Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me:
And I shall be clear from the great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Such pictures of the heavens were never seen.
We stood at the steep edge of the abyss
And looked out on the making of the suns.
The skies were powdered with the white of stars
And the pale ghosts of systems yet to be;
While here and there a nebulous spiral told,
Against the dark, the story of the orbs-
From the impalpable condensing slow
Through ages infinite.
Seemed as the shape of speed-a whirling wheel
Stupendously revolving,
And yet no eye of man may see it stir.
(That moveless motion brings to the human brain
A hint of the large measurements of time-
Eternity made present.)
Of magnitudes that make our world an atom
Might crush the soul, did not this saving thought
Leap to the mind and lift it to clear heights :—
"Tis but the unseen that grows not old nor dies,
Suffers not change, nor waning, nor decay.
This that we see-this casual glimpse within
The seething pit of space; these million stars
And worlds in making, these are naught but matter;
These are all but the dust of our feet,
And we who gaze forth fearless on the sight
Find not one equal, facing from the vast
Our sentient selves. Not one, sole, lonely star
In all that infinite glitter and deep light
Can make one conscious movement; all are slaves
To law material, immutable-
That Power immense, mysterious, intense,
Unseen as our own souls, but which must be
Like them, the home of thought, with will and might
To stamp on endless matter the soul's will.
Yea, in these souls of ours triumphant dwells
Some segment of the large creative Power-
A thing beyond the things of sight and sense;
A strength to think, a force to conquer force.
One are we with the ever-living One."
Down through the spheres there came the Name of One Who is the Law of Beauty and Light
He came, and as He came the waiting Night Shook with gladness of a Day begun;
And as He came, He said: "Thy Will be Done
On Earth"; and all His vibrant words were white And glistening with silver, and their might
Was of the glory of a rising sun.
Unto the Stars sang out His Living Words
White and with silver, and their rhythmic sound
Was a mighty symphony unfurled;
And back from out the Stars like homing birds
They fell in love upon the sleeping ground
And were forever in a wakened world.
HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNIX
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc !
The Arve and the Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above,
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebony mass. Methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!
O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought. Entranced in prayer I worshipp'd the Invisible alone.
Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy:
Till the dilating Soul, enwrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing-there,
As in her natural form, swell'd vast to Heaven!
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join in my Hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale!
O, struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink:
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald! O wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in the Earth?
Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ?
And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad!
Who call'd you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
Forever shatter'd and the same forever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?
And who commanded (and the silence came),
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?
Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain-
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with loving flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?—
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements !
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Thou too, hoary Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,
Into the depths of clouds that veil thy breast-
Thou, too, again, stupendous Mountain! Thou
That, as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise!
Rise, like a cloud of incense from the Earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
I need not shout my faith. Thrice eloquent
Are quiet trees and the green listening sod;
Hushed are the stars, whose power is never spent;
The hills are mute: yet how they speak of God!
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