splendors vanish at thy sight;
    With what effulgence must the ocean glow! 
    From which thy borrow’d beams incessant flow! 
    Th’ exhaustless force whose single smiles supplies,
    Th’ unnumber’d orbs that gild the spangled skies!

    Oft would I view, in admiration lost,
    Heav’n’s sumptuous canopy, and starry host;
    With level’d tube and astronomic eye,
    Pursue the planets whirling thro’ the sky: 
    Immeasurable vaults! where thunders roll,
    And forked lightnings flash from pole to pole. 
    Say, railing infidel! canst thou survey
    Yon globe of fire, that gives the golden day,
    Th’ harmonious structure of this vast machine,
    And not confess its Architect divine? 
    Then go, vain wretch; tho’ deathless be thy soul,
    Go, swell the riot, and exhaust the bowl;
    Plunge into vice, humanity resign,
    Go, fill the stie, and bristle into swine?

    None but a pow’r omnipotent and wise
    Could frame this earth, or spread the boundless skies
    He made the whole; at his omnific call, }
    From formless chaos rose this spacious ball, }
    And one ALMIGHTY GOD is seen in all. }
    By him our cup is crown’d, our table spread
    With luscious wine, and life-sustaining bread. 
    What countless wonders doth the earth contain! 
    What countless wonders the unfathom’d main! 
    Bedrop’d with gold, their scaly nations shine,
    Haunt coral groves, or lash the foaming brine. 
    JEHOVAH’s glories blaze all nature round. 
    In heaven, on earth, and in the deeps profound;
    Ambitious of his name, the warblers sing,
    And praise their Maker while they hail the spring: 
    The zephyrs breathe it, and the thunders roar,
    While surge to surge, and shore resounds to shore. 
    But MAN, endu’d with an immortal mind,
    His Maker’s Image, and for heaven design’d;
    To loftier notes his raptur’d voice should raise,
    And chaunt sublimer hymns to his Creator’s praise.

    When rising Phoebus ushers in the morn,
    And golden beams th’ impurpled skies adorn: 
    Wak’d by the gentle murmur of the floods,
    Or the soft music of the waving woods;
    Rising from sleep with the melodious quire,
    To solemn sounds I’d tune the hallow’d lyre. 
    Thy name, O GOD! should tremble on my tongue,
    Till ev’ry grove prov’d vocal to my song: 
    (Delightful task! with dawning light to sing,
    Triumphant hymns to heav’n’s eternal king.)
    Some courteous angel should my breast inspire,
    Attune my lips, and guide the warbled wire,
    While sportive echoes catch the sacred sound,
    Swell ev’ry note, and bear the music round;
    While mazy streams meand’ring to the main
    Hang in suspence to hear the heav’nly strain;
    And hush’d to silence, all the feather’d throng,
    Attentive listen to the tuneful song.