That Nature is Not Subject to Decay.

Ah, how the Human Mind wearies herself     With her own wand'rings, and, involved in gloom     Impenetrable, speculates amiss!     Measuring, in her folly, things divine     By human, laws inscrib'd on adamant     By laws of Man's device, and counsels fix'd     For ever, by the hours, that pass, and die.     How? shall the face of Nature then be plow'd     Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last     On the great Parent fix a sterile curse?     Shall even she confess old age, and halt     And, palsy-smitten, shake her starry brows?     Shall foul Antiquity with rust and drought     And famine vex the radiant worlds above?     Shall Time's unsated maw crave and engulf     The very heav'ns that regulate his flight?     And was the Sire of all able to fence     His works, and to uphold the circling worlds,     But through improvident and heedless haste     Let slip th'occasion? So then All is lost     And in some future evil hour, yon arch     Shall crumble and come thund'ring down, the poles     Jar in collision, the Olympian King     Fall with his throne, and Pallas, holding forth     The terrors of her Gorgon shield in vain,1     Shall rush to the abyss, like Vulcan hurl'd     Down into Lemnos through the gate of heav'n.     Thou also, with precipitated wheels     Phoebus! thy own son's fall shalt imitate,     With hideous ruin shalt impress the Deep     Suddenly, and the flood shall reek and hiss     At the extinction of the Lamp of Day.     Then too, shall Haemus cloven to his base     Be shattered, and the huge Ceraunian hills,2     Once weapons of Tartarean Dis, immersed     In Erebus, shall fill Himself with fear.     No. The Almighty Father surer lay'd     His deep foundations, and providing well     For the event of all, the scales of Fate     Suspended, in just equipoise, and bade     His universal works from age to age     One tenour hold, perpetual, undisturb'd.     Hence the Prime Mover wheels itself about     Continual, day by day, and with it bears     In social measure swift the heav'ns around.     Not tardier now is Saturn than of old,     Nor radiant less the burning casque of Mars.     Phoebus, his vigour unimpair'd, still shows     Th'effulgence of his youth, nor needs the God     A downward course that he may warm the vales;     But, ever rich in influence, runs his road,     Sign after sign, through all the heav'nly zone.     Beautiful as at first ascends the star3     From odorif'rous Ind, whose office is     To gather home betimes th'ethereal flock,     To pour them o'er the skies again at Eve,     And to discriminate the Night and Day.     Still Cynthia's changeful horn waxes and wanes     Alternate, and with arms extended still     She welcomes to her breast her brother's beams.     Nor have the elements deserted yet     Their functions, thunder with as loud a stroke     As erst, smites through the rocks and scatters them,     The East still howls, still the relentless North     Invades the shudd'ring Scythian, still he breathes     The Winter, and still rolls the storms along.     The King of Ocean with his wonted force     Beats on Pelorus,4 o'er the Deep is heard     The hoarse alarm of Triton's sounding shell,     Nor swim the monsters of th'Aegean sea     In shallows, or beneath diminish'd waves.     Thou too, thy antient vegetative pow'r     Enjoy'st, O Earth! Narcissus still is sweet,     And, Phoebus! still thy Favourite, and still     Thy Fav'rite, Cytherea!5 both retain     Their beauty, nor the mountains, ore-enrich'd     For punishment of Man, with purer gold     Teem'd ever, or with brighter gems the Deep.     Thus, in unbroken series all proceeds     And shall, till, wide involving either pole,     And the immensity of yonder heav'n,     The final flames of destiny absorb     The world, consum'd in one enormous pyre!