THE UNKNOWN GOD. To learned Athens, led by fame, As once the man of Tarsus came, Midst idol altars as he stood, O'er sculptured marble, brass and wood, He rolled his awful eyes. But one, apart, his notice caught, That seemed with higher meaning fraught, Graved on the wounded stone; Nor form nor name was there expressed; Deep reverence filled the musing breast, Perusing, "To the God unknown." Age after age has rolled away, Altars and thrones have felt decay, Sages and saints have risen; And, like a giant roused from sleep, Man has explored the pathless deep, And lightnings snatched from heaven. And many a shrine in dust is laid, Where kneeling nations homage paid, By rock, or fount, or grove: Ephesian Dian sees no more Her workmen fuse the silver ore, Nor Capitolian Jove. E'en Salem's hallowed courts have ceased With solemn pomps her tribes to feast, No more the victim bleeds ; To censers filled with rare perfumes, Yet still, where'er presumptuous man His Maker's essence strives to scan, And lifts his feeble hands, Though saint and sage their powers unite, To fathom that abyss of light, Ah! still that altar stands. Its round of seasons, has fulfilled its course, Absolved its destined period, and is borne, Silent and swift, to that devouring gulf, Their womb and grave, where seasons, months and years, Revolving periods of uncounted time, All merge, and are forgotten.—Thou alone, In thy deep bosom burying all the past, Still art; and still from thine exhaustless store New periods spring, Eternity.-Thy name Or glad, or fearful, we pronounce, as thoughts Wandering in darkness shape thee. Thou strange being, Which art and must be, yet which contradict'st All sense, all reasoning,-thou, who never wast ETERNITY. Less than thyself, and who still art thyself 231 Entire, though the deep draught which Time has taken Equals thy present store-No line can reach To thy unfathomed depths. The reasoning sage Who can dissect a sunbeam, count the stars, And measure distant worlds, is here a child, On and still onward flows the ceaseless tide, And wrecks of empires and of worlds are borne Like atoms on its bosom.—Still thou art And he who does inhabit thee. |