Immortal Silence! where shall I begin?
Where end? or how steal music from the spheres
To sooth their goddess?
O majestic Night'
Nature's great ancestor! Day's elder-born'
And fated to survive the transient Sun'
By mortals and immortals seen with awe!
A starry crown thy raven brow adorns,
An azure zone thy waist; clouds, in heaven's loom Wrought through varieties of shape and shade,
In ample folds of drapery divine,
Thy flowing mantle form, and, heaven throughout,
Voluminously pour thy pompous train :
Thy gloomy grandeurs (Nature's most august,
Inspiring aspect !) claim a grateful verse;
And, like a sablə curtain starr'd with gold,
Drawn o'er my labours past, shall close the scene.
And what, O man! so worthy to be sung?
What more prepares us for the songs of heaven?
Creation of archangels is the theme!
What to be sung so needful, what so well
Celestial joys prepare us to sustain ?
The soul of man, His face design'd to see
Who gave these wonders to be seen by man,
Has here a previous scene of objects great
On which to dwell; to stretch to that expanse
Of thought, to rise to that exalted height
Of admiration, to contract that awe,
And give her whole capacities that strength
Which best may qualify for final joy.
The more our spirits are enlarged on earth,
The deeper draught shall they receive of heaven. [bliss,
Heaven's King! whose face unveil'd consummates
Redundant bliss! which fills that mighty void
The whole Creation leaves in human hearts!
Thou! who didst touch the lip of Jesse's son,
Rapp'd in sweet contemplation of these fires,
And set his harp in concert with the spheres,
While of thy works material the supreme
I dare attempt, assist my daring song :
Loose me from Earth's enclosure; from the Suns
Contracted circle set my heart at large;
Eliminate my spirit, give it range
Through provinces of thought yet unexplored;
Teach me, by this stupendous scaffolding,
Creation's golden steps, to climb to Thee :
Teach me with art great Nature to control,
And spread a lustre o'er the shades of night.
Feel I thy kind assent? and shall the Sun
Be seen at midnight, rising in my song?
Lorenzo! come, and warm thee: thou, whose heart,
Whose little heart, is moor'd within a nook
Of this obscure terrestrial, anchor weigh;
Another ocean calls, a nobler port;
I am thy pilot, I thy prosperous gale:
Gainful thy voyage through yon azure main,
Main without tempest, pirate, rock, or shore,
And whence thou mayst import eternal wealth,
And leave to beggar'd minds the pearl and gold.
Thy travels dost thou boast o'er foreign realms!
Thou stranger to the world! thy tour begin;
Thy tour through Nature's universal orb.
Nature delineates her whole chart at large,
On soaring souls, that sail among the spheres ;
And man how purblind, if unknown the whole.
Who circles spacious earth, then travels here,
Shall own he never was from home before.
Come, my Prometheus !* from thy pointed rock
Of false ambition, if unchain'd, we'il mount;
We'll, innocently, steal celestial fire,
And kindle our devotion at the stars;
A theft that shall not chain, but set thee free.
Above our atmosphere's intestine wars,
Rain's fountain-head, the magazine of hail;
Above the northern nests of feather'd snows,
*See Night the Eighth, p. 182.
The brew of thunders, and the flaming forge
That forms the crooked lightning: 'bove the caves
Where infant tempests wait their growing wings,
And tune their tender voices to that roar,
Which soon, perhaps, shall shake a guilty world; 625
Above misconstrued omens of the sky,
Far travel'd comets' calculated blaze,
Elance thy thought, and think of more than man
Thy soul, till now contracted, wither'd, shrunk,
Blighted by blasts of Earth's unwholesome air,
Will blossom here; spread all her faculties
To these bright ardours, every power unfold,
And rise into sublimities of thought.
Stars teach, as well as shine. At Nature's birth
Thus their commission ran. Be kind to man.'
Where art thou, poor benighted traveller!
The stars will light thee, though the moon should fail
Where art thou, more benighted! more astray!
In ways immoral? the stars call thee back,
And, if obey'd their counsel, set thee right.
This prospect vast, what is it?--Weigh'd aright 'Tis Nature's system of divinity,
And every student of the night inspires.
'Tis elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand; Scripture authentic! uncorrupt by man.
Lorenzo! with my radius (the rich gift
Of thought nocturnal) I'll point out to thee
Its various lessons; some that may surprise
An unadept in mysteries of Night;
Little, perhaps, expected in her school,
Nor thought to grow on planet or on star
Bulls, lions, scorpions, monsters here we feign,
Ourselves more monstrous, not to see what here
Exists, indeed,-a lecture to mankind!
What read we here ?-the' existence of a God' 655
Yes and of other beings, man above;
Natives of ether! sons of higher climes!
And, what may move Lorenzo's wonder more,
Wrath, pride, ambition, and impure desire.
Lorenzo! thou canst wake at midnight too,
Though not on morals bent. Ambition, Pleasure!
Those tyrants I for thee so lately fought,*
Afford their harass'd slaves but slender rest.
Thou, to whom midnight is immoral noon,
And the sun's noontide blaze prime dawn of day,
Not by thy climate, but capricious crime,
Commencing one of our antipodes !
In thy nocturnal rove one moment halt,
"Twixt stage and stage of riot and cabal,
And lift thine eye (if bold an eye to lift,
If bold to meet the face of injured Heaven)
To yonder stars: for other ends they shine
Than to light revellers from shame to shame,
And thus be made accomplices in guilt.
Why from yon arch, that infinite of space, With infinite of lucid orbs replete,
Which set the living firmament on fire,
At the first glance, in such an overwhelm
Of wonderful on man's astonish'd sight
Rushes Omnipotence ?-To curb our pride,
Our reason rouse, and lead it to that Power
Whose love lets down these silver chains of light;
To draw up man's ambition to himself,
And bind our chaste affections to his throne.
Thus the three virtues, least alive on earth,
And welcomed on heaven's coast with most applause
An humble, pure, and heavenly minded heart,
Are here inspired;-and canst thou gaze too long? Nor stands thy wrath deprived of its reproof, *In Night the Eighth.
Or unupbraided by this radiant choir.
The planets of each system represent
Kind neighbours; mutual amity prevails;
Sweet interchange of rays, received, return'd,
Enlightening and enlighten'd! all, at once,
Attracting and attracted! patriot-like,
None sins against the welfare of the whole;
But their reciprocal, unselfish aid,
Affords an emblem of millennial love.
Nothing in nature, much less conscious being,
Was e'er created solely for itself.
Thus man his sovereign duty learns in this
Material picture of benevolence.
And know, of all our supercilious race, Thou most inflammable thou wasp of men! Man's angry heart, inspected, would be found As rightly set, as are the starry spheres:
'Tis Nature's structure broke, thy stubborn Will
Breeds all that uncelestial discord there.
Wilt thou not feel the bias Nature gave?
Canst thou descend from converse with the skies, 715
And seize thy brother's throat?-For what?-a clod?
An inch of earth? The planets cry, 'Forbear.'
They chase our double darkness, Nature's gloom,
And (kinder still!) our intellectual night.
And see, Day's amiable sister sends
Her invitation, in the softest rays
Of mitigated lustre; courts thy sight,
Which suffers from her tyrant brother's blaze.
Night grants thee the full freedom of the skies,
Nor rudely reprimands thy lifted eye;
With gain and joy, she bribes thee to be wise.
Night opes the noblest scenes, and sheds an awe
Which gives those venerable scenes full weight,
And deep reception in the' entender'd heart;
While light peeps through the darkness like a spy, 730
And darkness shows its grandeur by the light!
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