Though laden, not incumbered with her spoil;
Laborious, yet unconscious of her toil;

When copiously supplied, then most enlarged;
Still to be fed, and not to be furcharged.
For her the fancy, roving unconfined,
The prefent mufe of every penfive mind,
Works magic wonders, adds a brighter hue
To nature's fcenes than nature ever knew.
At her command winds rife and waters roar,
Again the lays them flumbering on the shore;
With flower and fruit the wilderness fupplies,
Or bids the rocks in ruder pomp arife.
For her the judgment, umpire in the strife
That grace and nature have to wage through life,
Quick-fighted arbiter of good and ill,

Appointed fage preceptor to the will,

Condemns, approves, and with a faithful voice

Guides the decifion of a doubtful choice.

Why did the fiat of a God give birth
To yon fair fun and his attendant earth?
And, when defcending he refigns the skies,
Why takes the gentler moon her turn to rise,

Whom ocean feels through all his countless waves,
And owns her power on every fhore he laves?
Why do the seasons still enrich the year,
Fruitful and young as in their first career?
Spring hangs her infant bloffoms on the trees,
Rocked in the cradle of the western breeze;
Summer in hafte the thriving charge receives
Beneath the shade of her expanded leaves,
Till autumn's fiercer heats and plenteous dews
Dye them at laft in all their glowing hues.-
'Twere wild profufion all, and bootless waste,
Power mifemployed, munificence misplaced,
Had not its author dignified the plan,
And crowned it with the majefty of man.
Thus formed, thus placed, intelligent, and taught,
Look where he will, the wonders God has wrought,
The wildeft fcorner of his Mafter's laws

Finds in a fober moment time to pause,
To prefs the important queftion on his heart,

Why formed at all, and wherefore as thou art ?" If man be what he seems, this hour a flave,

The next mere duft and afhes in the grave;
Endued with reafon only to descry

His crimes and follies with an aching eye;

7

With paffions, just that he may prove, with pain,
The force he spends against their fury vain;
And if, foon after having burnt, by turns,
With every luft, with which frail nature burns,
His being end where death diffolves the bond,
The tomb take all, and all be blank beyond;
Then he, of all that nature has brought forth,
Stands felf-impeached the creature of least worth,
And useless while he lives, and when he dies,
Brings into doubt the wisdom of the skies.

Truths,that the learned purfue with eager thought,
Are not important always as dear-bought,
Proving at laft, though told in pompous strains,
A childish wafte of philofophic pains;

But truths, on which depends our main concern,
That 'tis our fhame and mifery not to learn,
Shine by the fide of every path we tread
With fuch a luftre, he that runs may read.
"Tis true that, if to trifle life away
Down to the fun-fet of their latest day,
Then perifh on futurity's wide fhore
Like fleeting exhalations, found no more,

Were all that Heaven required of human kind,
And all the plan their destiny defigned,

What none could reverence all might justly blame,
And man would breathe but for his Maker's shame.
But reafon heard, and nature well perused,
At once the dreaming mind is disabused.
If all we find poffeffing earth, fea, air,
Reflect his attributes, who placed them there,
Fulfil the purpose, and appear defigned

Proofs of the wisdom of the all-feeing mind,
'Tis plain the creature, whom he chose to inveft
With kingfhip and dominion o'er the rest,
Received his nobler nature, and was made
Fit for the power, in which he stands arrayed,
That first or laft, hereafter if not here,

He too might make his author's wisdom clear,
Praise him on earth, or obftinately dumb
Suffer his juftice in a world to come.
This once believed, 'twere logic mifapplied
To prove a confequence by none denied,
That we are bound to caft the minds of youth
Betimes into the mould of heavenly truth,
That taught of God they may indeed be wife,
Nor ignorantly wandering mifs the skies.

In early days the confcience has in most
A quickness, which in later life is lost:
Preserved from guilt by falutary fears,
Or guilty foon relenting into tears.

Too careless often, as our years proceed,

What friends we fought with, or what books weread,

Our parents yet exert a prudent care

To feed our infant minds with

proper fare;

And wifely store the nursery by degrees

With wholesome learning, yet acquired with ease.
Neatly fecured from being foiled or torn
Beneath a pane of thin translucent horn,
A book (to please us at a tender age
'Tis called a book, though but a fingle page)
Prefents the prayer the Saviour deigned to teach,
Which children ufe, and parfons-when they
preach.

Lifping our fyllables, we scramble next

Through moral narrative, or facred text;

And learn with wonder how this world began,

Who made, who marred, and who has ranfomed,

man.

Points, which unless the fcripture made them plain, The wifeft heads might agitate in vain.