Sonnet Lxiv: Poem by George Henry Boker

LXIV

Roll the grand harmonies which finite mind
Can neither reason of nor understand,
Thou instrument, on which a higher hand
Plays the vast prelude that had strength to bind
The circling stars, the ocean and the wind,
When the creative spirit's first command
Moved on through heaven and over sea and land
As earth emerged from chaos blank and blind!
O humble creature, burn not to aspire,
But lowly to the hidden law incline;
And of thy duty neither stint nore tire.
Fulfill thy mission to thy Lord's design;
Make glad the common way and household fire:
A higher lot hereafter may be thine.