William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.
Nox Nocti Indicat ScientiamWilliam Habington (16051654)
W
Celestial sphere;
So rich with jewels hung, that Night
Doth like an Ethiop bride appear:
And heavenward flies,
Th’ Almighty’s mysteries to read
In the large volume of the skies.
Shoots forth no flame
So silent, but is eloquent
In speaking the Creator’s name.
Contracts its light
Into so small a character,
Removed far from our human sight,
We shall discern
In it, as in some holy book,
Haw man may heavenly knowledge learn.
That far-stretch’d power,
Which his proud dangers traffic for,
Is but the triumph of an hour:
Some nation may,
Yet undiscover’d, issue forth,
And o’er his new-got conquest sway:
With hills of ice
May be let out to scourge his sin,
Till, they shall equal him in vice.
Their ruin have;
For as yourselves your empires fall,
And every kingdom hath a grave.
Though seeming mute,
The fallacy of our desires
And all the pride of life confute:—
The World had birth:
And found sin in itself accurst,
And nothing permanent on Earth.