Page:Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a native African and a slave.djvu/74

68 Again the face of nature is renewed,

Which still appears harmonious, fair, and good.

May grateful strains salute the smiling morn,

Before its beams the eastern hills adorn!

Shall day to day and night to night conspire

To show the goodness of the Almighty Sire?

This mental voice shall man regardless hear,

And never, never raise the filial prayer?

To-day, oh hearken, nor your folly mourn

For time misspent, that never will return.

But see the sons of vegetation rise,

And spread their leafy banners to the skies.

All-wise, Almighty Providence, we trace

In trees and plants, and all the flow'ry race,

As clear as in the noble frame of man,

All lovely copies of the Maker's plan,—

The power the same that forms a ray of light,

That called creation from eternal night.

"Let there be light," he said: from his profound

Old Chaos heard, and trembled at the sound:

Swift as the word, inspired by power divine,

Behold the light around its Maker shine,

The first fair product of the omnific God,

And now through all his works diffused abroad.

As reason's powers by day our God disclose,

So we may trace him in the night's repose:

Say, what is sleep? and dreams how passing strange!

When action ceases and ideas range