THOU loveliest far of all the Heavenly Train!
Thou bright attendant on Night’s solemn reign!
In whom created Beauty’s charms combine,
With excellence that marks the Hand Divine,
Receive the homage which thy beams inspire,
While, to your starry throne, my thoughts aspire,
What magic spell! what fascinating power
Attracts me thus–to thee in midnight’s hour?
What sweet enchantment do thy beams possess,
That still the Poet must their influence bless?
Why do we own thy silvery soften’d rays,
More dear to feeling, than the Solar blaze?
What secret charm , what rapture undefin’d
Thus breathes a sacred silence o’er the mind?
A silence , calm as Paradise disclosed,
When, in thy beams, Creation first reposed!
When God’s own spirit moved upon the Deep,
And hush’d each wave and rising wind to sleep.
In every region, every distant clime,
Thy rays awaken many a thought sublime;
Whether they brighten North Antarctic snows,
Or shine on sands, where torrid fierceness glows;
Where’er they smile, how many bless their light,
How many hail thee, Empress fair of Night!
Oh! let the wanderer of the ocean say,
How dear to him thy spirit-cheering ray!
When in a flood of light the billows roll,
And cloudless shines the sky from Pole to Pole,
When on the deep blue wave thy beams repose,
When on it’s sparkling foam thy image glows,
What countless gems adorn the vast expanse,
What lucid brilliants on the waters dance!
How lovely seem the Vessel’s silver’d sails,
How swift she glides before propitious gales!
And when the spirits of the Storm appear,
And in the skies their clouded banners rear,
When lightnings play upon the angry waves,
And Thunders roar in Ocean’s secret caves.
When danger stalks tremendous o’er the deep,
And, glazed with dread, the eye forgets to weep,
Then, piercing with thy ray, the midnight gloom,
Thou, shin’st, like Virtue smiling o’er the tomb!
How purely bright are thy effulgent beams,
When, from a torrid sky, thy radiance streams!
Th’ immeasurable azure seems to shine,
The calm abode of, Habitants Divine!
Serene, transparent, silently sublime,
It speaks, at once, Eternity and Time!
Vast, like Eternity, it’s bright concave,
It leads the mind to scenes beyond the grave.
Yet, on those starry regions while we gaze,
Bright with a Tropic Moon’s unclouded blaze,
The thought is waken’d, that those beams must fade,
Must sink in deepest Night’s most awful shade.
That, when the silent lapse of Time is o’er,
And mighty Oceans roll their waves no more,
That Suns and Moons, and Stars and Spheres must fall,
And one vast wreck involve and scatter all ,
Yet still the Soul Immortal shall survive;
‘Mid ruined systems, falling worlds, shall live!
She shall the elemental war defy,
And hear unmoved, Nature’s expiring sigh;
Fix’d on the “Rock of Ages” she shall stand,
And, wondering view the great Eternal Hand,
That, out of nothing , brought each rolling world,
And, into nothing , each again has hurl’d,
And , when the “war of elements” is o’er,
And solemn silence reigns sublime once more,
When Chaos shall the universe entomb,
And wrap th’ illimitable space in gloom,
Then soars the Soul on wings of Hope sublime,
Sees brighter Suns than ever beam’d on Time,
Sees moons more radiant, Stars of purer light,
Than ever shone to gild a Tropic night;
The Sun of Righteousness there sheds his rays,
The Stars of Virtue there unite their blaze;
One nightless morn , one cloudless Day shall shine,
Effluence effulgent from the Throne Divine!
These are the thoughts which wake the high desire,
Which point the hope sublime, the kindling fire,
The wish , which Earth and Time’s low bounds transcends,
Mixes with Seraphs, and with Angels blends–
Ranges through intellectual realms refined
The Immaterial, Independent mind–
Enters the world of Spirits, pure abode!
Traces the shining way, by Angels trod,
Rises from system, still to system higher,
Burns with the Seraph’s flame, and hears the Seraph’s Lyre,
Pursues it’s course through spheres and worlds unknown,
And stands at last before the Eternal Throne;
Then, in a mighty maze of wonders lost,
How weak, oh Reason! is thy lofty boast!
Although thine eagle-eye can dart thro’ space,
Discover worlds, their laws and motions trace,
Glance through Creation’s widest range, and view
Unnumber’d sphere’s, to certain movements true;
Yet, when thou stand’st before the soul of all,
Thy crested honours in the dust must fall;
Dazzled by beams of uncreated light,
How dimm’d, how faint is thy imperfect sight!
Lost in th’ Immeasurable range of thought,
Thy feeble powers are to nothing brought,
Arrived so high , no higher canst thou soar,
Retire amazed , and silently adore!
(Mary Abel Clinckett)
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