CHAPTER XII.--JUPITER.

Jupiter is before us! Stay, O Time, thy hand, That we may gaze on an orb superlatively grand! And we are rapt in astonishment and amaze At a form so colossal, wrapped in an outward blaze Of resplendent glory, whose illuminating stress Penetrates the verges of the known universe.

Hail, Jupiter! of the solar orbs the greatest, And thou art, perhaps, the grandest and the noblest. In thy orbit three thousand million miles or more, By the confines of Saturn’s strange, luminous shore; Or looking on the unfathomable unknown, Peering into the nebulæ of systems strewn In the eternal mystery of solitudes Unspeakable, where scarce even thought intrudes. But thou art a glorious sight when thy brilliant moons Light thy radiant face in the night’s resplendent noons!

And surely untold millions roam thy mighty plains, Where existence and progression ever reigns In peace perpetual, and friendship as true as gold-- A higher life and purer, of love and joy untold. But thou’rt a mystery still, beyond our eager gaze, Shadowed by clouds, or belts, and red and purple haze. We believe man ne’er shall see but the outer line Of worlds only known to celestial sight divine.