The Silent Millenium, #6

Anicius Boethius (480-524)
(trans. Alexander Pope)


O QUI PERPETUA MUNDUM RATIONE GUBERNAS

O thou, whose all-creating hands sustain
The radiant Heav'ns, and Earth, and ambient main!
Eternal Reason! whose presiding soul
Informs great nature and directs the whole!
Who wert, e're time his rapid race begun,
And bad'st the years in long procession run:
Who fix't thy self amidst the rowling frame,
Gav'st all things to be chang'd, yet ever art the same!
Oh teach the mind t' aetherial heights to rise,
And view familiar, in its native skies,
The source of good; thy splendor to descry,
And on thy self, undazled, fix her eye.

Oh quicken this dull mass of mortal clay;
Shine through the soul, and drive its clouds away!
For thou art Light. In thee the righteous find
Calm rest, and soft serentity of mind;
Thee they regard alone; to thee they tend;
At once our great original and end,
At once our means, our end, our guide, our way,
Our utmost bound, and our eternal stay!