University of Virginia Library

But when at once right o'er her swung
The whole enormous lighted dome of Heaven,
What feelings in her bosom sprung?—

Not fraught indeed for her the glorious vision
With all the myriad miracles 'tis given
Our tutored sight to marvel at therein;
Thickstarred Immensities—O what were fields Elysian—
Softswarded glooms of Paradise
Fire-streaked with glancing lovelit eyes;
Or that pure Empyrean where the bards divine—
Of Albion or the Florentine,
In world-entrancing everliving dreams,
Saw jacinth-downs and topaz-spurting streams
And uplands opaline;
Champaigns of sheeted pearl with rosy-green
Reflections shot, and mildest rainbow-sheen,
Where snowdrifts of blest Angels spread and swarm
And scatter, on the rolling grand Hosanna-storm
Uplifted—floated—borne away!
Or rounded to a snowy world-wide rose
With golden heart where God's own brilliance glows;—
What seem all these to that tremendous scene,
But tinselled stagework—transient—mean—
Poor craft of some mere mortal mechanician!
—Nor could her fancy science-guided stray—
From those bold fires that here and there
Like vanward sentinels low hovering hung,
Rejoicing in some kingly trust,—
Through an immeasurable array
Of evervarying mingling lights
Pausing in multitudinous troops
On still retiring higher heights
As on some vast celestial palace-stair;
Or poured forth infinite in scattering groups
And endlessly-recurring shoal on shoal;
With luminous depths on all sides leading
To deeper depths that evermore receding
And evermore reopening lose
Themselves in labyrinthine avenues
Of glory unspeakable! a maze
Of vistas intricate that everywhere
Away and upward roll
Into a dimness splendid with a dust
Of Suns—a gleaming haze,
A visible shining cloud
Of specks invisible—all worlds—and all avowed
Only a handbreadth of the outstanding Whole!
O not for her the eternal flood
Of worlds in bloom and worlds in bud;
The lightning-speeded cataract of Creation
Boundless and bounding on for ever;
Chaotic mass or cosmic—brood on brood
Evolving, intermitting never,
To dash and daze the strongest-winged imagination!
Full many a sun-thronged Universe that dwindles
To a tiny film of light,
So far off in the Infinite!
Full many a flying Ocean of bright Mist that kindles
At its deep core eddy-curled
And whirls and thickens to a world;
Or at its vasty margin thinning
Drops lagging vapour-belts and luminous rings
That shrink apart, like breaking strings
Of jewels, into moons and satellites,
Fresh-starting on their separate flights,
And on new centres spinning!
—The trailing spawn of Systems vapour-tangled;
And seeded masses of stargrain like roes
Of fishes, so the congregated clusters close—
Ay, golden ovaries of great globes in myriads—all
By distance inconceivable comprest
Into the semblance of a swarming ball
Of pin's-head spiders in their whitewebbed nest:—
—The swallow-swoop of Comets as they flee
In the wild race of revelry;
Each like some mad enamoured Bayadere
That darts from out the throng to where
Sits in full-diamonded pride
Her mighty Rajah awful-eyed,
As if, athirst for his caresses,
To fling herself upon his blazing breast;
But catching as she comes anear
The kingly-chilling glitter of his glance,
Swerves off abashed in full career
Again into the reeling dance!
So, down upon their Sun-God dashing
With sudden shift these couriers swift
Still scour away into Infinitude—off-flashing
With all their hundred million leagues of luminous tresses
Into the fathomless abysses
To make amid the astonished spheres
Their sportive circuit of a thousand years!
Or say, 'twere but the wake they trace
Lashing to foam-light as they race
Quiescent force asleep in space—
Still—still they spurn all resting-place!—
—Then all the sensitive Planets as they float,
In their enormous solitudes
Troubled mysteriously—the changeful moods
Reflecting of their kindred most remote;
So delicately alive to and returning
Each faint and far off sister's finest yearning;
In their elastic orbits wheeling
Eternal rounds of sympathetic feeling.—