JT-46-ON THOUGHT.

ON THOUGHT.

Amazing thought! how rapid dost thou fly!
O’er all the world and round the ample sky,
Thou dost the meads and flowery plains survey,
Where nature wantons in delightful play.
From shade to shade thy golden wings have flown,
From pole to pole, and thro’ the burning zone.
The tow’ring hill where human never trod,
Where lofty cedars to the whirlwinds nod,
Thou dost ascend and fearless travel there,
And stretch thy soaring pinions in the air.
Stupendous mounts, projected in the cloud,
Where fork’d lightnings play, and tempests shroud,
Where rocky walls sublimely fill the sight,
Thou dost unwearied speed thy wond’rous flight.
Thou canst delight in beauties of the glade,
And play along the wild, sequester’d shade,
And trace the rivers as their courses lead,
Along the mountains and the grassy mead.
Where rising towns in beauteous order stand,
And superb cities deck the sea-side strand,
Where smoky hamlets thro’ the country rise,
And rural landscapes bloom beneath the skies;
There thou dost fly and revel on the scene,
And widely wing creation’s vernal green.
Where Ætna struggles and emits her smoke,
Or Hekla’s mouth with burning cinders choke,
Thy vent’rous wings have borne thee in thy race,
To view the wonders of the dreadful place.
The gloomy caverns underneath the ground,
Thou dost survey and wing the dread profound;
In martial fields where death and fury fly,
And roaring cannons shake the smould’ring sky.
Along the place in trembling thou hast fled,
And sadly saw the dying and the dead.
When sable night is muffled round the spheres,
And gloom and sadness fill the world with fears,
Then thou art fearless, ever on the flight,
The darkest abyss naked to thy sight!
When fierce tornadoes travel o’er the world,
And sumptuous cities are in ruin hurl’d,
In dread confusion thou dost hover there,
Or trace the whirling storm along the air.

Thy wakeful nature never knows to sleep,
Thou brav’st the billows of the flowing deep,
Thou climb’st the tow’ring waves in midnight hours,
And smoothly glid’st above their frightful pow’rs.
The earth too narrow for thy ample bounds,
Thou dost ascend and try the heavenly grounds,
In floating ether thou hast found the way,
To trace the planets round the source of day.
In thy adventures thou hast found the land,
Where trees ambrosial and a Savior stand.
The blooming lily and the vernal spring,
There saints immortal and the angels sing.
O! dwell forever in that happy place,
There grow and flourish on a Savior’s grace,
Rove o’er the plains and rise th’eternal height,
Slid stay thyself in uncreated light.