Like gibbets yet untenanted, expect Their future ornaments? From courts and thrones, Return, apostate praise! thou vagabond! Thou prostitute! to thy first love return, 395 Thy first, thy greatest, once unrivall'd theme. There flow redundant; like Meander flow, Back to thy fountain; to that parent Power, Who gives the tongue to sound, the thought to soar, The soul to be. Men homage pay to men, Thoughtless beneath whose dreadful eye they bow In mutual awe profound, of clay to clay, Of guilt to guilt; and turn their back on thee, Great Sire! whom thrones celestial ceaseless sing; To prostrate angels, an amazing scene! O the presumption of man's awe for man!-- 370 Man's author! end! restorer! law! and judge! Thine, all; day thine, and thine this gloom of night, With all her wealth, with all her radiant worlds: What, night eternal, but a frown from thee? What, heaven's meridian glory, but thy smile? And shall not praise be thine? not human praise? While heaven's high host on hallelujahs live? O may I breathe no longer, than I breathe My soul in praise to Him, who gave my soul, And all her infinite of prospect fair, 380 Cut through the shades of hell great Love! by thee O most adorable! most unadored! Where shall that praise begin, which ne'er should end? Where'er I turn, what claim on all applause! How is night's sable mantle labour'd o'er, How richly wrought with attributes divine! What wisdom shines! what love! This midnight pomp, This gorgeous arch, with golden worlds inlaid! Built with divine ambition! nought to thee; For others this profusion: Thou, apart, 390 Above! beyond! O tell me, mighty Mind! Where art thou? Shall I dive into the deep, Call to the sun, or ask the roaring winds, 393 For their Creator? Shall I question loud The thunder, if in that th' Almighty dwells? Or holds He furious storms in straiten'd reins, And bids fierce whirlwinds wheel his rapid car? What mean these questions?--Trembling I retract; My prostrate soul adores the present God: Praise I a distant deity? He tunes 400 My voice (if tuned); the nerve, that writes, sustains: Wrapp'd in his being, I resound his praise: But though past all diffused, without a shore, His essence; local is his throne (as meet), To gather the dispersed (as standards call The listed from afar): to fix a point, A central point, collective of his sons, Since finite every nature but his own. The nameless He, whose nod is nature's birth; And nature's shield, the shadow of his hand; 410 Her dissolution, his suspended smile! The great First-Last! pavilion'd high he sits, In darkness from excessive splendour borne, By gods unseen, unless through lustre lost. His glory, to created glory, bright,