world unseen,
Measureless distance, unconceiv’d by thought!
Awful their order ; each the central fire
of his surrounding stars, whofe whirling speed,
Solemn and silent, through the pathless void,
Nor change, nor error knows. But, their ways,
By reason, bold adventurer, unexplor'd,
Instructed can declare! What fearch fhall find
Their times and seasons! their appointed laws,
Peculiar! their inhabitants of life,
And of intelligence, from scale to scale
Harmonious rising and in fix'd degree;
Numberless orders, each resembling each,
Yet all diverse ! -Tremendous depth and height
Qf wisdom and of power, that this great whole
Fram'd inexpreilible, and still preserves,
An infinite of wonders !--Thou, fupreme,
First, Independent Cause, whose presence fills
Nature's vast circle, and whof pleasure moves,
Father of human kind! the Muse's wing
Sustaining guide, while to the heights of heavci,
Roaming th' interminable valt of space,

She

1

She rises, tracing thy almighty hand
In its dread operations. Where is now
The seat of mankind, earth? where her great scenes
Of wars and triumphs ? empires fam'd of old,
Assyrian, Roman? or of later name,
Peruvian, Mexican, in that new world,
Beyond the wide Atlantic, late disclos'd?
Where is their place ? -Let proud Ambition pause,
And ficken at the vanity that prompts
His little deeds:--With earth, thofe nearer orbs,
Surrounding planets, late fo glorious seen,
And each a world, are now for fight too small;
Are almost loft to thought. The fun himself,
Ocean of fame, but twinkles from afar,
A glimmering star amid the train of night!
While in these deep abysses of the sky,
Spaces incomprehensible, new suns,
Crown'd with unborrow'd beams, illustrious shine;;
Arcturus here, and here the Pleiades,
Amid the northern hoft: nor with less state,
At sumless distance, huge Orion's orbs,
Each in his sphere refulgent, and the noon
Of Syrius, burning through the south of heaven.

Myriads beyond, with blended rays, inflame
The Milky Way, whose stream of vivid light,
Pour'd from innumerable fountains round,
Flows trembling, wave on wave, from sun to sun,
And whitens the long path to heaven's extreme :
Distinguish'd tract! But as with upward flight,
Soaring, I gain th' immensurable steep,

Contiguous stars, in bright profusion sown
Through these wide fields, all broaden into suns,
Amazing, sever'd each by gulphs of air,
In circuit ample as the solar heavens.

From this dread eminence, where endless day,
Day without cloud abides, alone and fill'd
With holy horror, trembling I survey
Now.downward through the universal sphere
Already past; now up to the heights untry'd,
And of th' enlarging prospect find no bound !
About me on each hand new wonders rife
In long succession ; here pure scenes of light,
:Dazzling the view; here nameless worlds afar,
Yet undiscover'd: there a dying sun,
Grown dim with age, whose orb of flame extinet,
Incredible to tell! thick, vapory milts,
From

every shore exhaling, mix obscure
Innumerable clouds, dispreading Now,
And deepening shade on shade ; till the faint globe,
Mournful.of aspect, calls in all his beams,
Millions of lives, that live but in his light,
With horror fee, from diftant spheres around,

The source of day expire, and all his worlds At once involvid in everlasting night!

Such this dread revolution : heaven itself, Subject to change, fo feels the waste of

years. Su this cerulian round, the work divine Of God's own hand, shall fade; and empty night Reign solitary, where these stars now roll From west to east their periods; where the train

Of

Of comets wander their eccentric ways,
With infinite excursion, through th' immense
Of æther, traversing from fky to fky
Ten thousand regions in their winding road,
Whose length to trace imagination fails !
Various their paths; without resistance all
Through these free spaces borne: of various face;
Enkindled this with beams of angry light,
Shot circling from its orb in sanguine showers :
That, through the shade of night, projecting huge,
In horrid trail, a spire of dusky flame,
Embody'd mists and vapours, whose fir’d mass
Keen-vibrates, streaming a red length of air.
While distant orbs, with wonder and amaze,
Mark its approachi, and night by night alarm'd
Its dreaded progress watch, as of a foe
Whose march is ever fatal; in whose train
Famine, and war, and defolating plague,
Each on his pale horse rides; the ministers
Of angry heaven, to fcourge offending worlds !

But lo! where one, from some far world return'd,
Shines out with sudden glare through yonder 1ky,
Region of darkness, where a sun's lost globe,
Deep-overwhelm’d with night, extinguish'd lies.
By fome hid power attracted from his path,
Fearful commotion ! into that dusk tract,
The devious comet, steep descending, falls
With all his flames, rekindling into life
Th' exhausted orb.: and swift a flood of light
Breaks forth diffusive through the gloom, and spreads
Q

in