A Summer Evening's Meditation By [Anna Laetitia Barbauld] 1773 ?Tis passed! ? the sultry tyrant of the south \\ Has spent his short-lived rage. More grateful hours \\ Move silent on; the skies no more repel \\ The dazzled sight, but with mild maiden beams \\ Of tempered light invite the cherished 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 softened radiance from her dewy locks. \\ The shadows spread apace, while meekened Eve, \\ Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires \\ Through 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 unpierced woods, where, wrapped in solid shade, \\ She mused away the gaudy hours of noon \\ And fed on thought unripened by the sun) \\ Moves forward, and with radiant finger points \\ To yon blue concave swelled 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 unconfined \\ O?er all this field of glories: spacious field, \\ And worthy of the Master! ? He whose hand \\ With hieroglyphics older than the Nile \\ Inscribed the mystic tablet hung on high \\ To public gaze, and said, ?Adore, oh man, \\ The finger of thy God!? From what pure wells \\ Of milky light, what soft o?erflowing urn \\ Are all these lamps so filled ? 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 destined courses! Nature?s self is hushed \\ And, but a scattered leaf which rustles through \\ The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard \\ To break the midnight air ? though the raised ear, \\ Intensely listening, dinks in every breath. \\ How deep the silence, yet how loud the praise! \\ B are they silent all, or is there not \\ A tongue in every star that talks with man \\ And woos him to be wise ? nor woos 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 closed his golden eye and, wrapped in shades, \\ Forgets his wonted journey through 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 doting tale that soothed \\ Her infant hours. Oh be it lawful now \\ To tread the hallowed circle of your courts, \\ And with mute wonder and delighted awe \\ Approach your burning confines! \\ Seized 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 cheerless Saturn midst her wat?ry moons, \\ Girt with a lucid zone, majestic sits \\ In gloomy grandeur, like an exiled 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 through the glowing orbs \\ Of habitable nature far remote, \\ To the dread confines of eternal night \\ To solitudes of vast unpeopled space, \\ The deserts of creation, wide and wild, \\ Where embryo systems and unkindled suns \\ Sleep in the womb of chaos? \\ Fancy droops, \\ And thought astonished 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 unblamed \\ Invoke thy dread perfection? \\ Have the broad eyelids of the morn beheld thee, \\ Or does the beamy shoulder of Orion \\ Support thy throne? Oh, look with pity down \\ On erring, guilty man ? not in thy names \\ Of terror clad; not with those thunders armed \\ That conscious Sinai felt, when fear appalled \\ The scattered tribes: Thou hast a gentler voice \\ That whispers comfort to the swelling heart \\ Abashed, yet longing to behold her maker. \\ But now my soul, unused to stretch her powers \\ In flight so daring, drops her weary wing \\ And seeks again the known accustomed spot \\ Dressed 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 unveiled, and to my ravished sense \\ Unlock the glories of the world unknown. \\ Text Source: Wu Anthology 2005-03-28 20:26:48.0 2005-03-28 20:26:48.0