Oh has that God who gave our world its birth,
Sever'd those waters by some other earth,
Countries by future plough-shares to be torn,
And cities rais'd by nations yet unborn!
Ere the progressive course of restless age
Performs three thousand times its annual stage,'
May not our pow'r and learning be supprest,
And arts and empire learn to travel west?
Where by the strength of this idea charm'd, Lighten'd with glory, and with rapture warm'd, 430 Ascends my Soul? what sees she white and great Amidst subjected seas? An isle, the seat Of pow'r and plenty, her imperial throne, For justice and for mercy sought and known; Virtues sublime, great attributes of Heav'n, From thence to this distinguish'd nation giv'n; Yet farther west the western isle extends Her happy fame; her armed fleets she sends To climates folded yet from human eye,
And lands which we imagine wave and sky;
From pole to pole she hears her acts resound,
And rules an empire by no ocean bound;
Knows her ships anchor'd, and her sails unfurl'd,
In other Indies and a second world.
Long shall Britannia (that must be her name) 445 Be first in conquest, and preside in fame; Long shall her favour'd monarchy engage The teeth of Envy and the force of Age;
Rever'd and happy, she shall long remain
Of human things least changeable, least vain ;
Yet all must with the gen'ral doom comply,
And this great glorious pow'r, tho' last, must die.
Now let us leave this earth, and lift our eye
To the large convex of yon' azure sky:
Behold it like an ample curtain spread,
Now streak'd and glowing with the morning red; Anon at noon in flaming yellow bright,
And choosing sable for the peaceful night.
Ask Reason, now, whence light and shade were giv'n' And whence this great variety of Heav'n?
Reason our guide, what can she more reply,
Than that the sun illuminates the sky?
Than that night rises from his absent ray,
And his returning lustre kindles day?
But we expect the morning red in vain,
'Tis hid in vapours, or obscur'd by rain:
The noon-tide yellow we in vain require,
'Tis black in storm, or red in lightning fire.
Pitchy and dark the night sometimes appears,
Friend to our woe, and parent of our fears;
Our joy and wonder sometimes she excites,
With stars unnumber'd and eternal lights.
Send forth, ye wise, send forth our lab'ring thought, Let it return, with empty notions fraught
Of airy columns ev'ry moment broke,
Of circling whirlpools, and of spheres of smoke;
Yet this solution but once more affords,
New change of terms and scaffolding of words;
In other garb my question I receive,
And take the doubt the very same I gave.
Lo! as a giant strong the lusty sun
Multiply'd rounds in one great round does run,
Two fold his course, yet constant his career,
Changing the day, and finishing the year :
Again, when his descending orb retires,
And earth perceives the absence of his fires,
The moon affords us her alternate ray,
And with kind beams distributes fainter day,
Yet keeps the stages of her monthly race,
Various her beams, and changeable her face;
Each planet shining in his proper sphere,
Does with just speed his radiant voyage steer;
Each sees his lamp with diff'rent lustre crown'd;
Each knows his course with diff'rent periods bound,
And in his passage thro' the liquid space,
Nor hastens nor retards his neighbours race.
Now shine these plannets with substantial rays,
Does innate lustre gild their measur'd days?
Or do they (as your schemes,I think, have shown)
Dart furtive beams and glory not their own, 500
All servants to that source of light, the sun?
Again; I see ten thousand thousand stars,
Nor cast in lines, in circles, nor in squares,
(Poor rules, with which our bounded mind is fill'd,
When we would plant, or cultivate, or build) 505
But shining with such vast, such various light,
As speaks the hand that form'd them infinite.
How mean the order and perfection sought
In the best product of the human thought,
Compar'd to the great harmony that reigns,
In what the spirit of the world ordains!
Now if the sun to earth transmits his ray,
Yet does not scorch us with too fierce a day,
How small a portion of his pow'r is giv❜n
To orbs more distant, and remoter heav'n?
And of those stars which our imperfect eye
Has doom'd and fix'd to one eternal sky,
Each by a native stock of honour great,
May dart strong influence, and diffuse kind heat,
Itself a sun, and with transmissive light
Enliven worlds deny'd to human sight;
Around the circles of their ambient skies
New moons may grow or wane, may set or rise,
And other stars may to those suns be earths,
Give their own elements their proper births,
Divide their climes, or elevate their pole,
See their lands flourish, and their oceans roll;
Yet these great orbs, thus radically bright,
Primitive founts, and origins of light,
May each to other (as their diff'rent sphere 530
Makes, or their distance or their height appear)
Be seen a nobler or inferior star,
And in that space which we call air and sky,
Myriads of earths, and moons, and suns, may lie
Unmeasur'd and unknown by human eye. 535
In vain we measure this amazing sphere,
And find and fix its centre here or there,
Whilst its circumf 'rence, scorning to be brought
Ev'nintofancy'dspace, illudes our vanquish'dthought.
Where, then, are all the radiant monsters driv'n 540
With which your guesses fill'd the frighten'd heav'n?
Where will their fictious images remain ?
In paper schemes, and the Chaldean's brain?
This problem yet, this offspring of a guess, Let us for once a child of Truth confess; That these fair stars, these objects of delight And terror to our searching dazzled sight, Are worlds immense, unnumber'd, infinite; But do these worlds display their beams, or guide Their orbs, to serve thy use, to please thy pride? 550 Thyself but dust, thy stature but a span,
A moment thy duration, foolish man!
As well may the minutest emmet say,
That Caucasus was rais'd to pave
The snail, that Lebanon's extended wood
Was destin'd only for his walk and food;
The vilest cockle, gaping on the coast,
That rounds the ample seas, as well may boast
The craggy rock projects above the sky,
That he in safety at its foot may lie ;
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