A

Not tending to the heart foon feeble grows,
As the blunt arrow 'gainst the knotty trunk,
Their impulfe on the fenfe, while the pall'd eye
Expects in vain its tribute, asks in vain
Where are the ornaments it once admir'd?
Not fo the moral fpecies, nor the pow'rs,
Of paffion and of thought. Th' ambitious mind
With objects boundlefs as her own defires

Can there converfe by these unfading forms

:

Touch'd and awaken'd still, with eager

act

15

20

30

She bends each nerve, and meditates well-pleas'd 25
Her gifts, her godlike fortune. Such the scenes
Now op'ning round us: may the deftin'd Verfe
Maintain its equal tenour, tho' in tracks
Obfcure and ard'ous! may the Source of Light,
All-prefent, all-fufficient, guide our steps
Thro' ev'ry maze! and whom in childish years
From the loud throng, the beaten paths of wealth
And pow'r, thou didst apart fend forth to speak,,
In tuneful words concerning highest things, ..
Him still do thou, O Father! at thofe hours
Of penfive freedom, when the human foul
Shuts out the rumour of the world, him still
Touch thou with fecret leffons; call thou back,
Each erring thought, and let the yielding strains
From his full bofom like a welcome rill
Spontaneous from its healthy fountain flow!
But from what name, what favourable sign,
What heav'nly aufpice, rather shall I date

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45

My perilous excurfion than from truth,
That nearest inmate of the human foul,
Eftrang'd from whom the countenance divine
Of man disfigur'd and dishonour'd, finks
Among inferior things? for to the brutes
Perception and the tranfient boons of fente
Hath Fate imparted, but to man alone
Of fublunary beings was it giv'n
Each fleeting impulfe on the fenfual pow'rs -
At leifure to review, with equal eye
To scan the paffion of the ftricken nerve,
Or the vague object ftriking, to conduct
From fenfe, the portal turbulent and loud,
Into the mind's wide palace one by one
The frequent, preffing, fluctuating, forms,

And question and compare them. Thus he learns Their birth and fortunes, how ally'd they haunt 69 The avenues of fenfe, what laws direct

Their union, and what various discords rife

Or fix'd or cafual; which when his clear thought.
Retains, and when his faithful words express,'
That living image of th' external scene,
As in a polish'd mirror held to view,
Is truth; where'er it varies from the shape
And hue of its exemplar, in that part
Dim error lurks. Moreover, from without
When oft' the fame fociety of forms

In the fame o. der have approach'd his mind,
Volume I.

N

He deigns no more their steps with curious heed
To trace; no more their features or their garb
He nor examines, but of them and their
Condition, as with fome diviner's tongue, a
Affirms what Heav'n in ev'ry diftant place acqua
Thro' ev'ry:future feafon will decree?!!

75

This too is truth: where'er his prudent lips4
Wait till experience diligent and flow

A

10

85

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Has authoris'd their fentence, this is truth; 42.80
A fecond higher kind; the parent this
Offcience, or the lofty pow'r herself, qand
Science herself, on whom the wants and cares
Of focial life depend, the fubftitute
Of God's own wisdom in this toilsome world,
The providence of man. Yet pithin vain om
To earn her aid with fix'd; and anxious eye
He looks on Nature's and on Fortune's courfe,
Too much in vain; his dullet wifual ray
The stillness and the perfevering acts
Of Nature oft' elude, and Fortune oft'.
With step fantastick from her wonted walk
Turns into mazes dim his fight is foil'd,
And the crude fentence of his falt'ring tongues:
Is but Opinion's verdic half believ'd, 1

1.

go

And prone to change. Here thou who feelft thine ear Congenial to my lyre's profounder tone

pause and be watchful. Hitherto the stores bons v Which feed thy mind and exercise her pow Partake the relish of their native foil,

roo

Their parent earth; but know a nobler dow'r
Her fire at birth decfeed her, purer gifts

From his own treature, forms which never deign'd »
In eyes or ears to dwell within the fenfet in I
Of earthly organs, but fublime were plac de zi drog
In his effential reason, leading there

T

That vaft ideal hoft which all his works
Thro' endless ages hever will reveal, Tour d'i deb ni
Thus then endow'd the feeble creature many gli 0
The flave of hunger and the prey of Deathjs av 10l
Even now, even here, fearth's dim prison bound;
The language of intelligence divine

bus parod Attains, repeating off concerning one

And many, past and prefent, parts and whole,
Those sovran dictates which in farthest heav'n," rig
Where no orb rolls, Eternity's fix'd ear

Hears from coeval truth, when Chance nor Changes
Nature's loud prøgeny, nor Nature's felf,

Dares intermeddle or approach her throne.

ow

I

Ere long o'er this corporeal world he learns, 120
T'extend her sway, while calling from the deep,
From earth and air, their multitudes untold demurel
Of figures and of motions round his walk, cook yo
For each wide family fome fingle birtho
He fets in view, fl'impartial type of.all
Its brethren, fuff'ring it to claim beyond
Their common heritage no private gift,
No proper fortune Then whate er his eye
In this difcerns his bold unerring tongue van

Pronounceth of her kindred without bound,

130

Without condition. Such the rife of forms

Sequefter'd far from sense, and ev'ry spot

Peculiar in the realms of space or time;

Such is the throne which man for Truth amid
The paths of mutability hath built

135

Secure, unshaken, ftill, and whence he views

In matter's mould'ring structures the pure forms
Of triangle or circle, cube or cone,

Impaffive all, whofe attributes nor Force

Nor Fate can alter: there he first conceives
True being and an intellectual world,

The fame this hour and ever: thence he deems
Of his own lot above the painted shapes
That fleeting move o'er this terreftrial scene,
Looks up, beyond the adamantine gates
Of death expatiates, as his birthright claims
Inheritance in all the works of God,
Prepares for endless time his plan of life,
And counts the universe itself his home.

145

Whence alfo but from truth, the light of minds, 150 Is human fortune gladden'd with the rays Of virtue? with the moral colours thrown On ev'ry walk of this our focial scene, Adorning for the eye of gods and men The paffions, actions, habitudes of life, And fend'ring earth like heav'n, a sacred place Where Love and Praise may take delight to dwell ?.. Let none with heedless tongue from Truth disjoin