Or, art thou still an incandescent mass,

Acquiring form as hostile forces urge,

Through whose vast length a million lightnings pass

As to and fro its fiery billows surge,

Whose glowing atoms, whirled in ceaseless strife

Where now chaotic anarchy is rife.

Shall yet become the fair abodes of life?

We know not; for the faint, exhausted rays

Which hither on Light's wingèd coursers come

From fires which ages since first lit their blaze,