University of Virginia Library

God's Omnipresent Agency.—Carlos Wilcox.

How desolate were nature, and how void
Of every charm, how like a naked waste
Of Africa, were not a present God
Beheld employing, in its various scenes,
His active might to animate and adorn!
What life and beauty, when, in all that breathes,
Or moves, or grows, his hand is viewed at work!—
When it is viewed unfolding every bud,
Each blossom tinging, shaping every leaf,
Wafting each cloud that passes o'er the sky,
Rolling each billow, moving every wing
That fans the air, and every warbling throat
Heard in the tuneful woodlands! In the least,
As well as in the greatest of his works,
Is ever manifest his presence kind;
As well in swarms of glittering insects, seen
Quick to and fro, within a foot of air,
Dancing a merry hour, then seen no more,
As in the systems of resplendent worlds,
Through time revolving in unbounded space.
His eye, while comprehending in one view
The whole creation, fixes full on me;
As on me shines the sun with his full blaze,
While o'er the hemisphere he spreads the same.
His hand, while holding oceans in its palm,
And compassing the skies, surrounds my life,
Guards the poor rush-light from the blast of death.