Pronounceth of the kindred, without bound,
Without condition. Such the rise of forms
Sequester'd far from sense and every spot
Peculiar in the realms of space or time:
Such is the throne which man for Truth amid
The paths of mutability hath built

Secure, unshaken, still; and whence he views
In matter's mouldering structures, the pure forms
Of triangle or circle, cube or cone,
Impassive all; whose attributes nor force
Nor fate can alter. There he first conceives
True being, and an intellectual world

The same this hour and ever. Thence he deems
Of his own lot; above the painted shapes
That fleeting move o'er this terrestrial scene
Looks up; beyond the adamantine gates
Of Death expatiates; as his birthright claims
Inheritance in all the works of God;
Prepares for endless time his plan of life,
And counts the universe itself his home,

Whence also but from truth, the light of minds,
Is human fortune gladden'd with the rays
Of virtue? with the moral colours thrown
On every walk of this our social scene,
Adorning for the eye of gods and men
The passions, action, habitudes of life,

And rendering Earth like Heaven, a sacred place,
Where Love and Praise may take delight to dwell?
Let none with heedless tongue from Truth disjoin
The reign of Virtue. Ere the day-spring flow'd,
Like sisters link'd in Concord's golden chain,
They stood before the great eternal Mind,
Their common parent; and by him were both
Sent forth among his creatures, hand in hand,
Inseparably join'd: nor e'er did Truth
Find an apt ear to listen to her lore,
Which knew not Virtue's voice; nor, save where
Majestic words are heard and understood,
Doth Virtue deign to inhabit. Go, inquire

[Truth's

In spring-time, when the woodlands first are green,
Attend the linnet singing to his mate,

Couch'd o'er their tender young. To this fond care
Thou dost not Virtue's honourable name
Attribute: wherefore, save that not one gleam
Of truth did e'er discover to themselves
Their little hearts, or teach them, by the effects
Of that parental love, the love itself
To judge, and measure its officious deeds?
But man,

whose eyelids truth has fill'd with day,
Discerns how skilfully to bounteous ends
His wise affections move; with free accord
Adopts their guidance; yields himself secure
To Nature's prudent impulse; and converts
Instinct to duty and to sacred law.

Hence right and fit on Earth: while thus to man
The Almighty Legislator hath explain'd
The springs of action fix'd within his breast;
Hath given him power to slacken or restrain
Their effort; and hath shown him how they join
Their partial movements with the master-wheel
Of the great world, and serve that sacred end
Which he, the unerring reason, keeps in view.
For (if a mortal tongue may speak of him

And his dread ways) even as his boundless eye,
Connecting every form and every change,
Beholds the perfect beauty; so his will,
Through every hour producing good to all
The family of creatures, is itself

The perfect virtue. Let the grateful swain
Remember this, as oft with joy and praise
He looks upon the falling dews which clothe
His lawns with verdure, and the tender seed
Nourish within his furrows: when between
Dead seas and burning skies, where long unmov'd,
The bark had languish'd, now a rustling gale
Lifts o'er the fickle waves her dancing prow,
Let the glad pilot, bursting out in thanks,
Remember this: lest blind o'erweening pride
Pollute their offerings: lest their selfish heart
Say to the heavenly ruler, " At our call
Relents thy power: by us thy arm is mov'd"
Fools! who of God as of each other deem :
Who his invariable acts deduce
From sudden counsels transient as their own;
Nor further of his bounty, than the event
Which haply meets their loud and eager prayer,
Acknowledge; nor, beyond the drop minute
Which haply they have tasted, heed the source
That flows for all; the fountain of his love,
Which, from the summit where he sits enthron'd,
Pours health and joy, unfailing streams, throughont
The spacious region flourishing in view,
The goodly work of his eternal day,
His own fair universe; on which alone
His counsels fix, and whence alone his will
Assumes her strong direction. Such is now
His sovran purpose: such it was before
All multitude of years. For his right arm
Was never idle: his bestowing love
Knew no beginning; was not as a change
Of mood that woke at last and started up
After a deep and solitary sloth
Of boundless ages. No: he now is good,
He ever was. The feet of hoary Time
Through their eternal course have travell'd o'er
No speechless, lifeless desert; but through scenes
Cheerful with bounty still; among a pomp

Of worlds, for gladness round the maker's throne
Loud-shouting, or, in many dialects

Of hope and filial trust, imploring thence
The fortunes of their people: where so fix'd
Were all the dates of being, so dispos'd
To every living soul of every kind

The field of motion and the hour of rest,
That each the general happiness might serve;
And, by the discipline of laws divine
Convine'd of folly or chastis'd from guilt,
Each might at length be happy. What remains
Shall be like what is pass'd; but fairer still,
And still increasing in the godlike gifts
Of life and truth. The same paternal hand,
From the mute shell-fish gasping on the shore,
To men, to angels, to celestial minds,
Will ever lead the generations on
Through higher scenes of being: while, supply'd
From day to day by his enlivening breath,
Inferior orders in succession rise

To fill the void below. As flame ascends,
As vapours to the Earth in showers return,
As the pois'd ocean toward the attracting Moon
Swells, and the ever-listening planets, charm'd
By the Sun's call, their onward pace incline,
So all things which have life aspire to God,

xhaustless fount of intellectual day,

Centre of souls. Nor doth the mastering voice
Of Nature cease within to prompt aright
Their steps; nor is the care of Heaven withheld
From sending to the toil external aid;
That in their stations all may persevere
To climb the ascent of being, and approach
For ever nearer to the life divine.

But this eternal fabric was not rais'd
For man's inspection. Though to some be given
To catch a transient visionary glimpse
Of that majestic scene which boundless power
Prepares for perfect goodness, yet in vain
Would human life her faculties expand
To embosom such an object. Nor could e'er
Virtue or praise have touch'd the hearts of men,
Had not the sovran guide, through every stage
Of this their various journey, pointed out
New hopes, new toils, which to their humble sphere
Of sight and strength might such importance hold
As doth the wide creation to his own.
Hence all the little charities of life,

With all their duties: hence that favourite palm
Of human will, when duty is suffic'd,
And still the liberal soul in ampler deeds
Would manifest herself; that sacred sign
Of her rever'd affinity to him

Whose bounties are his own; to whom none said,
"Create the wisest, fullest, fairest world,
And make its offspring happy ;" who, intent
Some likeness of himself among his works
To view, hath pour'd into the human breast
A ray of knowledge and of love, which guides
Farth's feeble race to act their Maker's part,
Self-judging, self-oblig'd: white, from before
That godlike function, the gigantic power
Necessity, though wont to curb the force
Of Chaos and the savage elements,
Retires abash'd, as from a scene too high
For her brute tyranny, and with her bears
Her scorned followers, Terrour, and base Awe,
Who blinds herself, and that ill-suited pair,
Obedience link'd with Hatred. Then the Soul
Arises in her strength; and, looking round
Her busy sphere, whatever work she views,
Whatever counsel bearing any trace
Of her Creator's likeness, whether apt
To aid her fellows, or preserve herself
In her superior functions unimpair'd,
Thither she turns exulting: that she claims
As her peculiar good: on that, through all
The fickle seasons of the day, she looks
With reverence still: to that, as to a fence
Against affliction and the darts of pain,
Her drooping hopes repair: and, once oppos'd
To that, all other pleasure, other wealth
Vile, as the dross upon the molten gold,
Appears, and loathsome as the briny sea
To him who languishes with thirst, and sighs
For some known fountain pure. For what can strive
With virtue? which of Nature's regions vast
Can in so many forms produce to sight
Such powerful beauty? Beauty, which the eye
Of Hatred cannot look upon secure:
Which Envy's self contemplates, and is turn'd
Ere long to tenderness, to infant smiles,
Or tears of bumblest love. Is aught so fair
In all the dewy landscapes of the Spring,
The summer's rooutide groves, the purple eve
At harvest-home, or in the frosty Moon

Glittering on some smooth sea, is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship? as the honour'd roof
Whither from highest Heaven immortal Love
His torch ethereal and his golden bow
Propitious brings, and there a temple holds,
To whose unspotted service gladly vow'd
The social band of parent, brother, child,
With smiles and sweet discourse and gentle deeds
Adore his power? What gift of richest clime
E'er drew such eager eyes, or prompted such
Deep wishes, as the zeal that snatcheth back
From Slander's poisonous tooth a foe's renown;
Or crosseth Danger in his lion-walk,
A rival's life to rescue? as the young
Athenian warrior sitting down in bonds,
That his great father's body might not want
A peaceful, humble tomb? the Roman wife
Teaching her lord how harmless was the wound
Of Death, how impotent the tyrant's rage,
Who nothing more could threaten to afflict
Their faithful love? Or is there in the abyss,
Is there, among the adamantine spheres
Wheeling unshaken through the boundless void,
Aught that with half such majesty can fill
The human bosom, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate
Amid the crowd of patriots; and, his arm
Aloft extending like eternal Jove

When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud
On Tully's name, and shook the crimson sword
Of Justice in his rapt astonish'd eye,
And bad the father of his country hail,
For, lo! the tyrant prostrate on the dust,
And Rome again is free? Thus, through the paths
Of human life, in various pomp array'd
Walks the wise daughter of the judge of Heaven,
Fair Virtue; from her Father's throne supreme
Sent down to utter laws, such as on Earth
Most apt he knew, most powerful to promote
The weal of all his works, the gracious end
Of his dread empire. And though haply man's
Obscurer sight, so far beyond himself
And the brief labours of his little home,
Extends not; yet, by the bright presence won
Of this divine instructress, to her sway
Pleas'd he assents, nor heeds the distant goal
To which her voice conducts him. Thus hath God,
Still looking toward his own high purpose, fix'd
The virtues of his creatures; thus he rules
The parent's fondness and the patriot's zeal;
Thus the warm sense of honour and of shame;
The vows of gratitude, the faith of love;
And all the comely intercourse of praise,
The joy of human life, the earthly Heaven,

How far unlike them must the lot of guilt
Be found! Or what terrestrial woe can match
The self-convicted bosom, which hath wrought
The bane of others or enslav'd itself
With shackles vile? Not poison, nor sharp fire,
Nor the worst pangs that ever monkish hate
Suggested, or despotic rage impos'd,
Were at that season an unwish'd exchange:
When the soul loaths herself: when, flying thence
To crowds, on every brow she sees portray'd
Fell demons, hate or scorn, which drive her back
To solitude, her judge's voice divine
To hear in secret, haply sounding through
The troubled dreams of midnight, and still, still
Demanding for his violated laws

Fit recompense, or charging her own tongue

To speak the award of Justice on herself.
For well she knows what faithful hints within
Were whisper'd to beware the lying forms
Which turn'd her footsteps from the safer way:
What cautions to suspect their painted dress,
And look with steady eyelid on their smiles,
Their frowns, their tears. In vain. The dazzling hues
Of Fancy, and Opinion's eager voice,
Too much prevail'd. For mortals tread the path
In which Opinion says they follow good
Or fly from evil: and Opinion gives
Report of good or evil, as the scene
Was drawn by Fancy, pleasing or deform'd:
Thus her report can never there be true
Where Fancy cheats the intellectual eye
With glaring colours and distorted lines.
Is there a man to whom the name of death
Brings Terrour's ghastly pageants conjur'd up
Before him, death-bed groans, and dismal vows,
And the frail soul plung'd head-long from the brink
Of life and day-light down the gloomy air,
And unknown depth, to gulfs of torturing fire
Unvisited by mercy? Then what hand
Can snatch this dreamer from the fatal toils
Which Fancy and Opinion thus conspire
To twine around his heart? or who shall hush
Their clamour, when they tell him that to die,
To risk those horrours, is a direr curse
Than basest life can bring? Though love with
prayers

Most tender, with affliction's sacred tears,
Beseech his aid; though gratitude and faith
Condemn each step which loiters; yet let none
Make answer for him that, if any frown
Of danger thwart his path, he will not stay,
Content, and be a wretch to be secure.
Here vice begins then: at the gate of life,
Ere the young multitude to diverse roads
Part, like fond pilgrims on a journey unknown,
Sits Fancy, deep enchantress; and to each
With kind maternal looks presents her bowl,
A potent beverage. Heedless they comply:
Till the whole soul from that mysterious draught
Is ting'd, and every transient thought imbibes
Of gladness or disgust, desire or fear,

One home-bred colour: which not all the lights
Of Science e'er shall change; not all the storms
Of adverse Fortune wash away, nor yet
The robe of purest Virtue quite conceal.
Thence on they pass, where meeting frequent shapes
Of Good and Evil, cunning phantoms apt
To fire or freeze the breast, with them they join
In dangerous parley; listening oft, and oft
Gazing with reckless passion, while its garb
The spectre heightens, and its pompous tale
Repeats with some new circumstance to suit
That early tincture of the hearer's soul.
And should the guardian, Reason, but for one
Short moment yield to this illusive scene
His ear and eye, the intoxicating charm
Involves him, till no longer he discerns,
Or only guides to err. Then revel forth
A furious band, that spurn him from the throne,
And all is uproar. Hence Ambition elimbs
With sliding feet and hands impure, to grasp
Those solemn toys which glitter in his view
On Fortune's rugged steep: hence pale Revenge
Unsheaths her murderous dagger: Rapine hence,
And envions Lust, by venal Fraud upborne,
Surmount the reverend barrier of the laws

Which kept them from their prey: hence all the

crimes

That e'er defil'd the Earth, and all the plagues
That follow them for vengeance, in the guise
Of Honour, Safety, Pleasure, Ease, or Pomp,
Stole first into the fond believing mind.

Yet not by Fancy's witchcraft on the brain
Are always the tumultuous passions driven
To guilty deeds, nor Reason bound in chains
That Vice alone may lord it. Oft, adorn'd
With motley pageants, Folly mounts his throne,
And plays her idiot antics, like a queen.
A thousand garbs she wears; a thousand ways
She whirls her giddy empire. Lo, thus far
With bold adventure to the Mantuan lyre
I sing for contemplation link'd with love
A pensive theme. Now haply should my song
Unbend that serious countenance, and learn
Thalia's tripping gait, her shrill-ton'd voice,
Her wiles familiar: whether scorn she darts
In wanton ambush from her lip or eye,
Or whether with a sad disguise of care,
O'ermantling her gay brow, she acts in sport
The deeds of Folly, and from all sides round
Calls forth impetuous Laughter's gay rebuke;
Her province. But through every comic scene
To lead my Muse with her light pencil arm'd;
Through every swift occasion which the hand
Of Laughter points at, when the mirthful sting
Distends her labouring sides and chokes her tongue;
Were endless as to sound each grating note
With which the rooks, and chattering daws, and grave
Unwieldy inmates of the village pond,
The changing seasons of the sky proclaim;
Sun, cloud, or shower. Suffice it to have said,
Where'er the power of Ridicule displays
Her quaint-ey'd visage, some incongruous form,
Some stubborn dissonance of things combin'd,
Strikes on her quick perception: whether pomp,
Or praise, or beauty be dragg'd in, and shown
Where sordid fashions, where ignoble deeds,
Where foul deformity is wont to dwell;
Or whether these with shrewd and wayward spite
Invade resplendent pomp's imperious mien,
The charms of beauty, or the boast of praise.

Ask we for what fair end the Almighty Sire
In mortal bosoms stirs this gay contempt,
These grateful pangs of laughter; from disgust
Educing pleasure? Wherefore, but to aid
The tardy steps of Reason, and at once
By this prompt impulse urge us to depress
Wild Folly's aims? For though the sober light
Of Truth, slow dawning on the watchful mind,
At length unfolds, through many a subtile tie,
How these uncouth disorders end at last
In public evil; yet benignant Heaven,
Conscious how dim the dawn of truth appears
To thousands, conscious what a scanty pause
From labour and from care the wider lot
Of humble life affords for studious thought
To scan the maze of Nature, therefore stamp'd
These glaring scenes with characters of scorn,
As broad, as obvious to the passing clown
As to the letter'd sage's curious eye.

But other evils o'er the steps of man
Through all his walks impend; against whose might
The slender darts of Laughter nought avail:
A trivial warfare. Some, like cruel guards,
On Nature's ever-moving throne attend;
With mischief arm'd for him whoe'er shall thwart

The path of her inexorable wheels,
While she pursues the work that must be done
Through ocean, earth, and air. Hence frequent
forms

Of woe; the merchant, with his wealthy bark,
Bury'd by dashing waves; the traveller
Pierc'd by the pointed lightning in his haste;
And the poor husbandman, with folded arms,
Surveying his lost labours, and a heap
Of blasted chaff the product of the field
Whence he expected bread. But worse than these
I deem, far worse, that other race of ills
Which human kind rear up among themselves;
That horrid offspring which misgovern'd will
Bears to fantastic errour; vices, crimes,

Furies that curse the Earth, and make the blows,
The heaviest blows, of Nature's innocent hand
Seem sport; which are indeed but as the care
Of a wise parent, who solicits good

To all her house, though haply at the price
Of tears and froward wailing and reproach
For some unthinking child, whom not the less
Its mother destines to be happy still.

These sources then of pain, this double lot
Of evil in the inheritance of man,
Requir'd for his protection no slight force,
No careless watch. And therefore was his breast
Fenc'd round with passions quick to be alarm'd,
Or stubborn to oppose; with fear, more swift
Than beacons catching flame from hill to hill,
Where armies land; with anger, uncontrol'd
As the young lion bounding on his prey;
With sorrow, that locks up the struggling heart;
And shame, that overcasts the drooping eye
As with a cloud of lightning. These the part
Perform of eager monitors, and goad

The soul more sharply than with points of steel,
Her enemies to shun or to resist.

And as those passions, that converse with good,
Are good themselves; as hope, and love, and joy,
Among the fairest and the sweetest boons

Of life, we rightly count: so these, which guard
Against invading evil, still excite

Some pain, some tumult: these, within the mind
Too oft admitted or too long retain'd,
Shock their frail seat, and by their uncurb'd rage
To savages more fell than Libya breeds
Transform themselves; till human thought becomes
A gloomy ruin, haunt of shapes unbless'd,
Of self-tormenting fiends; Horrour, Despair,
Hatred, and wicked Envy: foes to all
The works of Nature, and the gifts of Heaven.
But when through blameless paths to righteous
ends

Those keener passions urge the awaken'd soul,
I would not, as ungracious violence,
Their sway describe, nor from their free career
The fellowship of pleasure quite exclude.
For what can render, to the self-approv'd,
Their temper void of comfort, though in pain?
Who knows not with what majesty divine
The forms of Truth and Justice to the mind
Appear, ennobling oft the sharpest woe
With triumph and rejoicing? Who, that bears
A human bosom, hath not often felt

How dear are all those ties which bind our race
In gentleness together, and how sweet
Their force, let Fortune's wayward hand the while
Be kind or cruel? Ask the faithful youth
Why the cold urn, of her whom long he lov'd,

So often fills his arms; so often draws
His lonely footsteps, silent and unseen,
To pay the mournful tribute of his tears?
Oh! he will tell thee, that the wealth of worlds
Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego
Those sacred hours when, stealing from the noise
Of Care and Envy, sweet Remembrance soothes
With Virtue's kindest, looks his aching breast,
And turns his tears to rapture. Ask the crowd,
Which flies impatient from the village walk
To climb the neighbouring cliffs, when far below
The savage winds have hurl'd upon the coast
Some helpless bark; while holy Pity melts
The general eye, or Terrour's icy hand
Smites their distorted limbs and horrent hair;
While every mother closer to her breast
Catcheth her child, and, pointing where the waves
Foam through the shatter'd vessel, shrieks aloud,
As one poor wretch, who spreads his piteous arms
For succour, swallow'd by the roaring surge,
As now another, dash'd against the rock,
Drops lifeless down. O! deemest thou indeed
No pleasing influence here by Nature given
To mutual terrour and compassion's tears?
No tender charm mysterious, which attracts
O'er all that edge of pain the social powers
To this their proper action and their end?
Ask thy own heart; when, at the midnight hour,
Slow through that pensive gloom thy pausing eye,
Led by the glimmering taper, moves around
The reverend volumes of the dead, the songs
Of Grecian bards, and records writ by Fame
For Grecian heroes, where the sovran Power
Of Heaven and Earth surveys the immortal page
Even as a father meditating all

The praises of his son, and bids the rest
Of mankind there the fairest model learn
Of their own nature, and the noblest deeds
Which yet the world hath seen. If then thy souf
Join in the lot of those diviner men;

Say, when the prospect darkens on thy view;
When, sunk by many a wound, heroic states
Mourn in the dust, and tremble at the frown
Of hard Ambition; when the generous band
Of youths who fought for freedom and their sires
Lie side by side in death; when brutal force
Usurps the throne of Justice, turns the pomp
Of guardian power, the majesty of rule,
The sword, the laurel, and the purple robe,
To poor dishonest pageants, to adorn

A robber's walk, and glitter in the eyes
Of such as bow the knee; when beauteous works,
Rewards of Virtue, sculptur'd forms which deck'd
With more than human grace the warrior's arch
Or patriot's tomb, now victims to appease
Tyrannic Envy, strew the common path
With awful ruins; when the Muse's haunt,
The marble porch where Wisdom wont to talk
With Socrates or Tully, hears no more,
Save the hoarse jargon of contentious monks,
Or female superstition's midnight prayer;
When ruthless havoc from the hand of Time
Tears the destroying scythe, with surer stroke
To mow the monuments of glory down;
Till Desolation o'er the grass-grown street
Expands her raven wings, and, from the gate
Where senates once the weal of nations plann'd,
Hisseth the gliding snake through hoary weeds,
That clasp the mouldering column: thus when all
The widely mournful scene is fix'd within