STAR-GAZING.
35
Or, past all suns, to find the awful centre
Round which they meanly wind a servile road;
Ah, will it raise us or degrade, to enter
Where that world's Shakespeare towers almost to God?
No, no; far better, "lords of all creation"
To strut our ant-hill, and to take our ease;
To look aloft and say, "That constellation
Was lighted there our regal sight to please!"
We owe no thanks to so-called men of science,
Who demonstrate that earth, not sun, goes round;
'Twere better think the sun a mere appliance
To light man's villages and heat his ground.
There seems no good in asking or in humbling;
The mind incurious has the most of rest;
If we can live and laugh and pray, not grumbling,
'Tis all we can do here—and 'tis the best.
