Nature is young no longer; yet appear

No signs as if her fated hour were near :

Nought speaks the absence of the Eternal mind;

445

His eye less present, or His care less kind.

Still round the brow of sable-vested night

The stars unnumber'd weave their crowns of light:

Still wake to life, in daily, hourly birth,
Man, and his subject creatures of the earth:
Still round the center of the Eternal mind
In order'd march doth Time his circle wind.

And heav'n-born Science, since she learnt to soar

Through realms of space, and worlds unknown before,
Tells that, where'er her wand'ring feet have trod,
She finds still near the wonder-working God:
Finds Him each point of boundless space pervade,
Alike in little, and in vast display'd;

Hurling the comet in its path on high,

And filling each small drop with Deity.

And oh! shall Nature speak, but speak in vain ?
And "charm so wisely" yet no audience gain?
Forbid it Heav'n! nor let one cadence part
Forth from her strings, but vibrates to the heart!
Oh! as for ever near Thy hand we see,
Our's be the bliss to walk by faith with Thee!

450

455

460

465

Then blest each joy that bids the breast expand;
A bright'ning sunbeam from a Father's hand!
And blest each grief that sheds its tearful ray;

Since Thou art near to wipe those tears away!
Oh! if e'er Vice her bright enchantments weave,
To ture the pilgrim, and his steps deceive;

470

Then let him upward turn one look to Thee;

'Twill break those spells, and set the pris'ner free!

And oft as sorrows o'er th' afflicted soul

475

Wave upon wave their whelming billows roll,

And tost by doubt, and fear, and want, and care,

It faint, and sink one moment in despair;

Then,-like the wand'rer* that on Afric's soil

Dragg'd his weak frame with hunger spent and toil;- 480 Let but the mourner mark th' uncultur'd sod,

So deck'd, so tended by its guardian God;

And sure that He, whose goodness loves to dress
The meanest flow'rs that strew the wilderness,
Views not the woes of suff'ring man in vain,
Hope against hope, and stem the flood again!

Soon 'twill all cease! its hopings, faintings o'er,

This heart will flutter, and will beat no more!

*

Mungo Park. Vid. Note in the Appendix.

485

Soon must it quit its mansion of the clay,
And wing to worlds unseen its vent'rous way.
But shall I fear thee oh! thou gloomy death!
When He is near to catch the parting breath?
Or can thy valley lead me to a spot

So dark, and dreary, where my God is not?

Leads it not rather to a world of bliss,

Where He is seen unclouded as He is,

No more as here behind His works conceal'd,

But in full vision to the soul reveal'd?

Then welcome Death, that last and desp'rate strife

490

495

Through which the spirit struggles into life!

500

And welcome Grave! since, darksome though the way,

'Tis but the portal to eternal day!

Oh! the blest thought that there the soul shall know

HIM whom so dimly it had trac❜d below,

Sheds a sweet smile on death's sepulchral gloom,

505

And wakes a voice of rapture from the tomb.

'Tis as, when bright on Memnon's statue shone

The kindling glories of the rising Sun,

From the cold stone sweet strains were heard to play,

Its joyous greeting to the new-born day.

510

NOTES.

66

94-98.- Contrivance," says Paley, (Nat. Th. c. 23.) and we may affirm the same of the exertion of any of the divine attributes, directed as we always see that exertion by unerring Wisdom, "proves the personality of the Deity, as distinguished from what is sometimes called nature, sometimes called a principle: which terms in the mouths of those who use them philosophically, seem to be intended to admit and to express an efficacy, but to exclude and to deny a personal agent. Now that which can contrive, which can design, must be a person. These capacities constitute personality, for they imply consciousness and thought. They require that which can perceive an end or purpose; as well as the power of providing means, and of directing them to their end. They require a center in which perceptions unite, and from which volitions flow; which is mind. The acts of a mind prove the existence of a mind, and in whatever a mind resides is a person.... Design must have a designer. That designer must be a person. That person is GOD."

99. In the following lines I have insisted on those proofs of the divine Presence throughout Creation which are obvious to the unassisted senses of every one: selecting them in preference to the proofs afforded by the discoveries of science, as being universal in their appeal. The latter indeed to those who understand them are peculiarly striking; and, as such, have been alluded to at the close of the poem. But it is on the more simple observations of the senses that the great bulk of mankind must ever depend in the absence of the light of revelation.

D

Of the particular instances of the manifestation of the divine agency adduced in this part of the poem, many are insisted on by Socrates in his dialogues as recorded by Xenophon, and by Cicero in the second Book of his de Naturâ Deorum; from which, as the subject is interesting, I have subjoined a few extracts. Others are brought forward in the sacred Hebrew writers, and more particularly in the concluding chapters of the book of Job, in which the evidence of Creation is drawn out with inimitable force and sublimity.

103.-" Nec vero hæ stellæ quæ inerrantes vocantur non significant eandem mentem atque prudentiam ; quarum est quotidiana, conveniens, constansque conversio. Earum perennes cursus atque perpetui cùm admirabili incredibilique constantiâ declarant in his vim et mentem esse divinam: ut hæc ipsa qui non sentiat is nihil omnino sensurus esse videatur." Cic. de N. D. 2. 21.

128.-" Possetne uno tempore florere, dein vicissim horrere terra? aut tot rebus ipsis se immutantibus solis accessus discessusque solstitiis brumisque cognosci?-Hæc ita fieri omnibus inter se concinentibus mundi partibus profecto non possent nisi ea uno divino et continuato spiritu continerentur." Cic. de N. D. 2.7. The concluding expression is very remarkable; and seems distinctly to imply the idea of the spiritual omnipresence of God. But the philosopher soon reverts to the errors of the Stoics, explaining himself (c. 17.) by declaring the universe to be itself animated and divine.

139.-Vid. Chalmers' Astronomical Sermons, page 109.

233.-The ancient Greeks were fond of selecting elevated sites for their temples, as in the instances of the temples of Sunium, Ægina, and Phigaleia still remaining. In all of these many columns are yet standing; but in other places, as at Ephesus and Priene, the ruin is as complete as that described in the text; not a single part of the temple being left standing, but the columns,