So spacious, and his line stretched out so far;

That Man may know he dwells not in his own;

An edifice too large for him to fill,

Lodged in a small partition; and the rest

Ordained for uses to his Lord best known.

The swiftness of those circles attribute,

Though numberless, to his Omnipotence,

That to corporeal substances could add

Speed almost spiritual: Me thou thinkest not slow,

Who since the morning-hour set out from Heaven

Where God resides, and ere mid-day arrived

In Eden; distance inexpressible

By numbers that have name. But this I urge,

Admitting motion in the Heavens, to show

Invalid that which thee to doubt it moved;

Not that I so affirm, though so it seem

To thee who hast thy dwelling here on Earth.

God, to remove his ways from human sense,

Placed Heaven from Earth so far, that earthly sight,

If it presume, might err in things too high,

And no advantage gain. What if the sun

Be center to the world; and other stars,

By his attractive virtue and their own

Incited, dance about him various rounds?

Their wandering course now high, now low, then hid,

Progressive, retrograde, or standing still,

In six thou seest; and what if seventh to these

The planet earth, so steadfast though she seem,

Insensibly three different motions move?

Which else to several spheres thou must ascribe,

Moved contrary with thwart obliquities;

Or save the sun his labour, and that swift

Nocturnal and diurnal rhomb supposed,

Invisible else above all stars, the wheel

Of day and night; which needs not thy belief,

If earth, industrious of herself, fetch day

Travelling east, and with her part averse

From the sun’s beam meet night, her other part

Still luminous by his ray. What if that light,

Sent from her through the wide transpicuous air,

To the terrestrial moon be as a star,

Enlightening her by day, as she by night

This earth? reciprocal, if land be there,

Fields and inhabitants: Her spots thou seest

As clouds, and clouds may rain, and rain produce

Fruits in her softened soil for some to eat

Allotted there; and other suns perhaps,

With their attendant moons, thou wilt descry,

Communicating male and female light;

Which two great sexes animate the world,

Stored in each orb perhaps with some that live.

For such vast room in Nature unpossessed

By living soul, desart and desolate,

Only to shine, yet scarce to contribute

Each orb a glimpse of light, conveyed so far

Down to this habitable, which returns

Light back to them, is obvious to dispute.

But whether thus these things, or whether not;

But whether the sun, predominant in Heaven,

Rise on the earth; or earth rise on the sun;

He from the east his flaming road begin;

Or she from west her silent course advance,

With inoffensive pace that spinning sleeps

On her soft axle, while she paces even,

And bears thee soft with the smooth hair along;