University of Virginia Library

Laws of Nature.

The fool hath in his heart declared,—by laws
Since time began,
Blind and without intelligential cause,
Or reasoned plan,
All things are ruled. I from this lore dissent,
With sorrowful shame
That reasoning men such witless wit should vent
In reason's name.
O Thou that o'er this lovely world hast spread
Thy jocund light,
Weaving with flowers beneath, and stars o'erhead
This tissue bright
Of living powers, clear Thou my sense, that I
May ever find
In all the marshalled pomp of earth and sky
The marshalling mind!
Laws are not powers; nor can the well-timed courses
Of earths and moons
Ring to the stroke of blind unthinking forces
Their jarless tunes.
Wiser were they who in the flaming vault
The circling sun
Beheld, and in his ray, with splendid fault,
Worshipped the one
Eye of the universe that seeth all,
And shapeth sight
In man and moth through curious visual ball
With fine delight.
O blessed beam, on whose refreshful might
Profusely shed
Six times ten years, with ever young delight,
Mine eye hath fed,
Still let me love thee, and with wonder new,
By flood and field,
Worship the fair, and consecrate the true
By thee revealed!
And loving thee, beyond thee love that first
Father of Lights
From whom the ray vivific marvellous burst,
Might of all mights,
Whose thought is order, and whose will is law.
That man is wise
Who worships God wide-eyed, with cheerful awe
And chaste surprise.