Serve to compose a spirit well inclin'd To live on terms of amity with vice, And sin without disturbance. Often urg'd, (As often as, libidinous discourse Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes Of theological and grave import,) They gain at last his unreserv'd assent; Till, harden'd his heart's temper in the forge Of lust, and on the anvil of despair,
He slights the strokes of conscience. Nothing moves, Or nothing much, his constancy in ill;
Vain tamp'ring has but foster'd his disease; 'Tis desp'rate, and he sleeps the sleep of death. Haste, now, philosopher, and set him free. Charm the deaf serpent wisely. Make him hear Of rectitude and fitness, moral truth
How lovely, and the moral sense how sure, Consulted and obey'd, to guide his steps
Directly to the first and only fair.
Spare not in such a cause. Spend all the pow'rs Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise; Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand, And with poetick trapplings grace thy prose, Till it out-mantle all the pride of verse.- Ah, tinkling cymbal, and high sounding brass, Smitten in vain! such musick cannot charm The eclipse, that intercepts truth's heav'nly beam And chills and darkens a wide wand'ring soul. The still small voice is wanted. He must speak, Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect; Who calls for things that are not, and they come. Grace makes the slave a freeman. 'Tis a change That turns to ridicule the turgid speech And stately tone of moralists, who boast As if, like him of fabulous renown, They had indeed ability to smooth
The shag of savage nature, and were each An Orpheus, and omnipotent in song; But transformation of apostate man From fool to wise, from earthly to divine, Is work for Him that made him. He alone, And he by means in philosophick eyes Trivial and worthy of disdain, achieves The wonder; humanizing what is brute In the lost kind, extracting from the lips Of asps their venom, overpow'ring strength By weakness, and hostility by love.
Patriots have toil'd, and, in their country's cause Bled nobly; and their deeds, as they deserve, Receive proud recompense. We give in charge Their names to the sweet lyre. Th' hisiorick muse, Proud of the treasure, marches with it down To latest times; and Sculpture, in her turn, Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass To guard them, and t' immortalize her trust: But fairer wreathes are due, though never paid, To those who, posted at the shrine of Truth, Have fall'n in her defence. A patriot's blood, Well spent in such a strife, may earn indeed, And, for a time, ensure to his lov'd land The sweets of liberty and equal laws; But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize, And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed In confirmation of the noblest claim- Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, To walk with God, to be divinely free, To soar, and to anticipate the skies.
Yet few remember them. They liv'd unknown, Till persecution dragg'd them into fame,
And chas'd them up to Heaven. Their ashes flew -No marble tells us whither. With their names No bard embalms and sanctifies his song;
And history, so warm on meaner themes, Is cold on this. She execrates indeed
The tyranny that doom'd them to the fire, But gives the glorious suff'rers little praise.*
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain That hellish foes, confed'rate for his harm, Can wind around him, but he casts it off With as much ease as Samson his green withes. He looks abroad into the varied field
Of nature, and though poor, perhaps, compar'd With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, Calls the delightful scenery all his own. His are the mountains, and the valleys his, And the resplendent rivers. His t' enjoy With a propriety that none can feel, But who, with filial confidence inspir'd, Can lift to heav'n an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say-" My Father made them all!" Are they not his by a peculiar right,
And by an emphasis of int'rest his,
Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy, Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love, That plann'd, and built, and still upholds a world So cloth'd with beauty for rebellious man? Yes-ye may fill your garners, ye that reap The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good In senseless riot; but ye will not find In feast or in the chase, in song or dance, A liberty like his, who, unimpeach'd Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong, Appropriates nature as his Father's work, And has a richer use of yours than you.
He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth Of no mean city; plann'd or ere the hills Were built, the fountains open'd, or the sea, With all his roaring multitude of waves. His freedom is the same in ev'ry state; And no condition of this changeful life, So manifold in cares, whose ev'ry day Brings its own evil with it, makes it less : For he has wings, that neither sickness, pain, Nor penury, can cripple or confine.
No nook so narrow, but he spreads them there With ease, and is at large. Th' oppressor holds His body bound; but knows not what a range His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain; And that to bind him is a vain attempt,
Whom God delights in, and in whom He dwells. Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste His works. Admitted once to his embrace, Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before: Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heart, Made pure, shall relish with divine delight, Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought. Brutes graze the mountain top, with faces prone, And eyes intent upon the scanty herb
It yields them; or, recumbent on its brow, Ruminate heedless of the scene outspread Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away From inland regions to the distant main. Man views it, and admires; but rests content With what he views. The landscape has his praise, But not its author. Unconcern'd who form'd
The Paradise he sees, he finds it such, And such well pleas'd to find it, asks no more. Not so the mind that has been touch'd from Heav'n And in the school of sacred wisdom taught
To read His wonders, in whose thought the word.
Fair as it is, existed ere it was.
Nor for its own sake merely, but for his
Much more who fashion'd it, he gives, it praise; Praise that from earth resulting, as it ought, To earth's acknowledg'd sov'reign, finds at once Its only just proprietor in Him.
The soul that sees him, or receives sublim'd New faculties, or learns at least t' employ More worthily the powers she own'd before, Discerns in all things what, with stupid gaze Of ignorance, till then she overlook'd, A ray of heavenly light, gilding all forms Terrestrial in the vast and the minute; The unambiguous footsteps of the God, Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing, And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds. Much conversant with Heaven, she often holds With those fair ministers of light to man, That fill the skies nightly with silent pomp, Sweet conference. Inquires what strains were they With which Heaven rang, when every star, in haste To gratulate the new-created earth,
Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of God Shouted for joy."Tell me, ye shining hosts, That navigate a sea that knows no storms, Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud, If from your elevation, whence ye view Distinctly scenes invisible to man,
And systems, of whose birth no tidings yet Have reach'd this nether world, ye spy a race Favour'd as ours; transgressors from the womb And hasting to a grave, yet doom'd to rise, And to possess a brighter Heaven than yours? As one, who, long detain'd on foreign shores, Pants to return, and when he sees afar
country's weather-bleach'd and batter'd rocks,
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