Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
William Habington. 16051654298. Nox Nocti Indicat Scientiam
WHEN I survey the bright | |
Celestial sphere; | |
So rich with jewels hung, that Night | |
Doth like an Ethiop bride appear: | |
My soul her wings doth spread | 5 |
And heavenward flies, | |
Th’ Almighty’s mysteries to read | |
In the large volumes of the skies. | |
For the bright firmament | |
Shoots forth no flame | 10 |
So silent, but is eloquent | |
In speaking the Creator’s name. | |
No unregarded star | |
Contracts its light | |
Into so small a character, | 15 |
Removed far from our human sight, | |
But if we steadfast look | |
We shall discern | |
In it, as in some holy book, | |
How man may heavenly knowledge learn. | 20 |
It tells the conqueror | |
That far-stretch’d power, | |
Which his proud dangers traffic for, | |
Is but the triumph of an hour: | |
That from the farthest North, | 25 |
Some nation may, | |
Yet undiscover’d, issue forth, | |
And o’er his new-got conquest sway: | |
Some nation yet shut in | |
With hills of ice | 30 |
May be let out to scourge his sin, | |
Till they shall equal him in vice. | |
And then they likewise shall | |
Their ruin have; | |
For as yourselves your empires fall, | 35 |
And every kingdom hath a grave. | |
Thus those celestial fires, | |
Though seeming mute, | |
The fallacy of our desires | |
And all the pride of life confute:— | 40 |
For they have watch’d since first | |
The World had birth: | |
And found sin in itself accurst, | |
And nothing permanent on Earth. |