Was not wild Nature, in that elder-time, Clothed with a deeper power?--earth’s wandering race, Exploring realms of solitude sublime, Not as _we_ see, beheld her awful face! Art had not tamed the mighty scenes which met Their searching eyes; unpeopled kingdoms lay In savage pomp before them--all was yet Silent and vast, but not as in decay; And the bright daystar, from his burning throne, Look’d o’er a thousand shores, untrodden, voiceless, lone. XV. The forests in their dark luxuriance waved, With all their swell of strange Æolian sound; The fearful deep, sole region ne’er enslaved, Heaved, in its pomp of terror, darkly round. Then, brooding o’er the images, imprest By forms of grandeur thronging on his eye, And faint traditions, guarded in his breast, Midst dim remembrances of infancy, Man shaped unearthly presences, in dreams, Peopling each wilder haunt of mountains, groves, and streams. XVI. Then bled the victim--then in every shade Of rock or turf arose the votive shrine; Fear bow’d before the phantoms she portray’d, And Nature teem’d with many a mystic sign. Meteors, and storms, and thunders! ye whose course E’en yet is awful to th’ enlighten’d eye, As, wildly rushing from your secret source, Your sounding chariot sweeps the realms on high, Then o’er the earth prophetic gloom ye cast, And the wide nations gazed, and trembled as ye pass’d. XVII. But you, ye stars! in distant glory burning, Nurtured with flame, bright altars of the sky! To whose far climes the spirit, vainly turning, Would pierce the secrets of infinity-- To you the heart, bereft of other light, Its first deep homage paid, on Eastern plains, Where Day hath terrors, but majestic Night, Calm in her pomp, magnificently reigns, Cloudless and silent, circled with the race Of some unnumber’d orbs, that light the depths of space. XVIII. Shine on! and brightly plead for erring thought, Whose wing, unaided in its course, explored The wide creation, and beholding nought Like your eternal beauty, then adored Its living splendours; deeming them inform’d By natures temper’d with a holier fire-- Pure beings, with ethereal effluence warm’d, Who to the source of spirit might aspire, And mortal prayers benignantly convey To some presiding Power, more awful far than they. XIX. Guides o’er the desert and the deep! to you The seaman turn’d, rejoicing at the helm, When from the regions of empyreal blue Ye pour’d soft radiance o’er the ocean-realm; To you the dweller of the plains address’d Vain prayers, that call’d the clouds and dews your own; To you the shepherd, on the mountain’s crest, Kindled the fires that far through midnight shone, As earth would light up all her hills, to vie With your immortal host, and image back the sky. XX.