Poems (1791) :: :: University of Virginia Library

Once more I dare to rouse the sounding string,
The Poet of my God—Awake my glory,
Awake my lute and harp—myself shall wake,
Soon as the stately night-exploding bird
In lively lay sings welcome to the dawn.

List ye! how nature with ten thousand tongues
Begins the grand thanksgiving, Hail, all hail,
Ye tenants of the forest and the field!
My fellow subjects of th'eternal King,
I gladly join your Mattins, and with you
Confess his presence, and report his praise.

O Thou, who or the Lambkin, or the Dove,
When offer'd by the lowly, meek, and poor,
Prefer'st to Pride's whole hecatomb, accept

This mean Essay, nor from thy treasure-house
Of Glory' immense, the orphan's might exclude.

What tho' th'Almighty's regal throne be rais'd
High o'er yon azure Heav'n's exalted dome
By mortal eye unken'd—where East nor West
Nor South, nor blust'ring North has breath to blow;
Albeit He there with Angels, and with Saints
Hold conference, and to his radiant host
Ev'n face to face stand visibly confest:
Yet know that nor in Presence or in Pow'r
Shines He less perfect here; 'tis Man's dim eye
That makes th'obscurity. He is the same,
Alike in all his Universe the same.

Whether the mind along the spangled sky
Measure her pathless walk, studious to view
Thy works of vaster fabrick, where the Planets
Weave their harmonious rounds, their march directing
Still faithful, still inconstant to the Sun;
Or where the Comet thro' space infinite
(Tho' whirling worlds oppose, and globes of fire)
Darts, like a javelin, to his destin'd goal.
Or where in Heav'n above the Heav'n of Heav'ns
Burn brighter Suns, and goodlier Planets roll
With Satellites more glorious—Thou art there.

Or whether on the Ocean's boist'rous back
Thou ride triumphant, and with out-stretch'd arm
Curb the wild winds and discipline the billows,

The suppliant Sailor finds Thee there, his chief,
His only help—When Thou rebuk'st the storm—
It ceases—and the vessel gently glides
Along the glassy level of the calm.

Oh! cou'd I search the bosom of the sea,
Down the great depth descending; there thy works
Wou'd also speak thy residence; and there
Wou'd I thy servant, like the still profound,
Astonish'd into silence muse thy praise!
Behold! behold! th'unplanted garden round
Of vegetable coral, sea-flow'rs gay,
And shrubs, with amber, from the pearl-pav'd bottom
Rise richly varied, where the finny race
In blithe security their gambols play:
While high above their heads Leviathan
The terror and the glory of the main
His pastime takes with transport, proud to see
The ocean's vast dominion all his own.

Hence thro' the genial bowels of the earth
Easy may fancy pass; till at thy mines,
Gani, or Raolconda, she arrive,
And from the adamant's imperial blaze
Form weak ideas of her maker's glory.
Next to Pegu or Ceylon let me rove,
Where the rich ruby (deem'd by sages old
Of Sovereign virtue) sparkles ev'n like Sirius
And blushes into flames. Thence will I go

To undermine the treasure-fertile womb
Of the huge Pyrenean, to detect
The Agate and the deep-intrenched gem
Of kindred Jasper—Nature in them both
Delights to play the Mimic on herself;
And in their veins she oft pourtrays the forms
Of leaning hills, of trees erect, and streams
Now stealing softly on, now thund'ring down
In desperate cascade, with flow'rs and beasts
And all the living landskip of the vale.
In vain thy pencil, Claudio, or Poussin,
Or thine, immortal Guido, wou'd essay
Such skill to imitate—it is the hand
Of God himself—for God himself is there.

Hence with th'ascending springs let me advance,
Thro' beds of magnets, minerals and spar,
Up to the mountain's summit, there t'indulge
Th'ambition of the comprehensive eye,
That dares to call th'Horizon all her own.
Behold the forest, and th'expansive verdure
Of yonder level lawn, whose smooth-shorn sod
No object interrupts, unless the oak
His lordly head uprears, and branching arms
Extends—Behold in regal solitude,
And pastoral magnificence he stands
So simple! and so great! the under-wood
Of meaner rank an awful distance keep.

Yet Thou art there, yet God himself is there
Ev'n on the bush (tho' not as when to Moses)
He shone in burning Majesty reveal'd
Nathless conspicuous in the Linnet's throat
Is his unbounded goodness—Thee her Maker,
Thee her preserver chants she in her song;
While all the emulative vocal tribe
The grateful lesson learn—no other voice
Is heard, no other sound—for in attention
Buried, ev'n babbling Echo holds her peace.

Now from the plains, where th'unbounded prospect
Gives liberty her utmost scope to range,
Turn we to yon enclosures, where appears
Chequer'd variety in all her forms,
Which the vague mind attract and still suspend
With sweet perplexity. What are yon tow'rs
The work of lab'ring man and clumsy art
Seen with the ring-dove's nest—on that tall beech
Her pensile house the feather'd artist builds—
The rocking winds molest her not; for see,
With such due poize the wond'rous fabrick's hung,
That, like the compass in the bark, it keeps
True to itself and stedfast ev'n in storms.
Thou ideot that assertst there is no God,
View and be dumb for ever—
Go bid Vitruvius or Palladio build
The bee his mansion, or the ant her cave—

Go call Correggio, or let Titian come
To paint the hawthorn's bloom, or teach the cherry
To blush with just vermillion—hence away—
Hence ye prophane! for God himself is here.
Vain were th'attempt, and impious to trace
Thro' all his works th'Artificer divine—
And tho' nor shining sun, nor twinkling star
Bedeck'd the crimson curtains of the sky;
Tho' neither vegetable, beast, nor bird
Were extant on the surface of this ball,
Nor lurking gem beneath; tho' the great sea
Slept in profound stagnation, and the air
Had left no thunder to pronounce its maker;
Yet man at home, within himself, might find
The Deity immense, and in that frame
So fearfully, so wonderfully made,
See and adore his providence and pow'r—
I see, and I adore—O God most bounteous!
O infinite of Goodness and of Glory!
The knee, that thou hast shap'd, shall bend to Thee,
The tongue, which thou hast tun'd, shall chant thy praise,
And thy own image, the immortal soul,
Shall consecrate herself to Thee for ever.