Classic Poem

Great Nature, with what wonders fraught,
Thy secrets we with subtlest thought,
In vain essay;
We see thy face, we know in part,
But may not pierce thy inner heart
With reason's ray.

We watch with constant efforts new,
The stars afloat in liquid blue;
But how unfold
Of what these shining orbs are made,
Whence luminous, or when to fade,
Or how controlled?

The regal sun that never tires—
What fount supplies his ceaseless fires
And golden light?
And whence the silver of the sphere,
Which wanders calm her pathway clear,
To rule the night?

How gauge her finest influence wide
On mortal man and swelling tide
And verdant dale?
Or tell how clouds from middle air,
Enormous though the weight they bear
In gauzy veil,

In crystal drop or folded flake
Of snow, descend on mountain lake
And torrent free;
Or riding on the northern gale,
Come charging down in deadly hail
On flower and tree?

What laws confine the rolling seas,
'Mid tempest mild or softest breeze,
To ebb and flow?
To boom in wrath 'gainst jutting rock
Or lave the strand with gentler shock
And murmur low?

The struggling winds, who chains them fast,
Or swings them loose in sweeping blast;
Then bids them back
To darksome cave, like conquered steeds,
While zephyrs play among the reeds
That escaped their wrack?

Who bids the avalanche at rest,
Speed merciless from mountain crest
On vale below?
Or Ætna burst his rocky band,
And fiercely burning, o'er the land
Destructive flow?

Ah! none save Him, who great and small
From naught to being called them all;
All comprehends;
'Tis He, the one Eternal Cause
Who guideth each with wisest laws
To wisest ends.