The grand effect; acknowledges with joy
His manner, and with rapture tastes his style. But never yet did philofophic tube,
That brings the planets home into the eye Of obfervation, and difcovers, elfe
Not visible, his family of worlds,
Discover him, that rules them; fuch a veil Hangs over mortal eyes, blind from the birth, And dark in things divine. Full often too Our wayward intellect, the more we learn Of nature, overlooks her author more; From inftrumental caufes proud to draw Conclufions retrograde, and mad mistake. But if his word once teach us, fhoot a ray Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal Truths undifcerned but by that holy light, Then all is plain. Philofophy, baptized In the pure fountain of eternal love, Has eyes indeed; and viewing all the fees As meant to indicate a God to man,
Gives him his praise, and forfeits not her own. Learning has borne fuch fruit in other days On all her branches: piety has found
Friends in the friends of fcience, and true prayer
Has flowed from lips wet with Caftalian dews. Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage! Sagacious reader of the works of God,
And in his word fagacious. Such too thine, Milton, whofe genius had angelic wings, And fed on manna! And fuch thine, in whom Our British Themis gloried with just cause, Immortal Hale! for deep difcernment praised, And found integrity, not more than famed For fanctity of manners undefiled.
All flesh is grafs, and all its glory fades Like the fair flower difhevelled in the wind; Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream: The man we celebrate must find a tomb, And we that worship him ignoble graves. Nothing is proof against the general curse. Of vanity, that feizes all below.
The only amaranthine flower on earth Is virtue; the only lafting treasure, truth. But what is truth? 'twas Pilate's question put To Truth itself, that deigned him no reply. And wherefore? will not God impart his light To them that afk it?-Freely-'tis his joy,
His glory, and his nature, to impart. But to the proud, uncandid, infincere, Or negligent, inquirer not a fpark.
What's that, which brings contempt upon a book And him who writes it, though the style be neat, The method clear, and argument exact? That makes a minister in holy things
The joy of many, and the dread of more,
His name a theme for praise and for reproach?― That, while it gives us worth in God's account, Depreciates and undoes us in our own?
What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy, That learning is too proud to gather up; But which the poor, and the despised of all, Seek and obtain, and often find unfought? Tell me and I will tell thee what is truth.
O friendly to the beft pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, Domestic life in rural leisure paffed!
Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets; Though many boaft thy favours, and affect To understand and choose thee for their own. But foolish man foregoes his proper blifs,
E'en as his first progenitor, and quits,
Though placed in paradise, (for earth has still Some traces of her youthful beauty left) Subftantial happiness for tranfient joy.
Scenes formed for contemplation, and to nurse The growing feeds of wifdom; that fuggeft, By every pleafing image they present, Reflections fuch as meliorate the heart, Compofe the paffions, and exalt the mind; Scenes fuch as these 'tis his fupreme delight To fill with riot, and defile with blood. Should fome contagion, kind to the poor brutes We perfecute, annihilate the tribes,
That draw the sportsman over hill and dale Fearless and rapt away from all his cares; Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again, Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye; Could pageantry and dance, and feaft and fong, Be quelled in all our fummer-months' retreat; How many felf-deluded nymphs and swains, Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves, Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen, And crowd the roads, impatient for the town! They love the country, and none else, who seek
For their own fake its filence and its shade.
Delights which who would leave, that has a heart Sufceptible of pity, or a mind
Cultured and capable of fober thought, For all the favage din of the swift pack, And clamours of the field?-Detested sport, That owes its pleasures to another's pain; That feeds upon the fobs and dying fhrieks Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued With eloquence, that agonies infpire, Of filent tears and heart-diftending fighs? Vain tears, alas, and fighs, that never find A correfponding tone in jovial fouls!
Well-one at leaft is fafe. One fheltered hare Has never heard the fanguinary yell Of cruel man, exulting in her woes. Innocent partner of my peaceful home, Whom ten long years' experience of my care Has made at last familiar; fhe has loft Much of her vigilant instinctive dread, Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine. Yes-thou mayeft eat thy bread, and lick the hand That feeds thee; thou mayeft frolic on the floor At evening, and at night retire secure
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