Straight, as travellers by night
Turn toward a distant flame, so some fit eye,
Among the various tenants of the scene, 680
Discerns the heaven-born phantom seated there,
And owns her charms. Hence the wide universe,
Through all the seasons of revolving worlds,
Bears witness with its people, gods and men,
To Beauty's blissful power, and with the voice
Of grateful admiration still resounds:
That voice, to which is Beauty's frame divine
As is the cunning of the master's hand
To the sweet accent of the well-tuned lyre.
Genius of ancient Greece, whose faithful steps 690
Have led us to these awful solitudes
Of Nature and of Science; nurse revered
Of generous counsels and heroic deeds;
Oh! let some portion of thy matchless praise
Dwell in my breast, and teach me to adorn
This unattempted theme. Nor be my thoughts
Presumptuous counted, if, amid the calm
Which Hesper sheds along the vernal heaven,
If I, from vulgar Superstition's walk,
Impatient steal, and from the unseemly rites 700
Of splendid Adulation, to attend
With hymns thy presence in the sylvan shade,
By their malignant footsteps unprofaned.
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