Anna Laetitia Barbauld - A Summer Evening's Meditation lyrics

'TIS past! The sultry tyrant of the south Has spent his short-liv'd rage; more grateful hours Move silent on; the skies no more repel The dazzled sight, but with mild maiden beams Of temper'd light, invite the cherish'd eye To wander o'er their sphere; where hung aloft DIAN's bright crescent, like a silver bow New strung in heaven, lifts high its beamy horns Impatient for the night, and seems to push Her brother down the sky. Fair VENUS shines Even in the eye of day; with sweetest beam Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood Of soften'd radiance from her dewy locks. The shadows spread apace; while meeken'd Eve Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires Thro' the Hesperian gardens of the west, And shuts the gates of day. 'Tis now the hour When Contemplation, from her sunless haunts, The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth Of unpierc'd woods, where wrapt in solid shade She mused away the gaudy hours of noon, And fed on thoughts unripen'd by the sun, Moves forward; and with radiant finger points To yon blue concave swell'd by breath divine, Where, one by one, the living eyes of heaven Awake, quick kindling o'er the face of ether One boundless blaze; ten thousand trembling fires, And dancing lustres, where th' unsteady eye Restless, and dazzled wanders unconfin'd O'er all this field of glories: spacious field! And worthy of the master: he, whose hand With hieroglyphics older than the Nile, Inscrib'd the mystic tablet; hung on high To public gaze, and said, adore, O man! The finger of thy GOD. From what pure wells Of milky light, what soft o'erflowing urn, Are all these lamps so fill'd? these friendly lamps, For ever streaming o'er the azure deep To point our path, and light us to our home. How soft they slide along their lucid spheres! And silent as the foot of time, fulfil Their destin'd courses: Nature's self is hush'd, And, but a scatter'd leaf, which rustles thro' The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard To break the midnight air; tho' the rais'd ear, Intensely listening, drinks in every breath. How deep the silence, yet how loud the praise! But are they silent all? or is there not A tongue in every star that talks with man, And wooes him to be wise; nor wooes in vain: This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars. At this still hour the self-collected soul Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there Of high descent, and more than mortal rank; An embryo GOD; a spark of fire divine, Which must burn on for ages, when the sun, (Fair transitory creature of a day!) Has clos'd his golden eye, and wrapt in shades Forgets his wonted journey thro' the east. Ye citadels of light, and seats of GODS! Perhaps my future home, from whence the soul Revolving periods past, may oft look back With recollected tenderness, on all The various busy scenes she left below, Its deep laid projects and its strange events, As on some fond and doating tale that sooth'd Her infant hours; O be it lawful now To tread the hallow'd circles of your courts, And with mute wonder and delighted awe Approach your burning confines. Seiz'd in thought On fancy's wild and roving wing I sail, From the green borders of the peopled earth, And the pale moon, her duteous fair attendant; From solitary Mars; from the vast orb Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk Dances in ether like the lightest leaf; To the dim verge, the suburbs of the system, Where chearless Saturn 'midst her watry moons Girt with a lucid zone, majestic sits In gloomy grandeur; like an exil'd queen Amongst her weeping handmaids: fearless thence I launch into the trackless deeps of space, Where, burning round, ten thousand suns appear, Of elder beam; which ask no leave to shine Of our terrestrial star, nor borrow light From the proud regent of our scanty day; Sons of the morning, first born of creation, And only less than him who marks their track, And guides their fiery wheels. Here must I stop, Or is there aught beyond? What hand unseen Impels me onward thro' the glowing orbs Of inhabitable nature; far remote, To the dread confines of eternal night, To solitudes of vast unpeopled space, The desarts of creation, wide and wild; Where embryo systems and unkindled suns Sleep in the womb of chaos; fancy droops, And thought astonish'd stops her bold career. But oh thou mighty mind! whose powerful word Said, thus let all things be, and thus they were, Where shall I seek thy presence? how unblam'd Invoke thy dread perfection? Have the broad eye-lids of the morn beheld thee? Or does the beamy shoulder of Orion Support thy throne? O look with pity down On erring guilty man; not in thy names Of terrour clad; not with those thunders arm'd That conscious Sinai felt, when fear appall'd The scatter'd tribes; thou hast a gentler voice, That whispers comfort to the swelling heart, Abash'd, yet longing to behold her Maker. But now my soul unus'd tostretch her powers In flight so daring, drops her weary wing, And seeks again the known accustom'd spot, Drest up with sun, and shade, and lawns, and streams, A mansion fair and spacious for its guest, And full replete with wonders. Let me here Content and grateful, wait th' appointed time And ripen for the skies: the hour will come When all these splendours bursting on my sight Shall stand unveil'd, and to my ravished sense Unlock the glories of the world unknown.