I was a ftricken deer, that left the herd
Long fince; with many an arrow deep infixt My panting fide was charged, when I withdrew To feek a tranquil death in diftant shades. There was I found by one, who had himself Been hurt by the archers. In his fide he bore, And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars. With gentle force soliciting the darts,
He drew them forth, and healed, and bade me live. Since then, with few affociates, in remote And filent woods I wander, far from those My former partners of the peopled scene; With few affociates, and not wishing more. Here much I ruminate, as much I may, With other views of men and manners now Than once, and others of a life to come. I fee that all are wanderers, gone aftray Each in his own delufions; they are loft In chase of fancied happiness, still wooed And never won. Dream after dream enfues; And still they dream that they shall still succeed, And ftill are disappointed. Rings the world With the vain ftir. I fum up half mankind, And add two thirds of the remaining half,
And find the total of their hopes and fears
Dreams, empty dreams. The million flit as gay As if created only like the fly,
That spreads his motley wings in the eye of noon, To sport their season, and be seen no more. The reft are fober dreamers, grave and wife, And pregnant with discoveries new and rare. Some write a narrative of wars, and feats Of heroes little known; and call the rant An hiftory: describe the man, of whom His own coevals took but little note,
And paint his person, character, and views, As they had known him from his mother's womb. They difentangle from the puzzled fkein, In which obfcurity has wrapped them up, The threads of politic and fhrewd design, That ran through all his purposes, and charge His mind with meanings that he never had, Or having kept concealed. Some drill and bore The folid earth, and from the ftrata there Extract a register, by which we learn,
That he who made it, and revealed its date To Mofes, was mistaken in its age.
Some, more acute, and more induftrious ftill, Contrive creation; travel nature up
To the sharp peak of her fublimest height, And tell us whence the ftars; why fome are fixed, And planetary some; what gave them first Rotation, from what fountain flowed their light. Great conteft follows, and much learned duft 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 distant worlds, and trifling in their own. Is't not a pity now, that tickling rheums Should ever tease the lungs, and blear the fight Of oracles like these? Great pity too,
That having wielded the 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 spent? and what are they But frantic, who thus fpend it? all for smoke- Eternity for bubbles proves at laft
A fenfeless bargain. When I fee fuch games Played by the creatures of a power, who swears That he will judge the earth, and call the fool To a fharp reckoning, that has lived in vain; And when I weigh this feeming wisdom well,
And prove it in the infallible result
So hollow and fo falfe-I feel my heart Diffolve in pity, and account the learned, If this be learning, most of all deceived. Great crimes alarm the conscience, but it sleeps, While thoughtful man is plaufibly amused. 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 arched and aquiline his nose, And overbuilt with most impending brows, "Twere well, could you permit the world to live As the world pleases. 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 should I and any man that lives Be ftrangers to each other? Pierce my vein, Take of the crimson stream meandering there, And catechise it well; apply thy glass,
Search it, and prove now if it be not blood Congenial with thine own: and, if it be, What edge of fubtlety canft thou suppose Keen enough, wise 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 confefs,
In arts like your's. 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 seems half quenched in the immense abyss: Such powers I boaft not-neither can I reft A filent witness 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 should fcale the heavens By ftrides of human wisdom. In his works, Though wondrous, he commands us in his word To feek him rather, where his mercy fhines. The mind indeed, enlightened from above, Views him in all; afcribes to the grand cause
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