Classic Poem

Fragment of a Poem on the Works and Wonders of Almighty Power.

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN ON A SUMMER NIGHT IN A GARDEN .

Now I surveyed my native faculties,
And traced my actions to their teeming source;
Now I explored the universal frame,
Gazed nature through, and with interior light
Conversed with angels and unbodied saints,
That tread the courts of the Eternal King.
Gladly would I declare, in lofty strains,
The power of Godhead to the sons of men
But thought is lost in its immensity;
Imagination wastes its strength in vain,
And fancy tires, and turns within itself,
Struck with the amazing depths of Deity!
Ah, my loved God! in vain a tender youth,
Unskilled in arts of deep philosophy,
Attempts to search the bulky mass of matter,
To trace the rules of motion, and pursue
The phantom Time, too subtile for his grasp.
Yet may I, from Thy most apparent works,
Form some idea of their wondrous Author,
And celebrate Thy praise with rapturous mind.
How can I gaze upon you sparkling vault,
And view the planets rolling in their spheres,
Yet be an atheist? Can I see those stars,
And think of others far beyond my ken,
Yet want conviction of Creating Power?
What but a Being of immense perfection
Could, through unbounded spaces, thus dispose
Such numerous bodies, all presumptive worlds?
The undesigning hand of giddy Chance
Could never fill, with globes so vast, so bright,
That lofty concave!
Where shall I trace the sources of the light?
What seats assign the element of fire,
That, unconfined, through all the systems breaks?
Here could I lie in holy contemplation rapt,
And pass with pleasure an eternal age!
But 'tis too much for my weak mind to know:
Teach me, with humble reverence, to adore
The mysteries I must not comprehend!

Fragment of a Poem on the Works and Wonders of Almighty Power.

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN ON A SUMMER NIGHT IN A GARDEN .

Now I surveyed my native faculties,
And traced my actions to their teeming source;
Now I explored the universal frame,
Gazed nature through, and with interior light
Conversed with angels and unbodied saints,
That tread the courts of the Eternal King.
Gladly would I declare, in lofty strains,
The power of Godhead to the sons of men
But thought is lost in its immensity;
Imagination wastes its strength in vain,
And fancy tires, and turns within itself,
Struck with the amazing depths of Deity!
Ah, my loved God! in vain a tender youth,
Unskilled in arts of deep philosophy,
Attempts to search the bulky mass of matter,
To trace the rules of motion, and pursue
The phantom Time, too subtile for his grasp.
Yet may I, from Thy most apparent works,
Form some idea of their wondrous Author,
And celebrate Thy praise with rapturous mind.
How can I gaze upon you sparkling vault,
And view the planets rolling in their spheres,
Yet be an atheist? Can I see those stars,
And think of others far beyond my ken,
Yet want conviction of Creating Power?
What but a Being of immense perfection
Could, through unbounded spaces, thus dispose
Such numerous bodies, all presumptive worlds?
The undesigning hand of giddy Chance
Could never fill, with globes so vast, so bright,
That lofty concave!
Where shall I trace the sources of the light?
What seats assign the element of fire,
That, unconfined, through all the systems breaks?
Here could I lie in holy contemplation rapt,
And pass with pleasure an eternal age!
But 'tis too much for my weak mind to know:
Teach me, with humble reverence, to adore
The mysteries I must not comprehend!