Chief of terrestrial natures, need we now Strive to inculcate? Thus hath Beauty there Her most conspicuous praise to matter lent, Where most conspicuous through that shadowy veil Breaks forth the bright expression of a mind, By steps directing our enraptured search To Him, the first of minds; the chief; the sole; From whom, through this wide, complicated world, Did all her various lineaments begin; 560 To whom alone, consenting and entire, At once their mutual influence all display. He, God most high (bear witness, Earth and Heaven), The living fountains in himself contains Of beauteous and sublime; with him enthroned Ere days or years trod their ethereal way, In his supreme intelligence enthroned, The queen of love holds her unclouded state, Urania. Thee, O Father! this extent Of matter; thee the sluggish earth and tract 570 Of seas, the heavens and heavenly splendours feel Pervading, quickening, moving. From the depth Of thy great essence, forth didst thou conduct Eternal Form: and there, where Chaos reign'd, Gav'st her dominion to erect her seat, And sanctify the mansion. All her works Well pleased thou didst behold: the gloomy fires Of storm or earthquake, and the purest light Of summer; soft Campania's new-born rose, And the slow weed which pines on Russian hills 580 Comely alike to thy full vision stand: To thy surrounding vision, which unites All essences and powers of the great world In one sole order, fair alike they stand, As features well consenting, and alike Required by Nature ere she could attain Her just resemblance to the perfect shape Of universal Beauty, which with thee Dwelt from the first. Thou also, ancient Mind, Whom love and free beneficence await 590 In all thy doings; to inferior minds, Thy offspring, and to man, thy youngest son, Refusing no convenient gift nor good; Their eyes didst open, in this earth, yon heaven, Those starry worlds, the countenance divine Of Beauty to behold. But not to them Didst thou her awful magnitude reveal Such as before thine own unbounded sight She stands (for never shall created soul Conceive that object), nor, to all their kinds, 600 The same in shape or features didst thou frame Her image. Measuring well their different spheres Of sense and action, thy paternal hand Hath for each race prepared a different test Of Beauty, own'd and reverenced as their guide Most apt, most faithful. Thence inform'd, they scan The objects that surround them; and select, Since the great whole disclaims their scanty view, Each for himself selects peculiar parts Of Nature; what the standard fix'd by Heaven 610 Within his breast approves, acquiring thus A partial Beauty, which becomes his lot; A Beauty which his eye may comprehend, His hand may copy, leaving, O Supreme,