 | The poetical works of James Montgomery |  |
THE FIXED STARS.
Reign in your heaven, ye stars of light!
Beyond this troubled scene;
With you, fair orbs! there is no night;
Eternally serene,
Each casts around its tranquil way,
The radiance of its own clear day;
Yet not unborrow'd.—What are ye?
Mirrors of Deity:
My soul, in your reflective rays,
Him whom no eye hath seen surveys,
As I behold (himself too bright for view)
The sun in every drop of dew.
Beyond this troubled scene;
With you, fair orbs! there is no night;
Eternally serene,
Each casts around its tranquil way,
The radiance of its own clear day;
Yet not unborrow'd.—What are ye?
Mirrors of Deity:
My soul, in your reflective rays,
Him whom no eye hath seen surveys,
As I behold (himself too bright for view)
The sun in every drop of dew.
The gloom that brings, through evening skies,
Your beauty from the deep;
The clouds that hide you from our eyes;
The storms that seem to sweep
Your scatter'd train, like vessels tost
On ocean's waves, now seen, now lost;
—Belong to our inferior ball,
Ye shine above them all:
Your splendour noon eclipses not,
Nor night reveals, nor vapours blot;
O'er us, not you, these changes come and pass;
Ye navigate a sea of glass.
Your beauty from the deep;
The clouds that hide you from our eyes;
The storms that seem to sweep
Your scatter'd train, like vessels tost
On ocean's waves, now seen, now lost;
—Belong to our inferior ball,
Ye shine above them all:
Your splendour noon eclipses not,
Nor night reveals, nor vapours blot;
O'er us, not you, these changes come and pass;
Ye navigate a sea of glass.
335
Thus, on their hyaline above,
In constellations stand
The tribes redeem'd by sovereign love:
—Crown'd, and with harp in hand,
They sing, before the great I AM,
The song of Moses and the Lamb;
Returning in perpetual streams
His own all-lightening beams.
—Theirs be thy portion, O my soul!
That, while heaven's years self-circling roll,
I may, among the ransom'd—they in me,
And I in them,—God's image see.
In constellations stand
The tribes redeem'd by sovereign love:
—Crown'd, and with harp in hand,
They sing, before the great I AM,
The song of Moses and the Lamb;
Returning in perpetual streams
His own all-lightening beams.
—Theirs be thy portion, O my soul!
That, while heaven's years self-circling roll,
I may, among the ransom'd—they in me,
And I in them,—God's image see.
1834.
| The poetical works of James Montgomery | |