AY, there ye shine, and there have shone | |
| In one eternal hour of prime; | |
| Each rolling, burningly alone, | |
| Through boundless space and countless time! | |
| Ay, there ye shine—the golden dews | 5 |
| That pave the realms by seraphs trod, | |
| There through yon echoing vault diffuse | |
| The song of choral worlds to God. | |
| |
| Ye visible spirits! bright as erst | |
| Young Eden’s birthnight saw ye shine | 10 |
| On all her flowers and fountains first, | |
| Yet sparkling from the hand divine; | |
| Yes, bright as then ye smiled to catch | |
| The music of a sphere so fair, | |
| Ye hold your high immortal watch; | 15 |
| And gird your God’s pavilion there! | |
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| Gold frets to dust,—yet there ye are; | |
| Time rots the diamond,—there ye roll, | |
| In primal light, as if each star | |
| Enshrined an everlasting soul! | 20 |
| And do they not—since yon bright throngs | |
| One all-enlightening Spirit own, | |
| Praised there by pure sidereal tongues, | |
| Eternal, glorious, blessed, and lone? | |
| |
| Could man but see what ye have seen, | 25 |
| Unfold awhile the shrouded past, | |
| From all that is, to what has been, | |
| The glance how rich, the range how vast! | |
| The birth of time—the rise, the fall | |
| Of empires, myriads, ages flown, | 30 |
| Thrones, cities, tongues, arts, worships—all | |
| The things whose echoes are not gone. | |
| |
| Ye saw rapt Zoroaster send | |
| His soul into your mystic reign; | |
| Ye saw the adoring Sabian bend— | 35 |
| The living hills his mighty fane! | |
| Beneath his blue and beaming sky | |
| He worshipped at your lofty shrine, | |
| And deemed he saw, with gifted eye, | |
| The Godhead in his works divine. | 40 |
| |
| And there ye shine, as if to mock | |
| The children of a mortal sire! | |
| The storm, the bolt, the earthquake’s shock, | |
| The red volcano’s cataract fire, | |
| Drought, famine, plague, and flood, and flame, | 45 |
| All Nature’s ills (and Life’s worst woes), | |
| Are naught to you—ye smile the same, | |
| And scorn alike their dawn and close. | |
| |
| Ay, there ye roll—emblems sublime | |
| Of Him, whose spirit o’er us moves, | 50 |
| Beyond the clouds of grief and crime, | |
| Still shining on the world he loves; | |
| Nor is one scene to mortals given, | |
| That more divides the soul and sod, | |
| Than yon proud heraldry of heaven— | 55 |
| Yon burning blazonry of God! | |
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