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For her amaffes an unbounded store,

The wifdom of great nations, now no more;
Though laden, not incumbered with her spoil;
Laborious, yet unconscious of her toil;
When copiously supplied, then most enlarged;
Still to be fed, and not to be furcharged.
For her the fancy, roving unconfined,
The prefent mufe of every penfive mind,
Works magic wonders, adds a brighter hue
To nature's fcenes than nature ever knew.
At her command winds rife and waters roar,
Again the lays them flumbering on the shore;
With flower and fruit the wilderness supplies,
Or bids the rocks in ruder pomp arise.
For her the judgment, umpire in the ftrife
That grace and nature have to wage through life,
Quick-fighted arbiter of good and ill,

Appointed fage preceptor to the will,

Condemns, approves, and with a faithful voice

Guides the decifion of a doubtful choice.

Why did the fiat of a God give birth
To yon fair fun and his attendant earth?
And, when defcending he refigns the skies,
Why takes the gentler moon her turn to rise,

Whom ocean feels through all his countless waves,
And owns her power on every shore he laves?
Why do the feafons still enrich the year,
Fruitful and young as in their first career?
Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees,
Rocked in the cradle of the western breeze;
Summer in hafte the thriving charge receives
Beneath the shade of her expanded leaves,
Till autumn's fiercer heats and plenteous dews
Dye them at laft in all their glowing hues.-
'Twere wild profufion all, and bootless waste,
Power mifemployed, munificence misplaced,
Had not its author dignified the plan,
And crowned it with the majefty of man.

Thus formed, thus placed, intelligent, and taught,
Look where he will, the wonders God has wrought,
The wildeft fcorner of his Maker's laws

Finds in a fober moment time to pause,

To prefs the important queftion on his heart,
"Why formed at all, and wherefore as thou art?"
If man be what he feems, this hour a flave,
The next mere duft and afhes in the grave;
Endued with reafon only to defcry

His crimes and follies with an aching eye;
With paffions, juft that he may prove, with pain,
The force he spends against their fury vain;

And if, foon after having burnt, by turns,
With every luft, with which frail nature burns,
His being end where death diffolves the bond,
The tomb take all, and all be blank beyond;
Then he, of all that nature has brought forth,
Stands felf-impeached the creature of leaft worth,
And ufelefs while he lives, and when he dies,
Brings into doubt the wisdom of the skies.

Truths, that the learned pursue with eager thought,
Are not important always as dear-bought,
Proving at laft, though told in pompous ftrains,
A childish wafte of philofophic pains;

But truths, on which depends our main concern,
That 'tis our fhame and mifery not to learn,
Shine by the fide of every path we tread
With fuch a luftre, he that runs may read.
"Tis true that, if to trifle life away

Down to the fun-fet of their latest day,

Then perish on futurity's wide fhore
Like fleeting exhalations, found no more,
Were all that Heaven required of human kind,
And all the plan their deftiny defigned,

What none could reverence all might juftly blame,

And man would breathe but for his Maker's fhame.

But reafon heard, and nature well perufed,
At once the dreaming mind is difabused.
If all we find poffeffing earth, sea, air,
Reflect his attributes, who placed them there,
Fulfil the purpose, and appear defigned

Proofs of the wisdom of the all-feeing mind,
"Tis plain the creature, whom he chose to inveft
With kingship and dominion o'er the reft,
Received his nobler nature, and was made
Fit for the power, in which he ftands arrayed,
That firft or laft, hereafter if not here,

He too might make his author's wisdom clear,
Praise him on earth, or obftinately dumb
Suffer his juftice in a world to come.
This once believed, 'twere logic mifapplied
To prove a confequence by none denied,
That we are bound to caft the minds of youth
Betimes into the mould of heavenly truth,
That taught of God they may indeed be wife,
Nor ignorantly wandering miss the skies.

In early days the conscience has in most
A quickness, which in later life is loft:
Preferved from guilt by falutary fears,
Or guilty foon relenting into tears.
Too careless often, as our years proceed,

What friends we fort with, or what books we read,

Our parents yet exert a prudent care

To feed our infant minds with proper fare;
And wifely ftore the nursery by degrees
With wholesome learning, yet acquired with ease.
Neatly fecured from being foiled or torn
Beneath a pane of thin translucent horn,
A book (to please us at a tender age
'Tis called a book, though but a fingle page)
Prefents the prayer the Saviour deigned to teach,
Which children ufe, and parfons-when they preach.
Lifping our fyllables, we scramble next

Through moral narrative, or facred text;

And learn with wonder how this world began,
Who made, who marred, and who has ranfomed, man.
Points, which unless the scripture made them plain,
The wifeft heads might agitate in vain.

O thou, whom, borne on fancy's eager wing
Back to the season of life's happy spring,
I pleased remember, and while memory yet
Holds faft her office here, can ne'er forget;
Ingenious dreamer, in whofe well-told tale
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail;
Whofe humorous vein, ftrong fenfe, and fimple ftyle,
May teach the gayeft, make the gravest smile;
Witty, and well employed, and like thy Lord,

Speaking in parables his flighted word;

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