Rotation, from what fountain flow'd their light.
Great conteft follows, and much learned dust
Involves the combatants, each claiming truth,
And truth disclaiming both: and thus they spend
The little wick of life's poor fhallow lamp,
In playing tricks with nature, giving laws
To diftant worlds, and trifling in their own.
Is 't not a pity now, that tickling rheums
Should ever teaze the lungs and blear the fight
Of oracles like thefe? Great pity too,
That having wielded th' elements, and built
A thousand fyftems, each in his own way,
They should go out in fume and be forgot?
Ah! what is life thus fpent? and what are they
But frantic who thus fpend it? all for fmoke-
Eternity for bubbles, proves at last
A fenfeless bargain. When I fee fuch games
Play'd by the creatures of a Pow'r who fwears
That he will judge the earth, and call the fool
To a fharp reck'ning that has liv'd in vain;
And when I weigh this feeming wifdom well,
And prove it in th' infallible refult
So hollow and fo falfe-I feel my heart
Diffolve in pity, and account the learn'd,
If this be learning, most of all deceiv'd.
Great crimes alarm the confcience, but it fleeps While thoughtful man is plaufibly amus'd. Defend me therefore, common sense, say I, From reveries fo airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up? 'Twere well, fays one fage erudite, profound, Terribly arch'd and aquiline his nose, And overbuilt with most impending brows; 'Twere well, could you permit the world to live As the world pleafes. What's the world to you? Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk, As fweet as charity, from human breasts. I think, articulate, I laugh and weep, And exercise all functions of a man. How then fhould I and any man that lives Be ftrangers to each other? Pierce my vein, Take of the crimson ftream meand'ring there, 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 fuppose Keen enough, wife and skilful 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 confess,
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 immenfe abyss;
Such pow'rs I boaft not-neither can I reft
A filent witnefs 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 cause
The grand effe&t: acknowledges with joy
His manner, and with rapture taftes his style.
But never yet did philofophic tube,
That brings the planets home into the eye
Of obfervation, and difcovers, elfe
Not visible, 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 causes proud to draw
Conclufions retrograde, and mad mistake.
But if his word once teach us, fhoot 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 praise, 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 wisdom, 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 just cause,
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'r on earth
Is virtue; th' only lafting 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 fpark.
What's that which brings contempt upon a book,
And him who writes it, though the ftyle be neat,
The method clear, and argument exa&t?
That makes a minister in holy things
The joy of many, and the dread of more,
His name a theme for praife and for reproach ?That while it gives us worth in God's account,
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