Where mountain, river, foreft, field and grove,
Remind him of his Maker's pow'r and love.
'Tis well if look'd for at fo late a day,
In the laft fcene of fuch a fenfeless play,
True wisdom will attend his feeble call,
And grace his action e'er the curtain fall.
Souls that have long defpifed their heav'nly birth,
Their wishes all impregnated with earth,
For threescore years employed with ceafelefs care,
In catching fmoke and feeding upon air,
Converfant only with the ways of men,
Rarely redeem the fhort remaining ten.
Invet'rate habits choak th' un fruitful heart,
Their fibres penetrate its tend'reft part,
And draining its nutritious pow'rs to feed
Their noxious growth, ftarve ev'ry better feed.
Happy if full of days-but happier far
If e'er we yet difcern life's evening ftar,
Sick of the fervice of a world that feeds
Its patient drudges with dry chaff and weeds,
We can escape from cuftom's ideot fway,
To ferve the fov'reign we were born t' obey.
Then sweet to mufe upon his fkill difplay'd
(Infinite skill) in all that he has made!
To trace in nature's moft minute defign,
The fignature and ftamp of pow'r divine,
Contrivance intricate exprefs'd with ease
Where unaffifted fight no beauty fees,
The shapely limb and lubricated joint,
Within the fmall dimenfions of a point,
Muscle and nerve miraculously fpun,
His mighty work who speaks and it is done,
Th' invifible in things fcarce feen reveal'd,
To whom an atom is an ample field.
To wonder at a thousand infect forms,
These hatch'd, and those resuscitated worms,
New life ordain'd and brighter fcenes to share,
prone on earth, now buoyant upon Whofe fhape would make them, had they bulk and fize, More hideous foes than fancy can devife,
With helmed heads and dragon fcales adorn'd,
The mighty myriads, now fecurely fcorn'd,
Would mock the majefty of man's high birth,
Despise his bulwarks and unpeople earth.
Then with a glance of fancy to survey,
Far as the faculty can ftretch away,
Ten thousand rivers poured at his command
From urns that never fail through ev'ry land,
Thefe like a deluge with impetuous force,
Thofe winding modeftly a filent course,
The cloud furmounting alps, the fruitful vales,
Seas on which ev'ry nation spreads her fails,
The fun, a world whence other worlds drink light,
The crefcent moon, the diadem of night,
Stars countless, each in his appointed place,
Faft-anchor'd in the deep abyfs of space-
At fuch a fight to catch the poet's flame,
And with a rapture like his own exclaim,
Thefe are thy glorious works, thou fource of good,
How dimly feen, how faintly understood!-
Thine, and upheld by thy paternal care,
This univerfal frame, thus wond'rous fair;
Thy pow'r divine and bounty beyond thought,
Ador'd and prais'd in all that thou haft wrought.
Abforbed in that immensity I fee,
I fhrink abafed, and yet afpire to thee;
Inftruct me, guide me to that heav'nly day,
Thy words, more clearly than thy works difplay,
That while thy truths my groffer thoughts refine,
may resemble thee and call thee mine.
Oh bleft proficiency! furpaffing all
That men erroneously their glory call,
The recompence that arts or arms can yield,
The bar, the fenate or the tented field.
Compar'd with this fublimeft life below,
Ye kings and rulers what have courts to show?
Thus ftudied, used and confecrated thus,
Whatever is, feems form'd indeed for us,
Not as the plaything of a froward child,
Fretful unless diverted and beguiled,
Much lefs to feed and fan the fatal fires
Of pride, ambition or impure defires,
But as a fcale by which the foul afcends
From mighty means to more important ends,
Securely, though by steps but rarely trod,
Mounts from inferior beings up to God,
And fees by no fallacious light or dim,
Earth made for man, and man himself for him.
Not that I mean t' approve, or would inforce
A fuperftitious and monaftic courfe:
Truth is not local, God alike pervades
And fills the world of traffic and the fhades,
And may be fear'd amid the bufiest scenes,
Or fcorn'd where bufinefs never intervenes.
But it is not eafy with a mind like ours,
Conscious of weakness in its noblest pow'rs,
And in a world where (other ills apart)
The roving eye misleads the careless heart,
To limit thought, by nature prone to stray
Wherever freakish fancy points the way,
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