WHAT IS MAN?
SEARCH while ye may, vain and presumptuous man,
Thy life alone, one short, and broken span.
There is no pleasure, yet the world's alloy
Steps in to mar thy purest, holiest joy!
Cast round thine eyes, the starry Heavens survey,
And dost no sign of God thine eyes repay?
Sweeps on its even course, each stellar world,
In seeming vast confusion toss'd and hurl'd;
Like the fierce fires, which quenchless ever rest,
Deep down in Hecla's great primeval breast.
Each hath its orbit traced: God's mighty Hand
Their every course and slightest rule hath plann'd.
Untrodden worlds, whose fiery locks out-stream,
To man's wondering eyes, their sickly beam;
Lost, for a time, in blue Heaven's ariel deep,
Mid unknown planets they revolving sweep.
Thro' the vast realms of space th' ether light,
Thy life alone, one short, and broken span.
There is no pleasure, yet the world's alloy
Steps in to mar thy purest, holiest joy!
Cast round thine eyes, the starry Heavens survey,
And dost no sign of God thine eyes repay?
Sweeps on its even course, each stellar world,
In seeming vast confusion toss'd and hurl'd;
Like the fierce fires, which quenchless ever rest,
Deep down in Hecla's great primeval breast.
Each hath its orbit traced: God's mighty Hand
Their every course and slightest rule hath plann'd.
Untrodden worlds, whose fiery locks out-stream,
To man's wondering eyes, their sickly beam;
Lost, for a time, in blue Heaven's ariel deep,
Mid unknown planets they revolving sweep.
Thro' the vast realms of space th' ether light,
