Empires subvers'd, when ruling fate has struck
Th' unalterable hour: even Nature's self 1120
Is deem'd to totter on the brink of time.
Not so the Man of philosophic eye,
And inspect sage; the waving brightness he
Curious surveys, inquisitive to know
The causes, and materials, yet unfix'd, 1125
Of this appearance beautiful and new.
Now black, and deep, the night begins to fall,
A shade immense. Sunk in the quenching gloom,
Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth.
Order confounded lies; all beauty void; 1130
Distinction lost: and gay variety
One universal blot: such the fair power
Of light, to kindle and create the whole.
Drear is the state of the benighted wretch,
Who then bewildered wanders through the dark, 1135
Full of pale fancies, and chimeras huge;
Nor visited by one directive ray,
From cottage streaming, or from airy hall.
Perhaps impatient as he stumbles on,
Struck from the root of slimy rushes, blue, 1140
The wild-fire scatters round, or gathered trails
A length of flame deceitful o'er the moss;
Whither decoyed by the fantastic blaze,
Now lost and now renewed, he sinks absorpt,
Rider and horse, amid the miry gulph: 1045
While still, from day to day, his pining wife,
And plaintive children his return await,
In wild conjecture lost. At other times,
Sent by the better Genius of the night,
Innoxious, gleaming on the horse's mane, 1150
The meteor sits, and shews the narrow path,
That
