Page:Stanzas on an Ancient Superstition (1864).djvu/15

Rh

On the high Teocal, in reverie lost,
 * Still as a statue, save the glancing eye

That traced each movement of the starry host,
 * He saw not, rising slowly, gloomily,
 * Like spectre giants far off in the sky,

The mustering clouds—but gazed as tho’ he meant
 * The world’s portentous horoscope to try;

Alas! how hard to rest in faith content, E’en if from God himself a heavenly guide be sent!

But faith prevailed.“No will,” he said, “or thought,
 * Or power, I find within your orbs of light.

Tho’ sages teach that your fair rays are fraught
 * With evil destinies, that all your bright
 * And marvellous host but blazon o’er the night

The doom of realms, ordaining kings to die,
 * And beautifully beaming on the blight

Yourselves have wrought, and on crushed hearts that lie As now—to-night! beneath your ruthless tyranny.

“Falsely they teach!The glory that is strown
 * O’er your mysterious path He will uphold

Whose ministers ye are, around whose throne
 * Ye tremulously move in awe controlled.
 * And we shall live! and you, even as of old,

All impotent to harm shall still appear:
 * No beam annulled, no dire confusion rolled

Amid your ranks, nor thro’ the darkened air Shall nature’s death-song sweep from falling sphere to sphere.