His hand has form'd? fhall mystery defcend
From un-mysterious? things more elevate,
Be more familiar? uncreated lie
More obvious than created, to the grafp
Of human thought? The more of wonderful
Is heard in Him, the more we should affent..
Could we conceive Him, God he could not be;
Or He not GOD, or we could not be men.
A GOD alone can comprehend a God;
Man's diftance how immenfe! On such a theme,
Know this, LORENZO! (feem it ne'er so strange)
Nothing can satisfy but what confounds;
Nothing but what astonishes is true.
The scene thou seest attests the truth I fing,
And ev'ry star sheds light upon thy creed.
These stars, this furniture, this cost of Heav'n,
If but reported, thou had'it ne'er believ'd;
But thine eye tells thee, the romance is true.
The grand of nature is th' Almighty's oath,
In Reason's court, to filence Unbelief.
How my mind, op'ning at this scene, imbibes
The moral emanations of the skies,
While nought, perhaps, LORENZO lefs admires! Has the Great Sov'reign sent ten thousand worlds To tell us, He refides above them all,
In glory's unapproachable recefs?
And dare earth's bold inhabitants deny
The fumptuous, the magnific embaffy
A moment's audience? Turn we, nor will hear
From whom they come, or what they would impart
For man's emolument; fole cause that stoops
Their grandeur to man's eye? LORENZO! roufe;
Let thought, awaken'd, take the lightning's wing,
And glance from east to west, from pole to pole.
Who fees, but is confounded, or convinc'd?
Renounces reason, or a GoD adores?
Mankind was fent into the world to see;
Sight gives the science needful to their peace;
That obvious fcience afks small learning's aid.
Would'st thou on metaphyfic pinions foar?
Or wound thy patience amid logic thorns?
Or travel history's enormous round?
Nature no fuch hard task enjoins: She gave
A make to man directive of his thought;
A make fet upright, pointing to the stars,
As who should fay, " Read thy chief lesson there.”
Too late to read this manufcript of Heav'n,
When, like a parchment-fcroll, fhrunk up by flames,
It folds LORENZO's leffon from his fight.
Leffon how various! Not the GoD alone;
I fee his ministers; I fee, diffus'd
In radiant orders, effences fublime,
Of various offices, of various plume,
In heav'nly liveries, diftinctly clad,
Azure, green, purple, pearl, or downy gold,
Or all commix'd; they ftand, with wings outfpread,
Lift'ning to catch the Malter's leaft command,
And fly thro' nature, ere the moment ends;
Numbers innumerable!--Well conceiv'd
By Pagan, and by Christian! o'er each sphere
Prefides an angel, to direct its course,
And feed, or fan, its flames; or to discharge
Other high trufts unknown. For who can fee
Such pomp of matter, and imagine, mind,
For which alone inanimate was made,
More fparingly difpens'd? that nobler fon,
Far liker the great Sire !-'Tis thus the Skies
Inform us of fuperiors numberlefs,
As much, in excellence, above mankind,
As above earth, in magnitude, the spheres.
These, as a cloud of witneffes, hang o'er us;
In a throng'd theatre are all our deeds;
Perhaps, a thousand demigods defcend,
On ev'ry beam we fee, to walk with men.
Awful reflection! ftrong reftraint from ill!
Yet bere, our virtue finds ftill ftronger aid
From these ethereal glories sense furveys.
Something, like magic, ftrikes from this blue vault.
With juft attention is it view'd? We feel
A fudden fuccour, unimplor'd, unthought;
Nature herself does half the work of man.
Seas, rivers, mountains, forefts, defarts, rocks,
The promontory's height, the depth profound
Of fubterranean, excavated grots,
Black-brow'd, and vaulted high, and yawning wide
From Nature's structure, or the scoop of Time:
If ample of dimenfion, vaft of fize,
Ev'n these an aggrandizing impulse give;
Of folemn thought enthufiaftic heights
Ev'n these infufe.-But what of vaft in these?
Nothing;-or we must own the skies forgot.
Much lefs in art- -Vain Art! thou pigmy pow'r,
How doft thou fwell, and strut, with human pride,.
To fhew thy littlenefs? what childish toys,
Thy wat❜ry columns fquirted to the clouds!
Thy bafon'd rivers, and imprison'd feas!
Thy mountains moulded into forms of inen!
Thy hundred-gated capitals! or thofe
Where three days travel left us much to ride;
Gazing on miracles by mortals wrought,
Arches triumphal, theatres immense.
Or nodding gardens pendent in mid-air!
Or temples proud to meet their gods half-way!
Yet these affect us in no common kind.
What then the force of fuch fuperior scenes?
Enter a temple, it will strike an awe:
What awe from this, the DEITY has built!
A good man feen, tho' filent, counsel gives;
The touch'd fpectator wishes to be wife;
In a bright mirror his own hands have made...
Here we fee fomething like the face of God,
Seems it not then enough to fay, LORENZO!.
To man abandon'd, “ Hast thou seen the Skies ?” ·
And yet, fo thwarted Nature's kind design
By daring man, he makes her facred awe
(That guard from ill) his fhelter, his temptation.
To more than common guilt, and quite inverts.
Celestial Art's intent. The trembling stars
See crimes gigantic, ftalking thro' the gloom
With front erect, that hide their head by day,
And making night ftill darker by their deeds.
Slumb'ring in covert, till the fhades defcend,
Rapine, and murder, link'd now prowl for prey.
The mifer earths his treasure; and the thief,
Watching the mole, half-beggars him ere morn..
Now plots, and foul conspiracies, awake;
And, muffling up their horrors from the moon,
Havock and devastation they prepare,
And kingdoms tott'ring in the field of blood.
Now fons of riot in mad revel rage.
What fhall I do?-fupprefs it? or proclaim?—
Why fleeps the thunder? Now, LORENZO! now
His best friend's couch the rank adulterer
Ascends fecure; and laughs at gods and men.
Prepofterous madmen, void of fear or shame.
Lay their crimes bare to these chafte eyes of Heav'n ;
Yet fhrink and fhudder at a mortal's fight.
Were moon, and ftars, for villains only made?
To guide, yet fcreen them, with tenebrious light?
No; they were made to fashion the fublime
Of human hearts, and wifer make the wife.
Thofe ends were anfwer'd once; when mortals liv'd Of ftronger wing, of aquiline afcent,
Thofe vermin of the night, this moment fung,
Who crawl on earth, and on her venom feed!
Those ancient fages, buman stars! They met
Their brothers of the skies, at midnight hour;
Their counfel afk'd; and, what they afk'd, obey'd..
The Stagyrite, and Plato, he who drank
The poifon'd bowl, and he of Tusculum,
With him of Corduba, (immortal names!)
In thefe unbounded, and Elysian, walks,
An area fit for gods, and godlike men,
They took their nightly round, thro' radiant paths
By Seraphs trod; inftructed, chiefly thus,
To tread in their bright footsteps here below;
To walk in worth still brighter than the skies.
There they contracted their contempt of earth;
Of hopes eternal kindled, there, the fire;
There, as in near approach, they glow'd, and grew
(Great vifitants!) more intimate with God,
More worth to men, more joyous to themselves.
Thro' various virtues, they, with ardor, ran
The zodiac of their learn'd, illustrious lives.
In Christian hearts, O for a Pagan zeal!
A needful, but opprobrious pray'r! As much
Our ardor lefs, as greater is our light.
How monstrous this in morals! Scarce more strange
Would this phenomenon in nature strike,
A sun that froze us, or a star that warm'd.
What taught these heroes of the moral world?
To these thou giv'ft thy praise, give credit too,
Thefe doctors ne'er were penfion'd to deceive thee;
And Pagan tutors are thy taste.-They taught,
That, narrow views betray to mifery:
That, wife it is to comprehend the whole:
That, Virtue rose from Nature; ponder'd well,
The fingle bafe of Virtue built to heav'n:
That, GoD and Nature our attention claim:
That, Nature is the glass reflecting GOD,
As, by the sea, reflected is the sun,
Too glorious to be gaz'd on in his sphere:
That, mind immortal loves immortal aims:
That, boundless mind affects a boundless space:
That, vaft furveys, and the fublime of things,
The foul affimilate, and make her great;
That, therefore, Heav'n her glories, as a fund
Of infpiration, thus spreads out to man.
Such are their doctrines; such the night infpir'd.
And what more true? what truth of greater weight? The foul of man was made to walk the fkies; Delightful outlet of her prifon bere!
There, difincumber'd from her chains, the ties
Of toys terreftrial, fhe can rove at large;
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