Young's Night Thoughts Part 29

Lorenzo! thou canst wake at midnight too, Though not on morals bent: Ambition, Pleasure!

Those tyrants I for thee so lately fought,[59]

Afford their hara.s.s'd slaves but slender rest. 670 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, 680 And, thus, be made accomplices in guilt.

Why from yon arch, that infinite of s.p.a.ce, 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, 690 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, 694 Are here inspired:--and canst thou gaze too long?

Nor stands thy wrath deprived of its reproof, Or un-upbraided 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, 702 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, 710 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 by stubborn will, Breeds all that uncelestial discord there.

Wilt thou not feel the bias Nature gave?

Canst thou descend from converse with the skies, 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, 720 And (kinder still!) our intellectual night.

And see, Day's amiable sister sends Her invitation, in the softest rays Of mitigated l.u.s.tre; 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. 728 Night opes the n.o.blest scenes, and sheds an awe, Which gives those venerable scenes full weight, And deep reception, in th' intender'd heart; While light peeps through the darkness, like a spy; And darkness shows its grandeur by the light.

Nor is the profit greater than the joy, If human hearts at glorious objects glow, And admiration can inspire delight.

What speak I more, than I, this moment, feel?

With pleasing stupor first the soul is struck (Stupor ordain'd to make her truly wise!): Then into transport starting from her trance, 740 With love, and admiration, how she glows!

This gorgeous apparatus! this display!

This ostentation of creative power!

This theatre!--what eye can take it in?

By what divine enchantment was it raised, For minds of the first magnitude to launch In endless speculation, and adore?

One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine; And light us deep into the Deity; How boundless in magnificence and might! 750 O what a confluence of ethereal fires, Form urns unnumber'd, down the steep of heaven, Streams to a point, and centres in my sight!

Nor tarries there; I feel it at my heart.

My heart, at once, it humbles, and exalts; Lays it in dust, and calls it to the skies.

Who sees it unexalted? or unawed?

Who sees it, and can stop at what is seen?

Material offspring of Omnipotence!

Inanimate, all-animating birth! 760 Work worthy Him who made it! worthy praise!

All praise! praise more than human! nor denied 762 Thy praise divine!--But though man, drown'd in sleep, Withholds his homage, not alone I wake; Bright legions swarm unseen, and sing, unheard By mortal ear, the glorious Architect, In this His universal temple hung With l.u.s.tres, with innumerable lights, That shed religion on the soul; at once, The temple, and the preacher! O how loud 770 It calls devotion! genuine growth of Night!

Devotion! daughter of Astronomy!

An undevout astronomer is mad.

True; all things speak a G.o.d; but in the small, Men trace out Him; in great, He seizes man; Seizes, and elevates, and wraps, and fills With new inquiries, 'mid a.s.sociates new.

Tell me, ye stars! ye planets! tell me, all Ye starr'd, and planeted, inhabitants! what is it?

What are these sons of wonder? say, proud arch 780 (Within those azure palaces they dwell), Built with divine ambition! in disdain Of limit built! built in the taste of heaven!

Vast concave! ample dome! wast thou design'd A meet apartment for the Deity?-- Not so; that thought alone thy state impairs, Thy lofty sinks, and shallows thy profound, And straitens thy diffusive; dwarfs the whole, And makes a universe an orrery[60].

But when I drop mine eye, and look on man, 790 Thy right regain'd, thy grandeur is restored, O Nature! wide flies off th' expanding round.

As when whole magazines, at once, are fired, The smitten air is hollow'd by the blow; The vast displosion dissipates the clouds; Shock'd ether's billows dash the distant skies; 796 Thus (but far more) th' expanding round flies off, And leaves a mighty void, a s.p.a.cious womb, Might teem with new creation; reinflamed Thy luminaries triumph, and a.s.sume Divinity themselves. Nor was it strange, Matter high-wrought to such surprising pomp, Such G.o.dlike glory, stole the style of G.o.ds, 803 From ages dark, obtuse, and steep'd in sense; For, sure, to sense, they truly are divine, And half absolved idolatry from guilt; Nay, turn'd it into virtue. Such it was In those, who put forth all they had of man Unlost, to lift their thought, nor mounted higher; But, weak of wing, on planets perch'd; and thought 810 What was their highest, must be their adored.

But they how weak, who could no higher mount?

And are there, then, Lorenzo! those, to whom Unseen, and unexistent, are the same?

And if incomprehensible is join'd, Who dare p.r.o.nounce it madness, to believe?

Why has the mighty Builder thrown aside All measure in His work; stretch'd out His line So far, and spread amazement o'er the whole?

Then (as he took delight in wide extremes), 820 Deep in the bosom of His universe, Dropp'd down that reasoning mite, that insect, Man, To crawl, and gaze, and wonder at the scene?-- That man might ne'er presume to plead amazement For disbelief of wonders in himself.

Shall G.o.d be less miraculous, than what His hand has form'd? Shall mysteries descend From unmysterious? things more elevate, Be more familiar? uncreated lie More obvious than created, to the grasp 830 Of human thought? The more of wonderful Is heard in Him, the more we should a.s.sent.

Could we conceive Him, G.o.d He could not be; Or He not G.o.d, or we could not be men.

A G.o.d alone can comprehend a G.o.d; Man's distance how immense! On such a theme, Know this, Lorenzo! (seem it ne'er so strange) Nothing can satisfy, but what confounds; Nothing, but what astonishes, is true.

The scene thou seest, attests the truth I sing, 840 And every star sheds light upon thy creed.

These stars, this furniture, this cost of heaven, If but reported, thou hadst ne'er believed; But thine eye tells thee, the romance is true.

The grand of nature is th' Almighty's oath, In Reason's court, to silence Unbelief.

How my mind, opening at this scene, imbibes The moral emanations of the skies, While nought, perhaps, Lorenzo less admires!

Has the Great Sovereign sent ten thousand worlds 850 To tells us, He resides above them all, In glory's unapproachable recess?

And dare earth's bold inhabitants deny The sumptuous, the magnific emba.s.sy A moment's audience? Turn we, nor will hear From whom they come, or what they would impart For man's emolument; sole cause that stoops Their grandeur to man's eye? Lorenzo! rouse; Let thought, awaken'd, take the lightning's wing, And glance from east to west, from pole to pole. 860 Who sees, but is confounded, or convinced?

Renounces reason, or a G.o.d adores?

Mankind was sent into the world to see: Sight gives the science needful to their peace; 864 That obvious science asks small learning's aid.

Would'st thou on metaphysic pinions soar?

Or wound thy patience amid logic thorns?

Or travel history's enormous round?

Nature no such hard task enjoins: she gave A make to man directive of his thought; A make set upright, pointing to the stars, As who shall say, "Read thy chief lesson there." 872 Too late to read this ma.n.u.script of heaven, When, like a parchment scroll, shrunk up by flames, It folds Lorenzo's lesson from his sight.

Lesson how various! Not the G.o.d alone, I see His ministers; I see, diffused In radiant orders, essences sublime, Of various offices, of various plume, In heavenly liveries, distinctly clad, 880 Azure, green, purple, pearl, or downy gold, Or all commix'd; they stand, with wings outspread, Listening to catch the Master's least command, And fly through nature, ere the moment ends; Numbers innumerable!--well conceived By Pagan, and by Christian! O'er each sphere Presides an angel, to direct its course, And feed, or fan, its flames; or to discharge Other high trusts unknown. For who can see Such pomp of matter, and imagine, Mind, 890 For which alone Inanimate was made, More sparingly dispensed? that n.o.bler son, Far liker the great Sire!--'Tis thus the skies Inform us of superiors numberless, As much, in excellence, above mankind, As above earth, in magnitude, the spheres.

These, as a cloud of witnesses, hang o'er us; In a throng'd theatre are all our deeds; 898 Perhaps, a thousand demiG.o.ds descend On every beam we see, to walk with men.

Awful reflection! Strong restraint from ill!

Yet, here, our virtue finds still stronger aid From these ethereal glories sense surveys.

Something, like magic, strikes from this blue vault; With just attention is it view'd? We feel A sudden succour, unimplored, unthought; Nature herself does half the work of Man.

Seas, rivers, mountains, forests, deserts, rocks, The promontory's height, the depth profound Of subterranean, excavated grots[61], 910 Black brow'd, and vaulted high, and yawning wide From Nature's structure, or the scoop of Time; If ample of dimension, vast of size, Even these an aggrandizing impulse give; Of solemn thought enthusiastic heights Even these infuse.--But what of vast in these?

Nothing;--or we must own the skies forgot.

Much less in art.--Vain art! Thou pigmy power!

How dost thou swell and strut, with human pride, To show thy littleness! What childish toys, 920 Thy watery columns squirted to the clouds!

Thy basin'd rivers, and imprison'd seas!

Thy mountains moulded into forms of men!

Thy hundred-gated capitals! or those Where three days' travel left us much to ride; Gazing on miracles by mortals wrought, Arches triumphal, theatres immense, Or nodding gardens pendent in mid-air!

Or temples proud to meet their G.o.ds half-way!

Yet these affect us in no common kind. 930 What then the force of such superior scenes?

Enter a temple, it will strike an awe: 932 What awe from this the Deity has built!

A good man seen, though silent, counsel gives: The touch'd spectator wishes to be wise: In a bright mirror His own hands have made, Here we see something like the face of G.o.d.

Seems it not then enough, to say, Lorenzo!

To man abandon'd, "Hast thou seen the skies?"

And yet, so thwarted Nature's kind design 940 By daring man, he makes her sacred awe (That guard from ill) his shelter, his temptation To more than common guilt, and quite inverts Celestial art's intent. The trembling stars See crimes gigantic, stalking through the gloom With front erect, that hide their head by day, And making night still darker by their deeds.

Slumbering in covert, till the shades descend, Rapine and Murder, link'd, now prowl for prey.

The miser earths his treasure; and the thief, 950 Watching the mole, half beggars him ere morn.

Now plots, and foul conspiracies, awake; And, m.u.f.fling up their horrors from the moon, Havoc and devastation they prepare, And kingdoms tottering in the field of blood.

Now sons of riot in mid-revel rage.

What shall I do?--suppress it? or proclaim?-- Why sleeps the thunder? Now, Lorenzo! now, His best friend's couch the rank adulterer Ascends secure; and laughs at G.o.ds and men. 960 Preposterous madmen, void of fear or shame, Lay their crimes bare to these chaste eyes of Heaven; Yet shrink, and shudder, at a mortal's sight.

Were moon, and stars, for villains only made?

To guide, yet screen them, with tenebrious[62] light?

No; they were made to fashion the sublime 966 Of human hearts, and wiser make the wise.

Those ends were answer'd once; when mortals lived Of stronger wing, of aquiline ascent In theory sublime. O how unlike Those vermin of the night, this moment sung, Who crawl on earth, and on her venom feed! 972 Those ancient sages, human stars! They met Their brothers of the skies, at midnight hour; Their counsel ask'd; and, what they ask'd, obey'd.

The Stagirite, and Plato, he who drank[63]

The poison'd bowl, and he of Tusculum,[64]

With him of Corduba,[65] (immortal names!) In these unbounded, and Elysian, walks, An area fit for G.o.ds, and G.o.dlike men, 980 They took their nightly round, through radiant paths By seraphs trod; instructed, chiefly, thus, To tread in their bright footsteps here below; To walk in worth still brighter than the skies.

There they contracted their contempt of earth; Of hopes eternal kindled, there, the fire; There, as in near approach, they glow'd, and grew (Great visitants!) more intimate with G.o.d, More worth to men, more joyous to themselves.

Through various virtues, they, with ardour, ran 990 The zodiac of their learn'd, ill.u.s.trious lives.

In Christian hearts, O for a Pagan zeal!

A needful, but opprobrious prayer! As much Our ardour less, as greater is our light.

How monstrous this in morals! Scarce more strange Would this phenomenon in nature strike, A sun, that froze her, or a star, that warm'd.

What taught these heroes of the moral world? 998 To these thou givest thy praise, give credit too.

These doctors ne'er were pension'd to deceive thee; And Pagan tutors are thy taste.--They taught, That, narrow views betray to misery: That, wise it is to comprehend the whole: That, virtue, rose from nature, ponder'd well, The single base of virtue built to heaven: That G.o.d, and nature, our attention claim: That nature is the gla.s.s reflecting G.o.d, As, by the sea, reflected is the sun, Too glorious to be gazed on in his sphere: That, mind immortal loves immortal aims: 1010 That, boundless mind affects a boundless s.p.a.ce: That vast surveys, and the sublime of things, The soul a.s.similate, and make her great: That, therefore, heaven her glories, as a fund Of inspiration, thus spreads out to man.

Such are their doctrines; such the Night inspired.

And what more true? what truth of greater weight?

The soul of man was made to walk the skies; Delightful outlet of her prison here!