Disdainful, plunging headlong in the deep!
What cordial joy, what confolation strong,
Whatever winds arife, or billows roll,
Our int'reft in the mafter of the ftorm!

Cling there, and in wreck'd Nature's ruin fmile; While vile apoftates tremble in a calm.

Man! know thyself. All wisdom centres there.
To none man feems ignoble, but to man;
Angels that grandeur, men o'erlook, admire ;
How long fhall human nature be their book,
Degen'rate mortal! and unread by thee?

The beam dim Reason fheds fhows wonders there;
What high contents! illuftrious aculties!
But the grand Comment, which difplays at full
Our human height, fcarce fever'd from divine,
By Heav'n compos'd, was publish'd on the cross!
Who looks on that, and fees not in himself
An awful stranger, a terrestrial god?
A glorious partner with the Deity
In that high attribute, immortal life?
If a god bleeds, he bleeds not for a worm;
Igaze, and, as I gaze, my mounting foul
Catches ftrange fire, Eternity! at thee;

And drops the world-or rather, more enjoys.
How chang'd the face of Nature! how improv'd!
What feem'd a chaos, fhines a glorious world,
Or, what a world, an Eden; heighten'd all;
It is another fcene! another felf!

And ftill another as Time rolls along ;
And that a self far more illustrious still.
Beyond long ages yet roll'd up in fhades,
Unpierc'd by bold Conjecture's keenest ray,
What evolutions of furprifing fate!

How Nature opens, and receives my foul

In boundlefs walks of raptur'd thought! where gods
Encounter, and embrace me! What new births
Of strange adventure, foreign to the fun,
Where what now charms, perhaps, whate'er exifts,
Old Time, and fair Creation, are forgot!

Is this extravagant? Of man we form
Extravagant.concep ion, to be just :

Conception unconfin'd wan ts wings to reach him
Beyond its reach, the Godhead only, more.
He, the great Father! kindled at one flame
The world of rationals; one spirit pour'd
From fpirit's awful fountain; pour'd himself
Through all their fouls; but not in equal stream,
Profuse, or frugal, of th' infpiring God,
As his wife plan demanded; and, when past
Their various trials, in their various spheres,
If they continue rational, as made,
Reforbs them all into himself again;

His throne their centre, and his fmile their crown.
Why doubt we, then, the glorious truth to fing,
Though yet unfung, as deem'd perhaps too bold?
Angels are men of a fuperior kind;

Angels are men in lighter habit clad,

High o'er celeftial mountains wing'd in flight;
And men are angels loaded for an hour,

Who wade this miry vale, and climb with pain,
And flipp'ry step, the bottom of the fteep.
Angels their failings, mortals have their praise ;
While bere, of corps ethereal, fuch enroll'd,
And fummond to the glorious fandard foon,
Which flames eternal crimfon through the fkies.
Nor are our brothers thoughtlefs of their kin,
Yet abfent; but not absent from their love.
Michael has fought our battles; Raphael sung
Our triumphs; Gabrie' on our errands flown,
Sent by the SOVEREIGN: And are thefe, O man!
Thy friends, thy warm allies? and thou (fhame burn
The cheek to cinder) rival to the brute?

Religion's all. Defcending from the skies
To wretched man, the goddess in her left
Holds out this world, and in her right the next.
Religion! the fole voucher man is ma;
Supporter fole of man above himself :

Ev'n in this night of frailty, change, and death,
C

She gives the foul a foul that acts a god.
Religion! Providence! an after-state!
Here is firm footing; here is folid rock;
This can fupport us; all is fea besides ;
Sinks under us! beftorms, and then devours.
His hand the good man faftens on the skies,
And bids earth roll, nor feels her idle whirl.

As when a wretch, from thick, polluted air,
Darkness, and stench, and fuffocating damps,
And dungeon horrors, by kind fate difcharg'd,
Climbs fome fair eminence, where æther pure
Surrounds him, and Elyfian profpects rife ;
His heart exults, his fpirits caft their load;
As if new-born, he triumphs in the change:
So joys the foul, when from inglorious aims,
And fordid fweets, from feculence and froth
Of ties terrestrial, fet at large, fhe mounts
To Reafon's region, her own element,
Breathes hopes immortal, and affects the skies.
Religion! thou the foul of happiness;
And groaning Calvary, of thee! There fhine
The nobleft truths; there ftrongest motives fting;
There facred violence affaults the foul;
There nothing but compulfion is forborn.
Can love allure us? or can terror awe?

He weeps the falling drops put out the fun;
He fighs the figh earth's deep foundation fhakes.
If, in his love, fo terrible, what then

His wrath inflam'd? his tenderness on fire?
Like foft, fmooth oil, outblazing other fires?

Can prayer, can praife avertit ?- -Thou, my all!
My theme my infpiration! and my crown!

My ftrength in age. my rife in low eftate!

My foul's ambition, pleafure, wealth my world!
My light in darkness! and my life in death!
My boat through time! blifs through eternity!
Eternity, too fhort to fpeak Thy praife!
Or fathom Thy profound of love to man!

To man, of men the meaneft, ev'n to me;

My Sacrifice! My God!-what things are thefe ! What then art THOU ? by what name fhall I call Thee?

Knew I the name devout archangels ufe,

Devout archangels fhould the name enjoy,'
By me unrivall❜d; thousands more fublime,
None half fo dear, as that, which, though unfpoke,
Stills glows at heart. O how Omnipotence
Is loft in love! Thou great PHILANTHROPIST!
Father of angels! but the friend of man!
Like Jacob, fondeft of the younger born!

Thou, who didft fave him, fnatch the smoking brand
From out the flames, and quench it in thy blood!
How art thou pleas'd, by bounty to distress!
To make us groan beneath our gratitude,
Too big for birth to favour, and confound!
To challenge, and to diftance all return!
Of lavish love ftupendous heights to foar,
And leave praise panting in the diftant vale!
Thy right too great defrauds thee of thy due ;
And facrilegious our fublimeft fong.
But fince the naked will obtains thy fmile,
Beneath this monument of praise unpaid,
And future life fymphonius to my strain,
(That nobleft hymn to heav'n!), for ever lie
Intomb'd my fear of Death! and ev'ry fear,
The dread of ev'ry evil, but Thy frown.
Whom fee I yonder fo demurely fmile?
Laughter a labour, and might break their reft.
Ye Quietifts, in homage to the fkies!
Serene! of foft addrefs! who mildly make
An unobtrufive tender of your hearts,
Abhorring violence! who halt indeed;
But for the bleffing wrefle not with Heav'n!
Think you my fong too turbulent? too warm?
Are paffions, then, the Pagans of the foul?
Reafon alone baptiz'd? alone ordain'd
To touch things facred? O for warmer ftill!

Guilt chills my zeal, and age benumbs my pow'rs;
O for an humbler heart, and prouder fong!

THOU, my much injur'd theme! with that foft eye,
Which melted o'er doom'd Salem, deign to look
Compaffion to the coldness of my breast,
And pardon to the winter in my ftrain.
O ye cold hearted, frozen formalifts!
On fuch a theme 'tis impious to be calm;
Paffion is reafon, tranfport temper here.
Shall heav'n, which gave us ardour, and has shown
Her own for man fo ftrongly, not disdain
What fmooth emollients in theology,
Recumbent Virtue's downy doctors preach,
That profe of piety, a lukewarm of praise ?
Rife odours fweet from incenfe uninflam'd !·
Devotion when lukewarm, is undevout;
But, when it glows, its heat is struck to heav'n;
To human hearts her golden harps are ftrung;
High heav'n's orchestra chaunts Amen to man.

Hear I, or dream I hear, their distant strain,
Sweet to the foul, and tafting ftrong of heaven,
Soft wafted on celeftial Pity's plume,
Through the vaft fpaces of the universe,
To cheer me in this melancholy gloom?

Oh when will Death (now ftinglefs), like a friend,
Admit me of their choir? Oh when will Death,
This mould'ring, old partition-wall thrown down,
Give beings one in nature, one abode ?

Oh Death Divine that giv'ft us to the fkies!
Great Future! glorious patron of the past
And prefent! when fhall I thy fhrine adore !
From Nature's continent immensely wide,
Immenfely bleff'd this little ifle of life,

This dark, incarcerating colony,

Divides us. Happy day! that breaks our chain:
That manumits; that calls from exile home;
That leads to Nature's great metropolis,

And re-admits us, through the guardian hand
Of elder brothers, to our Father's throne;