ftudiis florens ignobilis oti.
VIRG. GEOR. LIB. 4.
HACKNEY'D in business, wearied at that oar
Which thousands, once fast chain'd to, quit no more,
But which when life at ebb runs weak and low,
All wish, or feem to wish they could forego;
The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade,
Pants for the refuge of some rural shade,
Where all his long anxieties forgot
Amid the charms of a fequefter'd spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er
And add a fmile to what was fweet before,
He may poffefs the joys he thinks he fees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
Improve the remnant of his wasted span,
And having liv'd a trifler, die a man.
Thus confcience pleads her cause within the breast,
Though long rebell'd against, not yet suppress'd,
And calls a creature form'd for God alone,
For heav'n's high purposes and not his own,
Calls him away from felfifh ends and aims,
From what debilitates and what inflames,
From cities, humming with a reftless crowd,
Sordid as active, ignorant as loud,
Whose highest praise is that they live in vain,
The dupes of pleasure, or the flaves of gain,
Where works of man are cluster'd close around,
And works of God are hardly to be found,
To regions where in spite of fin and woe,
Traces of Eden are fill feen below,
Where mountain, river, foreft, field and grove,
Remind him of his Maker's pow'r and love.
'Tis well if look'd for at fo late a day,
In the last scene of such a senseless play,
True wisdom will attend his feeble call,
And grace his action ere the curtain fall.
Souls that have long defpis'd their heav'nly birth,
Their wishes all impregnated with earth,
For threefcore years employ'd with ceaseless care,
In catching smoke and feeding upon air,
Converfant only with the ways of men,
Rarely redeem the fhort remaining ten.
Invet'rate habits choak th' unfruitful heart,
Their fibres penetrate its tend'reft part,
And draining its nutritious pow'rs to feed
Their noxious growth, ftarve ev'ry better feed.
Happy if full of days-but happier far
If ere we yet difcern life's ev'ning star,
Sick of the service of a world that feeds
Its patient drudges with dry chaff and weeds,
We can escape from cuftom's idiot sway,
To serve the fov'reign we were born t' obey.
Then sweet to mufe upon his skill display'd,
(Infinite skill) in all that he has made!
To trace in nature's most minute defign,
The fignature and stamp of pow'r divine,
Contrivance intricate, exprefs'd with ease,
Where unaffifted fight no beauty fees,
The shapely limb and lubricated joint,
Within the small dimenfions of a point,
Muscle and nerve miraculously spun,
His mighty work who speaks and it is done,
Th' invisible in things scarce seen reveal❜d,
To whom an atom is an ample field.
To wonder at a thousand infect forms,
Thefe hatch'd, and thofe refufcitated worms,
New life ordain'd and brighter scenes to share,
Once prone on earth, now buoyant upon air,
Whofe fhape would make them, had they bulk and
More hideous foes than fancy can devife,
With helmet heads and dragon scales adorn'd,
The mighty myriads, now securely scorn'd,
Would mock the majefty of man's high birth,,
Despise his bulwarks and unpeople earth.
Then with a glance of fancy to furvey,
Far as the faculty can stretch away,
Ten thousand rivers pour'd at his command
From urns that never fail through ev'ry land,.
These like a deluge with impetuous force,
Those winding modeftly a filent course;
The cloud-furmounting Alps, the fruitful vales,
Seas on which ev'ry nation spreads her fails,
The fun, a world whence other worlds drink light,.
The crefcent moon, the diadem of night,
Stars countless, each in his appointed place,,
Faft anchor'd in the deep abyfs of space-
At fuch a fight to catch the poet's flame,
And with a rapture like his own exclaim,
These are thy glorious works, thou fource of good,,
How dimly feen, how faintly understood !—
Thine, and upheld by thy paternal care,
This univerfal frame, thus wond'rous fair
Thy pow'r divine and bounty beyond thought,
Ador'd and prais'd in all that thou haft wrought.
Absorb'd in that immensity I see,
I shrink abas'd, and yet afpire to thee;
Inftruct me, guide me to that heav'nly day,
Thy words, more clearly than thy works display,
That while thy truths my groffer thoughts refine,
I may resemble thee and call thee mine.
Oh bleft proficiency! furpaffing all
That men erroneously their glory call
The recompence that arts or arms can yield,
The bar, the fenate, or the tented field.
Compar'd with this fublimeft life below,
Ye kings and rulers, what have courts to show?
Thus ftudied, us'd and confecrated thus,
What ever is, seems form'd indeed for us,
Not as the plaything of a froward child,
Fretful unless diverted and beguiled,
Much lefs to feed and fan the fatal fires
Of pride, ambition or impure defires,
But as a fcale by which the foul afcends
From mighty means to more important ends,
Securely, though by steps but rarely trod,
Mounts from inferior beings up to God,
And fees by no fallacious light or dim,
Earth made for man, and man himself for him.
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