Each brilliant star that sparkles through,
Each gilded cloud that wanders free
In evening's purple radiance, gives
The beauty of its praise to Thee.
God of the rolling orbs above!
Thy name is written clearly bright
In the warm day's unvarying blaze,
Or evening's golden shower of light.
For every fire that fronts the sun,
And every spark that walks alone
Around the utmost verge of heaven,
Were kindled at Thy burning throne.
God of the world! the hour must come,
And nature's self to dust return;
Her crumbling altars must decay,
Her incense fires shall cease to burn;
But still her grand and lovely scenes
Have made man's warmest praises flow;
For hearts grow holier as they trace
The beauty of the world below.
UNIVERSAL ORDER.
SEE through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Nature's ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee;
From thee to nothing.-On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd;
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten-thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And if each system in gradation roll,
Alike essential to the amazing whole,
The least confusion, but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth, unbalanced, from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature trembles to the throne of God.
All this dread order break-for whom? for thee?
Vile worm !-oh, madness! pride! impiety!
What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread,
Or hand to toil, aspired to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repined
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another in this general frame;
Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains
The great directing Mind of All ordains.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees:
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small:
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Cease then, nor Order Imperfection name; Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee. Submit-in this or any other sphere,
Secure to be as bless'd as thou canst bear;
Safe in the hand of one disposing Power,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art unknown to thee;
All chance direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear-Whatever is, is right.
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."-PSALM XIV.
"No God! no God!" The simplest flower
That on the wild is found,
Shrinks, as it drinks its cup of dew,
And trembles at the sound.
"No God!" astonish'd Echo cries
From out her cavern hoar ;
And every wandering bird that flies
Reproves the atheist lore.
The solemn forest lifts its head
The Almighty to proclaim;
The brooklet, on its crystal urn,
Doth leap to grave His name;
High swells the deep and vengeful sea
Along its billowy track,
And red Vesuvius opes his mouth
To hurl the falsehood back.
The palm-tree, with its princely crest,
The cocoa's leafy shade,
The bread-fruit, bending to its load,
In yon far island glade ;
The winged seeds that, borne by winds,
The roving sparrows feed,
The melon on the desert sands,
Confute the scorner's creed.
"No God!" With indignation high
The fervent sun is stirr'd,
And the pale moon turns paler still
At such an impious word!
And, from their burning thrones, the stars
Look down with angry eye,
That thus a worm of dust should mock
THERE is a gentler element, and man
May breathe it with a calm unruffled soul,
And drink its living waters till the heart
Is pure. And this is human happiness!
Its secret and its evidence are writ
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