A Summer Evening's Meditation.

'TIS past! The sultry tyrant of the south
 Has spent his short-liv'd rage; more grateful hours
 Move silent on; the skies no more repel
 The dazzled sight, but with mild maiden beams
 Of temper'd light, invite the cherish'd eye
 To wander o'er their sphere; where hung aloft
 DIAN's bright crescent, like a silver bow
 New strung in heaven, lifts high its beamy horns
 Impatient for the night, and seems to push
 Her brother down the sky. Fair VENUS shines
 Even in the eye of day; with sweetest beam
 Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood
 Of soften'd radiance from her dewy locks. 
The shadows spread apace; while meeken'd Eve
 Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires
 Thro' the Hesperian gardens of the west,
 And shuts the gates of day. 'Tis now the hour
 When Contemplation, from her sunless haunts,
 The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth
 Of unpierc'd woods, where wrapt in solid shade
 She mused away the gaudy hours of noon,
 And fed on thoughts unripen'd by the sun,
 Moves forward; and with radiant finger points
 To yon blue concave swell'd by breath divine,
 Where, one by one, the living eyes of heaven
 Awake, quick kindling o'er the face of ether
 One boundless blaze; ten thousand trembling fires,
 And dancing lustres, where th' unsteady eye
 Restless, and dazzled wanders unconfin'd
 O'er all this field of glories: spacious field! 
And worthy of the master: he, whose hand
 With hieroglyphics older than the Nile,
 Inscrib'd the mystic tablet; hung on high
 To public gaze, and said, adore, O man! 
The finger of thy GOD. From what pure wells
 Of milky light, what soft o'erflowing urn,
 Are all these lamps so fill'd? these friendly lamps,
 For ever streaming o'er the azure deep
 To point our path, and light us to our home. 
How soft they slide along their lucid spheres! 
And silent as the foot of time, fulfil
 Their destin'd courses: Nature's self is hush'd,
 And, but a scatter'd leaf, which rustles thro'
 The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard
 To break the midnight air; tho' the rais'd ear,
 Intensely listening, drinks in every breath. 
How deep the silence, yet how loud the praise! 
But are they silent all? or is there not
 A tongue in every star that talks with man,
 And wooes him to be wise; nor wooes in vain:
 This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
 And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars. 
At this still hour the self-collected soul
 Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there
 Of high descent, and more than mortal rank;
 An embryo GOD; a spark of fire divine,
 Which must burn on for ages, when the sun,
 (Fair transitory creature of a day!) 
Has clos'd his golden eye, and wrapt in shades
 Forgets his wonted journey thro' the east. 

Ye citadels of light, and seats of GODS! 
Perhaps my future home, from whence the soul
 Revolving periods past, may oft look back
 With recollected tenderness, on all
 The various busy scenes she left below,
 Its deep laid projects and its strange events,
 As on some fond and doting tale that sooth'd
 Her infant hours; O be it lawful now
 To tread the hallow'd circle of your courts,
 And with mute wonder and delighted awe
 Approach your burning confines. Seiz'd in thought
 On fancy's wild and roving wing I sail,
 From the green borders of the peopled earth,
 And the pale moon, her duteous fair attendant;
 From solitary Mars; from the vast orb
 Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk
 Dances in ether like the lightest leaf;
 To the dim verge, the suburbs of the system,
 Where chearless Saturn 'midst her wat'ry moons
 Girt with a lucid zone, majestic sits
 In gloomy grandeur; like an exil'd queen
 Amongst her weeping handmaids: fearless thence
 I launch into the trackless deeps of space,
 Where, burning round, ten thousand suns appear,
 Of elder beam; which ask no leave to shine
 Of our terrestrial star, nor borrow light
 From the proud regent of our scanty day;
 Sons of the morning, first born of creation,
 And only less than him who marks their track,
 And guides their fiery wheels. Here must I stop,
 Or is there aught beyond? What hand unseen
 Impels me onward thro' the glowing orbs
 Of habitable nature; far remote,
 To the dread confines of eternal night,
 To solitudes of vast unpeopled space,
 The desarts of creation, wide and wild;
 Where embryo systems and unkindled suns
 Sleep in the womb of chaos; fancy droops,
 And thought astonish'd stops her bold career. 
But oh thou mighty mind! whose powerful word
 Said, thus let all things be, and thus they were,
 Where shall I seek thy presence? how unblam'd
 Invoke thy dread perfection? 
Have the broad eye-lids of the morn beheld thee? 
Or does the beamy shoulder of Orion
 Support thy throne? O look with pity down
 On erring guilty man; not in thy names
 Of terrour clad; not with those thunders arm'd
 That conscious Sinai felt, when fear appall'd
 The scatter'd tribes; thou hast a gentler voice,
 That whispers comfort to the swelling heart,
 Abash'd, yet longing to behold her Maker. 

But now my soul unus'd to stretch her powers
 In flight so daring, drops her weary wing,
 And seeks again the known accustom'd spot,
 Drest up with sun, and shade, and lawns, and streams,
 A mansion fair and spacious for its guest,
 And full replete with wonders. Let me here
 Content and grateful, wait th' appointed time
 And ripen for the skies: the hour will come
 When all these splendours bursting on my sight
 Shall stand unveil'd, and to my ravish'd sense
 Unlock the glories of the world unknown.