orbs impress'd
Sink on the bosom of eternal rest?"
At once, as if obsequious to my will,
Another prospect shone, unmoved and still;
Eternal as the heavens that glow'd above,
A wide resplendent scene of light and love.
The wheels of Phoebus from the zodiac turn'd;
No more the nightly constellations burn'd;
Green earth and undulating ocean roll'd
Away, by some resistless power controll'd;
Immensity conceived, and brought to birth
A grander firmament, and more luxuriant earth.
What wonder seized my soul when first I view'd
How motionless the restless racer stood,
Whose flying feet, with winged speed before,
Still mark'd with sad mutation sea and shore.
No more he sway'd the future and the past,
But on the moveless present fix'd at last;
As at a goal reposing from his toils,
Like earth unclothed of all its vernal foils.
Unvaried scene! where neither change nor fate,
Nor care, nor sorrow, can our joys abate;
Nor finds the light of thought resistance here,
More than the sunbeams in a crystal sphere.
But no material things can match their flight,
In speed excelling far the race of light.
Oh! what a glorious lot shall then be mine
If Heaven to me these nameless joys assign!
For there the sovereign good for ever reigns,
Nor evil yet to come, nor present pains;
No baleful birth of time its inmates fear,
That comes, the burthen of the passing year;
No solar chariot circles through the signs,
And now too near, and now too distant, shines;
To wretched man and earth's devoted soil
Dispensing sad variety of toil.
Oh! happy are the blessed souls that sing
Loud hallelujahs in eternal ring!
Thrice happy he, who late, at last shall find
A lot in the celestial climes assign'd!
He, led by grace, the auspicious ford explores,
Where, cross the plains, the wintry torrent roars;
That troublous tide, where, with incessant strife,
Weak mortals struggle through, and call it life.
In love with Vanity, oh, doubly blind
Are they that final consolation find
In things that fleet on dissolution's wing,
Or dance away upon the transient ring
Of seasons, as they roll. No sound they hear
From that still voice that Wisdom's sons revere;
No vestment they procure to keep them warm
Against the menace of the wintry storm;
But all exposed, in