When I survey the bright
Celestial sphere,
So rich with jewels hung, that night,
Doth like an Ethiop bride appear.

My soul her wings doth spread,
And Heavenward flies,
The Almighty mysteries to read
In the large volume of the skies.

For the bright firmament
Shoots forth no flame
So silent, but is eloquent
In speaking the Creator’s name.

No unregarded star
Contracts its light
Into so small a character,
Remov’d far from our human sight –

But if we steadfast look
We shall discern
In it, as in some holy book,
How man may heavenly knowledge learn,

It tells the conqueror,
That far-stretch’d power,
Which his proud dangers traffic for,
Is but the triumph of an hour.

That, from the farthest North,
Some nation may
Yet undiscover’d issue forth,
And o’er his new got conquest sway.

Some nation, yet shut in
With hills of ice,
May be let to scourge his sin,
Till they shall equal him in vice.

And then they likewise shall
Their ruin have;
For as yourselves your empires fell,
And every kingdom hath a grave.

Thus those celestial fires,
Though seemingly mute,
The fallacy of our desires,
And all the pride of life confute.

For they have watch’d since first
The world had birth;
And found sin in itself accurst,
And nothing permanent on earth.

Author: William Habingdon – 1605

Signs of the Times
Volume 27, Number 21; October 15, 1859

Below are the songs that were made from the poem using AI. They are identified
by the genre of the music in paranthesis.