'Inhabitant of earth, [Endnote S] to whom is given The gracious ways of Providence to learn, Receive my sayings with a steadfast ear-- Know then, the Sovereign Spirit of the world, Though, self-collected from eternal time, Within his own deep essence he beheld The bounds of true felicity complete, 310 Yet by immense benignity inclined To spread around him that primeval joy Which fill'd himself, he raised his plastic arm, And sounded through the hollow depths of space The strong, creative mandate. Straight arose These heavenly orbs, the glad abodes of life, Effusive kindled by his breath divine Through endless forms of being. Each inhaled From him its portion of the vital flame, In measure such, that, from the wide complex 320 Of coexistent orders, one might rise, One order, [Endnote T] all-involving and entire. He too, beholding in the sacred light Of his essential reason, all the shapes Of swift contingence, all successive ties Of action propagated through the sum Of possible existence, he at once, Down the long series of eventful time, So fix'd the dates of being, so disposed, To every living soul of every kind 330 The field of motion and the hour of rest, That all conspired to his supreme design, To universal good: with full accord Answering the mighty model he had chose, The best and fairest [Endnote U] of unnumber'd worlds That lay from everlasting in the store Of his divine conceptions. Nor content, By one exertion of creative power His goodness to reveal; through every age, Through every moment up the tract of time, 340 His parent hand with ever new increase Of happiness and virtue has adorn'd The vast harmonious frame: his parent hand, From the mute shell-fish gasping on the shore, To men, to angels, to celestial minds, For ever leads the generations on To higher scenes of being; while, supplied From day to day with his enlivening breath, Inferior orders in succession rise To fill the void below. As flame ascends, [Endnote V] 350 As bodies to their proper centre move, As the poised ocean to the attracting moon Obedient swells, and every headlong stream Devolves its winding waters to the main; So all things which have life aspire to God, The sun of being, boundless, unimpair'd, Centre of souls! Nor does the faithful voice Of Nature cease to prompt their eager steps Aright; nor is the care of Heaven withheld From granting to the task proportion'd aid; 360 That in their stations all may persevere To climb the ascent of being, and approach For ever nearer to the life divine.--