| WHEN I survay the bright | |
| Coelestiall spheare: | |
| So rich with jewels hung, that night | |
| Doth like an Æthiop bride appeare. | |
| |
| My soule her wings doth spread | 5 |
| And heaven-ward flies, | |
| Th'Almighty's Mysteries to read | |
| In the large volumes of the skies. | |
| |
| For the bright firmament | |
| Shootes forth no flame | 10 |
| So silent, but is eloquent | |
| In speaking the Creators name. | |
| |
| No unregarded star | |
| Contracts its light | |
| Into so small a Charactar, | 15 |
| Remov'd far from our humane sight: | |
| |
| But if we stedfast looke, | |
| We shall discerne | |
| In it as in some holy booke, | |
| How man may heavenly knowledge learne. | 20 |
| |
| It tells the Conqueror, | |
| That farre-stretcht powre | |
| Which his proud dangers traffique for, | |
| Is but the triumph of an houre. | |
| |
| That from the farthest North, | 25 |
| Some Nation may | |
| Yet undiscovered issue forth, | |
| And ore his new got conquest sway. | |
| |
| Some Nation yet shut in | |
| With hils of ice | 30 |
| May be let out to scourge his sinne | |
| 'Till they shall equall him in vice. | |
| |
| And then they likewise shall | |
| Their ruine have, | |
| For as your selves your Empires fall, | 35 |
| And every Kingdome hath a grave. | |
| |
| Thus those Coelestiall fires, | |
| Though seeming mute, | |
| The fallacie of our desires | |
| And all the pride of life confute. | 40 |
| |
| For they have watcht since first | |
| The World had birth: | |
| And found sinne in it selfe accurst, | |
| And nothing permanent on earth. | |
| |
