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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

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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!

THOMSON..

CHAP. XXIX.

GEN

I U S.

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,"

Of

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

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.

AKENSIDE

CHAP. XXX.

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,

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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

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.

AKENSIDE,

CHAP

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