Song + 

VI + 

The Universal Aim + 

Wouldst thou with unclouded mind + 

View the laws by God designed, + 

Lift thy steadfast gaze on high + 

To the starry canopy; + 

See in rightful league of love + 

All the constellations move. + 

Fiery Sol, in full career, + 

Ne’er obstructs cold Phoebe’s sphere; + 

When the Bear, at heaven’s height, + 

Wheels his coursers’ rapid flight, + 

Though he sees the starry train + 

Sinking in the western main, + 

He repines not, nor desires + 

In the flood to quench his fires. + 

In true sequence, as decreed, + 

Daily morn and eve succeed; + 

Vesper brings the shades of night, + 

Lucifer the morning light. + 

Love, in alternation due, + 

Still the cycle doth renew, + 

And discordant strife is driven + 

From the starry realm of heaven. + 

Thus, in wondrous amity, + 

Warring elements agree; + 

Hot and cold, and moist and dry, + 

Lay their ancient quarrel by; + 

High the flickering flame ascends, + 

Downward earth forever tends. + 

So the year in spring’s mild hours + 

Loads the air with scent of flowers; + 

Summer paints the golden grain; + 

Then, when autumn comes again, + 

Bright with fruit the orchards glow; + 

Winter brings the rain and snow. + 

Thus the seasons’ fixed progression, + 

Tempered in a due succession, + 

Nourishes and brings to birth + 

All that lives and breathes on earth. + 

Then, soon run life’s little day, + 

All it brought it takes away. + 

But One sits and guides the reins, + 

He who made and all sustains; + 

King and Lord and Fountainhead, + 

Judge most holy, Law most dread; + 

Now impels and now keeps back, + 

Holds each waverer in the track. + 

Else, were once the power withheld + 

That the circling spheres compelled + 

In their orbits to revolve, + 

This world’s order would dissolve, + 

And th’ harmonious whole would all + 

In one hideous ruin fall. + 

But through this connected frame + 

Runs one universal aim; + 

Towards the Good do all things tend, + 

Many paths, but one the end. + 

For naught lasts, unless it turns + 

Backward in its course, and yearns + 

To that Source to flow again + 

Whence its being first was ta’en. + 