“What thanks sufficient, or what recompense Equal, have I to render thee, divine Historian, who thus largely hast allayed The thirst I had of knowledge, and vouchsafed This friendly condescension to relate Things else by me unsearchable, now heard With wonder, but delight, and, as is due, With glory attributed to the high Creator? Something yet of doubt remains, Which only thy solution can resolve. When I behold this goodly frame, this World Of Heaven and Earth consisting, and compute Their magnitudes; this Earth, a spot, a grain, An atom, with the firmament compared And all her numbered stars, that seem to roll Spaces incomprehensible (for such Their distance argues, and their swift return Diurnal) merely to officiate light Round this opacous Earth, this punctual spot, One day and night, in all their vast survey Useless besides; reasoning I oft admire How Nature, wise and frugal, could commit Such disproportions, with superfluous hand So many nobler bodies to create,