She groups their systems, lots to each his place, Strow'd thro immensity, and drown'd in space, All yet unseen; till light at last begun, And every system found a centred sun, Call'd to his neighbor and exchanged from far His infant gleams with every social star; Rays thwarting rays and skies o'erarching skies Robed their dim planets with commingling dyes, Hung o'er each heaven their living lamps serene, And tinged with blue the frore expanse between: Then joyous Nature hail'd the golden morn, Drank the young beam, beheld her empire born. Lo the majestic movement! there they trace Their blank infinitudes of time and space, Vault with careering curves her central goal, Pour forth her day and stud her evening stole, Heedless of count; their numbers still unknown, Unmeasured still their progress round her throne; For none of all her firstborn sons, endow'd With heavenly sapience and pretensions proud, No seraph bright, whose keen considering eye And sunbeam speed ascend from sky to sky, Has yet explored or counted all their spheres, Or fixt or found their past record of years. Nor can a ray from her remotest sun, Shot forth when first their splendid morn begun, Borne straight, continuous thro the void of space, Doubling each thousand years its rapid pace And hither posting, yet have reach'd this earth, To bring the tidings of its master's birth. And mark thy native orb! tho later born, Tho still unstored with light her silver horn, As seen from sister planets, who repay Far more than she their borrow'd streams of day, Yet what an age her shell-rock ribs attest! Her sparry spines, her coal-encumber'd breast! Millions of generations toil'd and died To crust with coral and to salt her tide, And millions more, ere yet her soil began, Ere yet she form'd or could have nursed her man.