It may be objected, that if the stars had been projected from a Chaos by explosions, that they must have returned again into it from the known laws of gravitation; this however would not happen, if the whole of Chaos, like grains of gunpowder, was exploded at the same time, and dispersed through infinite space at once, or in quick succession, in every possible direction. The same objection may be stated against the possibility of the planets having been thrown from the sun by explosions; and the secondary planets from the primary ones; which will be spoken of more at large in the second Canto, but if the planets are supposed to have been projected from their suns, and the secondary from the primary ones, at the beginning of their course; they might be so influenced or diverted by the attractions of the suns, or sun, in their vicinity, as to prevent their tendency to return into the body, from which they were projected. If these innumerable and immense suns thus rising out of Chaos are supposed to have thrown out their attendant planets by new explosions, as they ascended; and those their respective satellites, filling in a moment the immensity of space with light and motion, a grander idea cannot be conceived by the mind of man.] 115 II. "ETHEREAL POWERS! YOU chase the shooting stars, Or yoke the vollied lightenings to your cars, Cling round the aerial bow with prisms bright, And pleased untwist the sevenfold threads of light; Eve's silken couch with gorgeous tints adorn, 120 And fire the arrowy throne of rising Morn. --OR, plum'd with flame, in gay battalion's spring To brighter regions borne on broader wing; Where lighter gases, circumfused on high, Form the vast concave of exterior sky; 125 With airy lens the scatter'd rays assault, And bend the twilight round the dusky vault; Ride, with broad eye and scintillating hair, The rapid Fire-ball through the midnight air; Dart from the North on pale electric streams, 130 Fringing Night's sable robe with transient beams. --OR rein the Planets in their swift careers, Gilding with borrow'd light their twinkling spheres; Alarm with comet-blaze the sapphire plain, The wan stars glimmering through its silver train; 135 Gem the bright Zodiac, stud the glowing pole, Or give the Sun's phlogistic orb to roll. [_Chase the shooting stars_. l. 115. The meteors called shooting stars, the lightening, the rainbow, and the clouds, are phenomena of the lower regions of the atmosphere. The twilight, the meteors call'd fire-balls, or flying dragons, and the northern lights, inhabit the higher regions of the atmosphere. See additional notes, No. I.] [_Cling round the aerial bow_. l. 117. See additional notes, No. II] [_Eve's silken couch_. l. 119. See additional notes, No. III.]