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| NOT in the world of light alone, | |
| Where God has built his blazing throne, | |
| Nor yet alone in earth below, | |
| With belted seas that come and go, | |
| And endless isles of sunlit green, | 5 |
| Is all thy Maker’s glory seen: | |
| Look in upon thy wondrous frame,— | |
| Eternal wisdom still the same! | |
| |
| The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves | |
| Flows murmuring through its hidden caves, | 10 |
| Whose streams of brightening purple rush, | |
| Fired with a new and livelier blush, | |
| While all their burden of decay | |
| The ebbing current steals away, | |
| And red with Nature’s flame they start | 15 |
| From the warm fountains of the heart. | |
| |
| No rest that throbbing slave may ask, | |
| Forever quivering o’er his task, | |
| While far and wide a crimson jet | |
| Leaps forth to fill the woven net | 20 |
| Which in unnumbered crossing tides | |
| The flood of burning life divides, | |
| Then, kindling each decaying part, | |
| Creeps back to find the throbbing heart. | |
| |
| But warmed with that unchanging flame | 25 |
| Behold the outward moving frame, | |
| Its living marbles jointed strong | |
| With glistening band and silvery thong, | |
| And linked to reason’s guiding reins | |
| By myriad rings in trembling chains, | 30 |
| Each graven with the threaded zone | |
| Which claims it as the master’s own. | |
| |
| See how yon beam of seeming white | |
| Is braided out of seven-hued light, | |
| Yet in those lucid globes no ray | 35 |
| By any chance shall break astray. | |
| Hark how the rolling surge of sound, | |
| Arches and spirals circling round, | |
| Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear | |
| With music it is heaven to hear. | 40 |
| |
| Then mark the cloven sphere that holds | |
| All thought in its mysterious folds; | |
| That feels sensation’s faintest thrill, | |
| And flashes forth the sovereign will; | |
| Think on the stormy world that dwells | 45 |
| Locked in its dim and clustering cells! | |
| The lightning gleams of power it sheds | |
| Along its hollow glassy threads! | |
| |
| O Father! grant thy love divine | |
| To make these mystic temples thine! | 50 |
| When wasting age and wearying strife | |
| Have sapped the leaning walls of life, | |
| When darkness gathers over all, | |
| And the last tottering pillars fall, | |
| Take the poor dust thy mercy warms, | 55 |
| And mould it into heavenly forms! | |
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