Flings half an image on the ftraining eye;
While wavering woods, and villages, and streams,
Androcks, and mountain-tops, that long retain'd 1690
Th' afcending gleam, are all one swimming scene,
Uncertain if beheld. Sudden to heaven
Thence weary vision turns; where, leading foft
The filent hours of love, with pureft ray
Sweet Venus fhines; and from her genial rife, 1695
When day-light fickens till it springs afresh,
Unrival'd reigns, the fairest lamp of night.
As thus th' effulgence tremulous I drink,
With cherish'd gaze, the lambent lightnings shoot
Across the sky; or horizontal dart
1700
In wondrous shapes: by fearful murmuring crouds
Portentous deem'd. Amid the radiant orbs,
That more than deck, that animate the sky,
The life-infufing funs of other worlds;
Lo! from the dread immensity of space
Returning, with accelerated course,
The rufhing comet to the fun defcends;
And as he finks below the fhading earth,
With awful train projected o'er the heavens,
The guilty nations tremble. But, above
Those fuperftitious horrors that enflave
The fond fequacious herd, to mystic faith
And blind amazement prone, the enlightened few, Whofe godlike minds philofophy exalts,
The glorious ftranger hail. They feel a joy 1715 Divinely great; they in their powers exult, [fpurns That wondrous force of thought, which mounting
This dufky fpot, and measures all the sky;
While, from his far excurfion thro' the wilds
Of barren ether, faithful to his time,
They fee the blazing wonder rife anew,
In feeming terror clad, but kindly bent.
To work the will of all-fustaining Love :
From his huge vapoury train perhaps to shake
Reviving moisture on the numerous orbs,
Thro' which his long ellipfis winds; perhaps
To lend new fuel to declining funs,
To light up worlds, and feed th' eternal fire..
WITH thee, ferene PHILOSOPHY, with thee,
And thy bright garland, let me crown my fong! 1730
Effufive fource of evidence, and truth!
A luftre fhedding o'er th' ennobled mind,
Stronger than fummer-noon; and pure as that,
Whose mild vibrations footh the parted foul,
New to the dawning of celestial day.
Hence thro' her nourish'd powers, enlarg❜d by thee, She springs aloft, with elevated pride,
Above the tangling mafs of low defires,
That bind the fluttering crowd; and, angel-wing'd,
The heights of science and of virtue gains,
Where all is calm and clear; with Nature round,
Or in the ftarry regions, or th' abyfs,
To Reafon's and to Fancy's eye display'd:
The Firft up-tracing, from the dreary void,
The chain of caufes and effects to HIM,
The world-producing ESSENCE, who alone
Poffeffes being; while the Laft receives
The whole magnificence of heaven and earth,
And every beauty, delicate or bold,
Obvious or more remote, with livelier sense,
Diffufive painted on the rapid mind.
TUTOR'D by thee, hence POETRY exalts
Her voice to ages; and informs the page
With mufic, image, fentiment, and thought,
Never to die! the treasure of mankind!
Their highest honour, and their truest joy!
WITHOUT thee what were unenlightened Man ? A favage roaming thro' the woods and wilds, In queft of prey; and with th' unfashioned furr Rough-clad; devoid of every finer art, And elegance of life. Nor happiness Domeftic, mix'd of tenderness and care, Nor moral excellence, nor focial blifs, Nor guardian law were his; nor various skill To turn the furrow, or to guide the tool Mechanic; nor the heaven-conducted prow Of navigation bold, that fearless braves The burning line or dares the wintry pole; Mother fevere of infinite delights!
Nothing, fave rapine, indolence, and guile, 1770
And woes on woes, a ftill-revolving train!
Whofe horrid circle had made human life
Than non-existence worfe: but, taught by thee,
Ours are the plans of policy, and peace;
To live like brothers, and conjunctive all
While thus laborious crowds
The ruling helm; or like the liberal breath
Of potent Heaven, invifible, the fail
Swells out, and bears th' inferior world along. 1780
Nor to this evanefcent speck of earth
Poorly confin'd, the radiant tracts on high
Are her exalted range; intent to gaze
Creation thro'; and, from that full complex
Of never-ending wonders, to conceive 1785
Of the SOLE BEING right, whooke the Word,
And Nature mov'd complete. With inward view,
Thence on th' ideal kingdom swift she turns
Her eye; and inftant, at her powerful glance,
Th' obedient phantoms vanish or appear;
Compound, divide, and into order shift,
Each to his rank, from plain perception up
To the fair forms of Fancy's fleeting train:
To reafon then, deducing truth from truth;
And notion quite abstract; where firft begins 1795
The world of spirits, action all, and life
Unfettered, and unmixt. But here the cloud,
So wills ETERNAL PROVIDENCE, fits deep.
Enough for us to know that this dark state,
In wayward paffions loft, and vain purfuits, 1800,
This Infancy of Being, cannot prove
The final Iffue of the works of God,
By boundless Love and perfect WISDOM form'd,
And ever rifing with the rifing mind..
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