And catechise it well; apply your glass, Search it, and prove now if it be not blood Congenial with thine own: and if it be, What edge of fubtlety canst thou suppose Keen enough, wife and fkilful as thou art, To cut the link of brotherhood, by which One common Maker bound me to the kind. True; I am no proficient, I confefs,
In arts like yours. I cannot call the swift And perilous lightnings from the angry clouds, And bid them hide themselves in earth beneath; I cannot analyse the air, nor catch
The parallax of yonder luminous point That feems half quench'd in the immense abyfs; Such pow'rs I boast not-neither can I reft A filent witness of the headlong rage Or heedlefs folly by which thousands die, Bone of my bone, and kindred fouls to mine. God never meant that man fhould fcale the
By ftrides of human wisdom. In his works, Though wond'rous, he commands us in his word To feek him rather, where his mercy fhines. The mind indeed, enlighten'd from above, Views him in all: afcribes to the grand caufe The grand effect: acknowledges with joy His manner, and with rapture taftes his ftyle. But never yet did philofophic tube,
That brings the planets home into the eye Of obfervation, and discovers, else
Not vifible, his family of worlds,
Discover him that rules them; fuch a veil Hangs over mortal eyes, blind from the birth, And dark in things divine. Full often too Our wayward intellect, the more we learn Of nature, overlooks her author more, From inftrumental caufes proud to draw Conclufions retrograde, and mad mistake. But if his word once teach us, shoot a ray Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal Truths undifcern'd, but by that holy light, Then all is plain. Philofophy baptiz'd
In the pure fountain of eternal love
Has eyes indeed; and viewing all the fees, As meant to indicate a God to man,
Gives him his praife, and forfeits not her own. Learning has borne fuch fruit in other days On all her branches: piety has found
Friends in the friends of science, and true pray'r Has flow'd from lips wet with Caftalian dews. Such was thy wifdom, Newton, childlike fage! Sagacious reader of the works of God, And in his word fagacious. Such too thine, Milton, whofe genius had angelic wings, And fed on manna. And fuch thine, in whom Our British Themis gloried with juft caufe,
Immortal Hale! for deep difcernment prais'd, And found integrity not more, than fam'd For fanctity of manners undefil'd.
All flesh is grafs, and all its glory fades Like the fair flow'r difhevell'd in the wind; Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream; The man we celebrate must find a tomb, And we that worship him, ignoble graves. Nothing is proof against the genʼral curfe Of vanity, that feizes all below.
The only amaranthine flow'er on earth Is virtue; th' only lasting treasure, truth. But what is truth? 'twas Pilate's question put To Truth himself, that deign'd him no reply. And wherefore? will not God impart his light To them that afk it ?-Freely-'tis his joy, His glory, and his nature to impart. But to the proud, uncandid, infincere, Or negligent enquirer, not a spark.
What's that which brings contempt upon a book, And him who writes it, though the style be neat, The method clear, and argument exact ? That makes a minister in holy things
The joy of many, and the dread of more,
His name a theme for praise and for reproach ?- That while it gives us worth in God's account, Depreciates and undoes us in our own? What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy, That learning is too proud to gather up, E 4
But which the poor, and the defpis'd of all, Seek and obtain, and often find unfought? Tell me, and I will tell thee, what is truth.
O friendly to the best pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, Domestic life in rural leifure pafs'd 1
Few know thy value, and few tafte thy fweets, Though many boast thy favours, and affect To understand and chufe thee for their own. But foolish man foregoes his proper bliss, Ev'n as his first progenitor, and quits, Though placed in paradise (for earth has still Some traces of her youthful beauty left) Substantial happiness for tranfient joy. Scenes form'd for contemplation, and to ñurfe The growing feeds of wifdom; that fuggeft, By ev'ry pleasing image they prefent,
Reflections fuch as meliorate the heart, Compofe the paffions, and exalt the mind ; Scenes fuch as thefe, 'tis his fupreme delight To fill with riot, and defile with blood. Should fome contagion, kind to the poor brutes We perfecute, annihilate the tribes
That draw the sportsman over hill and dale Fearless, and rapt away from all his cares; Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again, Nor baited hook deceive the fishes eye; Could pageantry and dance, and feast and song,
Be quell'd in all our fummer-months retreat; How many felf-deluded nymphs and fwains, Who dream they have a tafte for fields and
Would find them hideous nurs'ries of the spleen, And crowd the roads, impatient for the town; They love the country, and none eife, who feek For their own fake its filence and its fhade. Delights which who would leave, that has a heart Sufceptible of pity, or a mind
Cultur'd and capable of fober thought, For all the favage din of the fwift pack,. And clamours of the field? detested sport,, That owes its pleasures to another's pain, That feeds upon the fobs and dying fhrieks Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endu'd. With eloquence that agonies inspire Of filent tears and heart diftending fighs! Vain tears, alas! and fighs that never find A correfponding tone in jovial fouls. Well-one at leaft is fafe.
Has never heard the fanguinary yell Of cruel man, exulting in her woes. Innocent partner of my peaceful home, Whom ten long years experience of my care Has made at laft familiar; fhe has loft Much of her vigilant instinctive dread, Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine.
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