heir altars smoke, their incense rise;
And heard hosannas ring through every sphere, 1883
A seminary fraught with future gods.
Nature all o'er is consecrated ground,
Teeming with growths immortal, and divine.
The Great Proprietor's all-bounteous hand
Leaves nothing waste; but sows these fiery fields
With seeds of reason, which to virtues rise
Beneath His genial ray; and, if escaped 1890
The pestilential blasts of stubborn will,
When grown mature, are gather'd for the skies.
And is devotion thought too much on earth,
When beings, so superior, homage boast,
And triumph in prostrations to the Throne?
But wherefore more of planets, or of stars?
Ethereal journeys, and, discover'd there,
Ten thousand worlds, ten thousand ways devout,
All nature sending incense to the Throne,
Except the bold Lorenzos of our sphere? 1900
Opening the solemn sources of my soul,
Since I have pour'd, like feign'd Eridanus,[72]
My flowing numbers o'er the flaming skies,
Nor see, of fancy, or of fact, what more
Invites the Muse.--Here turn we, and review
Our past nocturnal landscape wide:--then say,
Say, then, Lorenzo! with what burst of heart,
The whole, at once, revolving in his thought,
Must man exclaim, adoring, and aghast? 1909
"Oh, what a root! Oh, what a branch, is here!
Oh, what a Father! what a family!
Worlds! systems! and creations!--and creations,
In one agglomerated cluster, hung,
Great Vine![73] on Thee, on Thee the cluster hangs;
The filial cluster! infinitely spread
In glowing globes, with various being fraught;
And drinks (nectareous draught!) immortal life.
Or, shall I say (for who can say enough?)
A constellation of ten thousand gems,
(And, oh! of what dimension! of what weight!) 1920
Set in one signet, flames on the right hand
Of Majesty Divine! The blazing seal,
That deeply stamps, on all created mind,
Indelible, His sovereign attributes,
Omnipotence, and love! that, passing bound:
And this, surpassing that. Nor stop we here,
For want of power in God, but thought in man.
Even this acknowledged, leaves us still in debt:
If greater aught, that greater all is Thine,
Dread Sire!--Accept this miniature of Thee; 1930
And pardon an attempt from mortal thought,
In which archangels might