Sees, that no Being any blifs can know,
But touches fome above, and fome below;
Learns from this union of the rifing Whole,
The firft, laft purpose of the human foul;

335

And knows where Faith, Law, Morals, all began,
All end, in LOVE OF GOD, and LOVE OF MAN. 340
For him alone, Hope leads from goal to goal,

And opens ftill, and opens on his foul;

Till lengthen'd on to FAITH, and unconfin'd,

It

pours the blifs that fills up all the mind.

He fees, why Nature plants in Man alone

Hope of known bliss, and Faith in blifs unknown:
(Nature, whofe dictates to no other kind

Are given in vain, but what they feek they find)
Wife is her prefent; fhe connects in this
His greatest Virtue with his greatest Bliss;
At once his own bright prospect to be bleft,
And ftrongest motive to affift the rest.

Self-love thus push'd to focial, to divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbour's bleffing thine.
Is this too little for the boundless heart?
Extend it, let thy enemies have part;

Grafp the whole worlds of Reason, Life, and Sense,
In one clofe fyftem of Benevolence:

Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree,

345

350

355

And height of Blifs but height of Charity.

God loves from Whole to Parts: but human foul
Muft rife from Individual to the Whole.
Self-love but ferves the virtuous mind to wake,

As the fmall pebble ftirs the peaceful lake;

360

The

365

The centre mov'd, a circle ftrait fucceeds,
Another still, and ftill another spreads;

Friend, parent, neighbour, firft it will embrace;
His country next; and next all human race;
Wide and more wide, th' o'erflowings of the mind
Take every creature in, of every kind;

Earth fmiles around, with boundlefs bounty bleft,
And Heaven beholds its image in his breast.

370

Come then, my Friend! my Genius! come along; Oh mafter of the poet, and the fong!

And while the Mufe now ftoops, or now afcends, 375
To Man's low paffions, or their glorious ends,

Teach me, like thee, in various Nature wife,
To fall with dignity, with temper rife;
Form'd by thy converfe, happily to fteer,
From grave to gay, from lively to fevere;
Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease,
Intent to reafon, or polite to pleafe.

Oh! while along the ftream of Time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame;

380

VARIATION,

Ver. 373. Come then, my Friend! &c.] In the MS. thus:

And now tranfported o'er so vast a plain,

While the wing'd courfer flies with all her rein,
While heaven-ward now her mounting wing the feels,
Now scatter'd fools fly trembling from her heels,
Wilt thou, my St. John! keep her courfe in fight,
Confine her fury, and affift her flight?

Say, fhall my little bark attendant fail,

Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?

385

390

When ftatefmen, heroes, kings, in duft repose,
Whofe fons fhall blufh their fathers were thy foes,
Shall then this verfe to future age pretend
Thou wert my guide, philofopher, and friend?
That, urg'd by thee, I turn'd the tuneful art,
From founds to things, from fancy to the heart;
For Wit's falfe mirror held up Nature's light;
Shew'd erring Pride, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT;
That REASON, PASSION, anfwer one great aim; 395
That true SELF-LOVE and SOCIAL are the fame;
That VIRTUS only makes our blifs below;
And all our knowledge is, OURSELVES TO KNOW.

VARIATION.

Ver. 397. That Virtue only, &c.] In the MS. thus:
That just to find a God is all we can,

And all the Study of Mankind is Man.

THE

THE

UNIVERSAL

PRA

YE R.

DEO ОР Т. MAX.

IT may be proper to obferve, that fome paffages, in the preceding Effay, having been unjustly suspected of a tendency towards Fate and Naturalism, the author compofed this Prayer as the fum of all, to fhew that his fyftem was founded in free-will, and terminated in piety: That the firft caufe was as well the Lord and Governor of the Universe as the Creator of it; and that, by fubmiffion to his will (the great principle enforced throughout the Effay) was not meant the fuffering ourselves to be carried along by a blind determination, but the refting in a religious acquiefcence, and confidence full of Hope and Immortality. To give all this the greater weight, the poet chofe for his model the Lord's Prayer, which, of all others, beft deferves the title prefixed to this Paraphrafe.