Four Score

I count the mercifullest part of all
God's mercies, in this coil of eighty years,
Is that no sense of being disappears
Or fails, — I see the signal, hear the call, —
Can calmly estimate the rise and fall
Of moth-like mortals in this ' vale of tears ',
And all His glorious works, the heavenly spheres,
The ocean, and the earth's unyielding wall
Remain for thought and wonder ! Marvellous
Is God's creation, with its endless space,
And those inhabited, bright worlds, by law
Divinely govern'd, as they shine on us,
Still keeping through all time their ordered place
I bow my head in rapture and in awe !