Sees, that no Being any blifs can know, 335 And knows where Faith, Law, Morals, all began, 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: Are given in vain, but what they feek they find) Self-love thus push'd to focial, to divine, Grafp the whole worlds of Reason, Life, and Sense, 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 As the fmall pebble ftirs the peaceful lake; 360 The 365 The centre mov'd, a circle ftrait fucceeds, Friend, parent, neighbour, firft it will embrace; Earth fmiles around, with boundlefs bounty bleft, 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 Teach me, like thee, in various Nature wife, Oh! while along the ftream of Time thy name 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, Say, fhall my little bark attendant fail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale? 385 390 When ftatefmen, heroes, kings, in duft repose, VARIATION. Ver. 397. That Virtue only, &c.] In the MS. thus: And all the Study of Mankind is Man. THE 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. |