University of Virginia Library

There is religion in the reign of night,
When earth entranced, and heaven ethereal grows,
And planets orb'd with palpitating beams,
In radiant eloquence to man reveal
Their sacred beauty; while the loving Stars
Unseal their eyelids, and with vestal gaze
This world salute, till our attracted souls
Responsively their looks of love return.
'Tis then the energies of mind escape
From sordid fetters, and, like eagles, sweep
The dazzling firmament of Thought divine,
Sparkling with truths unnumber'd as unnamed;
Till, earthward dropping on exhausted plume,
Like the awed Psalmist of the night, they feel
A soft religion from the sky descend,
A charm'd humility, which preaches thus:—
“Say, what is Man, when paragon'd with Worlds?
How mean a speck, how miserably small.
Minute, beyond minuteness to pourtray,
The orbit where he walks, and weeps, and dies!
And He, the Architect, Whose fiat call'd
And will'd this universe of worlds abroad,
Where is the Temple that can hold His praise,
Or mind created, which can worship Him
From whose dread glory not one ray would melt,
Were all this bright magnificence to fade?
For if deep Ocean, with her sumless waves,
Not less in majesty of water rolls
If haply some expiring billow sink;
Or forest huge, whose patriarchal trees
Their wild luxuriance to the winds present,
Not less o'erawes us, though some leaflet die,
Then would no countless throng of worlds, though dead,
Or stricken by some everlasting blight,
One shade on His supernal glory cast
Who makes and unmakes, moulds, and masters all,
But in Himself consummate God abides!”

And may not thus our lesson'd being lie
Low at the footstool of this felt Immense,
To learn humility from all it finds?
A contrast wise, comparison profound,
Nocturnal splendours may they not inspire?
When from the fever of his day-worn life
At length escaping, pensive and alone,
Oft may some Mystic of the heart delight
To soothe excitement, in that sainted calm
Breathed from thy presence, oh, ambrosial Night
Of solitude, serenity, and stars!
Thine is the hour for poetry, and prayer;
Searchings how deep, and soarings how divine
Are then experienced! Time and earth depart;
The shadows of exterior life recede
Like cloud-mist from a morning vale uproll'd;
And on the Infinite we seem to gaze.
'Tis thus, beneath the overawing heavens
Man sinks to nothing; and his world becomes
An atom, twinkling in eternity,
And Life,—the scintillation of a soul
Radiant, but restless with its tiny gleam,
That sparkles into suff'ring, and expires!

But here, Perversion, by its with'ring breath,
Would blast humility with chills of doubt,
And Christ from his created world expel
By logic, from our littleness educed
And call'd transcendant: “Can this puny ball
Of Nature, this revolving speck of earth,
Seen like a glow-worm 'mid the gorgeous blaze
Of suns, and systems, be a proper world
For Deity in Flesh to seek, or save?”

And yet, this argument, so base and blind,
Philosophy and faith alike o'erthrow
With swift prostration. Sceptic! pause awhile,
Nor dream that thus from orphan'd earth recedes
Redemption, since in nature's volume lies
The principle of thy profound rebuke.
Bend to the dust a microscopic gaze,
There God in atoms, e'en as God in worlds,
Witness! and worship with believing awe.
To Him no magnitude as great appears,
And no minuteness, as the small can be;
Gradations all in Godhead are absorb'd
And vanish; languor cannot Him relax,
Nor low, nor lofty, vast nor various, bring
Distraction o'er Him. Hence, we rev'rence God
When the frail wonders of an insect-wing
Or radiant orbits of revolving worlds,
The traces of consummate mind reveal.
Jehovah, while vast Heaven His word upholds,
And life and matter, motion, space and time
Form but the channel where His will evolves,
Can note and number all whom earth contains!
Observe the monad in minutest play,
Robe the soft leaf, the choral winds attune,
Direct a sunbeam to its shining toil,
Or guard frail infancy on tott'ring feet
From death or danger; or, at balmy night,
The silken eyelids of young Sleep bedew
With slumber, watching o'er unconscious breath!

Thus may Philosophy and Faith sincere
Their creed unite; and when on high we view
Yon great epiphany of glorious worlds,
And echo back with thought's devoutest tone
The starry hymns by Fancy heard to roll,
We sink not, by immensity appall'd;
But in the sacred glory of our creed
Can call our Lord, the Master of it all!

Moreover, God-reflecting Mind is ours
Though faint, and feeble; nor can Truth deny,
A single thought more deity involves
Than all the beauty of yon blazing orbs,
If mind be absent. Therefore, while we own
The sad Palmyra of our ruin'd state,
And what a Tadmor in the desert-soul
Humanity on this soil'd earth presents,
Yet hither, from the heavens all heavens above
Descended, by paternal Glory sent,
Divine Emmanuel! Here His feet have trod;
Around His awful head our sun hath shined;
This air His breath of purity inspired,
And here the music of His lips was pour'd
In speech, and doctrine; miracles illumed
His mission; and each element confess'd
The bleeding glory of that Saviour's wounds
Whose heart for sin on Calvary bled and broke!
And thus, not all unfelt, nor all unknown
This orb minute, by God in flesh redeem'd,
In time or in eternity can be.
Rather may reason, when by faith enlarged,
The charter'd empress of all worlds pronounce
An earth so ransom'd, with such Blood restored;
And in the form of God incarnate see
How human Flesh outsoars the Angels far,
And mounts, in Jesus, an almighty throne.