Pour every luftre on th' exalted eye.
A friend, a book, the ftealing hours fecure, And mark them down for wifdoms. With fwift wing O'er land and fe the Imagination roams ;. Or Truth divinely breaking on his mind, Elates his being, and unfolds his powers; Or in his breaft heroic virtue burns.. The touch of kindred too and love he feels ; The modeft eye, whofe beams on his alone Ecftatic fhine: the little ftrong embrace Of prattling children, twist around his neck, And emulous to please him, calling forth The fond parental foul. Nor purpose gay, Amusement, dance, or fong, he sternly scorne: For happiness and true philofophy
Are of the focial, ftill, and finiling kind.
This is the life which those who fret in guilt, And guilty cities, never knew; the life,
Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt,
When angels dwelt, and God himself, with man!
FROM heav'n my ftrains begin; from heav'n defcende
The flame of genius to the human breaft,
And love and beauty, and poetic joy
And infpiration. Ere the radiant fun
Sprang from the eaft, or 'mid the vault of night
The moon fufpended her ferener lamp;
Ere mountains, woods, or fireams adorn'd the globe,"
Or Wisdom taught the fons of men her lore;
Then liv'd the Almighty ONE: then deep retir'd In his unfathom'd effence, view'd the forms, The forms eternal of created things;
The radiant fun, the moon's nocturnal lamp,
The mountains, woods, and ftreams, the rolling globes And Wisdom's mien celeftial. From the first Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd, His admiration till in time complete, What he admir'd and lov'd, his vital fmile- Unfolded into being.. Hence the breath Of life informing each organic frame,
Hence the green earth, and wild refounding waves ; Hence light and shade alternate; warnith and cold; And clear autumnal fkies and vernal show'rs, And all the fair variety of things.
But not alike to every mortal eye
Is this great scene unveil'd. For fince the claims Of focial life, to diff'rent labours urge
The active pow'rs of man; with wife intent The hand of Nature on peculiar minds Imprints a diff'rent bias, and to each Decrees its province in the common toil. To fome she taught the fabric of the sphere, The changeful moon, the circuit of the stars, The golden zones of heav'n: to some she gave To weigh the moment of eternal things, Of Time, and Space, and Fate's unbroken chain, And Will's quick impulfe: others by the hand She led o'er vales and mountains, to explore What healing virtue fwells the tender veins Of herbs. and flow'rs; or what the beams of morn
Draw forth, diftilling from the clifted rind In balmy tears. But fome to higher hopes Were deftin'd; fome within a finer mould She wrought, and temper'd with a purer flame.. To these the Sire Omnipotent unfolds The world's harmonious volume, there to read The tranfcript of himself. On every part They trace the bright impreffions of his hand : In earth, or air, the meadow's purple stores. The Moon's mild radiance, or the Virgin's form Blooming with rofy smiles, they fee pourtray'd That uncreated beauty, which delights The mind fupreme. They alfo feel her charms, Enamour'd they partake th' eternal joy.
GREATNESS.
SAY, why was man fo eminently rais'd
Amid the vaft creation; why ordain'd Thro' life and death to dart his piercing eye, With thoughts beyond the limits of his frame; But that th' Omnipotent might fend him forth In fight of mortal and immortal pow'rs, As on a boundlefs theatre, to run The great career of justice; to exalt His gen'rous aim to all diviner deeds;
To chace each partial purpose from his breast; And thro' the mifts of paffion and of sense, And thro' the toffing tide of chance and pain,
To hold his course unfault'ring, while the voice Of Truth and Virtue, up the steep afcent Of Nature, calls him to his high reward,
Th' applauding fmile of Heav'n: Elfe wherefore burns In mortal bofoms this unquenched hope,
That breathes from day to day fublimer things, And mocks poffeffion? Wherefore darts the mind, With fuch refiftless ardour to embrace
Majestic forms; impatient to be free, Spurning the grofs controul of wilful Might; Proud of the strong contention of her toils; Proud to be daring? Who but rather turns To Heav'n's broad fire his unconftrained view, Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame ? Who that, from Alpine heights, his lab'ring eye Shoots round the wild horizon, to furvey
Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave
Thro' mountains, plains, thro' empires black with shade,
And continents of fand! will turn his gaze
To mark the windings of a fcanty rill
That murmurs at his feet? The high-born foul
Difdains to reft her heav'n afpiring wing
Beneath its native quarry. Tir'd of earth And this diurnal fcene, fhe fprings aloft Thro' fields of air; pursues the flying storm; Rides on the volly'd light'ning thro' the heav'ns; Or yok'd with whirlwinds and the northern blast, Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high fhe foars The blue profound, and hovering round the fun. Benolds him pouring the redundant ftream Of light; beholds his unrelenting fway Bend the relunctant planets to absolve
The fatal rounds of Time. Thence far effus'd She darts her fwiftness up the long career Of devious comets; thro' its burning figns Exulting measures the perennial wheel
Of Nature, and looks back on all the stars, Whofe blended light, as with a milky zone, Invests the Orient. Now amaz'd fhe views Th' empyreal wafte, where happy fpirits hold, Beyond this concave heav'n, their calm abode, And fields of radiance, whose unfading light Has travell'd the profound fix thousand years,. Nor yet arrives in fight of mortal things.. Ev'n on the barriers of the world untir'd She meditates th' eternal depth below; Till, half-recoiling, down the headlong fteep She plunges; foon o'erwhelm'd and swallow'd up. In that immenfe of being. There her hopes Reft at the fated goal. For from the birth Of mortal man, the fovereign Maker faid, That not in humble nor in brief delight, Not in the fading echoes of renown, Pow'r's purple robes, nor Pleafure's flow'ry lap, The foul fhall find enjoyment: but from these Turning difdainful to an equal good,
Thro' all th' afcent of things enlarge her view, Till every bound at length fhould disappear, And infinite Perfection close the scene.
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