W light, of darkness; in a middle field, We cation! there to mark th' event ihr gut drama, whofe preceding fcenes dm clofe fpectators, thro' a length nolaing to this grand refult; yet unnumber'd but by God; pronouncing entence, vindicates gas of virtue, and his own renown. , the various fentence past, We ever d throng diftin&t abodes, for ambrofial: What ensues > The ps with determin'd aspect, turns date key's enormous lize ney's inextricable wards, gev'ry bolt; on both their fates; the croited battlements of heav'n, wn the hurls it thro` the dark profound, and thousand fathom; there to ruft, er unlock her refolution more. rounds,and hell,thro' all her glooms, , gruans, the melancholy roar.

IT- The unreasonableness of Complaint.

Amidst applauding worlds, releftial, is there found on earth, A pennant, rebellious string, Win the grand chorus,and complains? Aang, by God ordain'd, or done; but God,refum'd the friends he gave? ave been complaining, then, fo long?

of his favours; pain, and death? www'sadvice would e'er be good? leath, but would be good in vain? from pain! all punishment, and death to fave from death! to guard immortal life; Ts, the prefumptuous awe, e of fouls another way; Beine renderers divine ordain'd,

Eten, and high-bloom'd for man, A Esen, endless in the skies.

And fated to furvive the tranfient fun!
A ftarry crowd thy raven-brow adorns, [loom
An azure zone, thy waift; clouds, in heav'n's
Wrought thro' varieties of fhape and fhade,
In ample folds of drapery divine, [out,
Thy flowing mantle form, and, heav'n through-
Voluminoully pour thy pompous train:
Thy gloomy grandeurs claim a grateful verse,
And, like a table curtain ftarr'd with gold,
Drawn o'er my labours paft, fhall close the scene.

291. Grief and Joy.
grief be banish'd, joy indulg'd,
then, when grief puts in her claim:
yous, frequently betrays,
unty, and dies in woe
- corroborates, exalts;
aqueft; joy, and virtue too:
rade in ills, delights
ourfelves; 'tis duty, glory, peace.
the good man's fhining scene;
teals his brightest ray:
ars, woe luftre gives to man:
rie, pilots in the storm,
calamities, admire.

manhood is a winter joy;

that ftands the northern blast, A the rigour of our fate.

§ 292. Night. MASTIC Night!

A great ancestor! day's elder-born

$293. Regularity of the Heavenly Bodies.
NOR think thou feeft a wild diforder here;
Thro' this illustrious chaos, to the fight,
Arrangement neat, and chaiteft order, reign.
The path prefcrib'd, inviolably kept,
Upbraids the lawless fallies of mankind:
Worlds, ever thwarting, never interfere;
They rove for ever, without error rove:
Confufion uaconfus'd! nor lefs admire
This tumult untumultuous: all on wing,'
In motion, all! yet what profound repofe!
What fervid action, yet no noife! as aw'd
To filence by the prefence of their Lord;
Or hufh'd, by his command, in love to man,
And bid let fall foft beams on human reft,
Reftlefs themfelves. On yon cerulean plain,
In exultation to their God and thine,
They dance, they fing eternal jubilee,
Eternal celebration of his praise :
But, fince their fong arrives not at our ear,
Their dance perplex'd exhibits to the fight
Fair hieroglyphic of his peerless power:
Mark, how, the labyrinthian turns they take
The circles intricate, and mystic maze,
Weave the grand cypher of Omnipotence;
To Gods, how great! how legible to man

§ 294. Miracles.
AND yet Lorenzo calls for miracles,
Why call for lefs than is already thine?
To give his tott'ring faith a folid base:
Say, which imports more plentitude of power
Or nature's laws to fix, or to repeal?
To make a fun, or ftop his mid-career?
To countermand his orders, and send back
The flaming courier to the frighted east,
Or bid the moon, as with her journey tir'd,
In Ajalon's foft, flow'ry vale repofe?
Great things are thefe; ftill greater, to create.
From Adam's bow'r look down thro' the whole
Of miracles ;-refiftless is their pow'r? [train
They do not, cannot, more amaze the mind,
Than this, call'd un-miraculous furvey.
Say ft thou, "The course of nature governs all?"
The course of nature is the art of God:
The miracles thou call'ft for, this atteft;
For, fay, could nature nature's courfe controul?

$295. Nature the Foe of Scepticism.
OPEN thy bofom, fet thy wifhes wide,
And let in manhood; et in happiness;
Admit the boundless theatre of thought
From nothing up to God; which makes a man:
Take God from nature, nothing great is left:

Man's

Man's mind is in a pit, and nothing fees:
Emerge from thy profound; erect thine eye;
See thy diftrefs! how clofe art thou belieg'd!
Befieg'd by nature, the proud fceptic's foe!
Inclos'd by thefe innumerable worlds,
Sparkling conviction on the darkest mind,
As in a golden net of providence,
How art thou caught! fure captive of belief!
From this thy bleft captivity, what art,
What blafphemy to realon fets thee free?
This fcene is heaven's indulgent violence :
Canft thou bear up againft this tide of glory?
What is earth botom`d in the ambient orbs,
But faith in God impos'd, and prefs'd on man?
God is a spirit; fpirit cannot strike
Thefe grofs, material, organs; God by man
As much is feen, as man a God can fee,
In thefe aftonishing exploits of power:
What order, beauty, motion, diftance, fize!
Apt means! great ends! confent to general good!
Each attribute of thefe material gods,
A feparate conqueft gains o'er rebel thought;
And leads in triumph the whole mind of man.

$295. Reafons for Belief.

"WHAT am I? and from whence ?--I nothing know,

That granted, all is folv`d.-But, granti
Draw I not o'er me ftill a darker cloud :
Grant I not that which I can ne'er con
A being without origin, or end!
Hail, human liberty! There is no God.
Yet why? on either scheme the knot i
Subfift it muft, in God, or human race:
If in the laft, how many knots befide,
Indiffoluble all-why choofe it there,
Where, chofen, fill fubfift ten thousand
Reject it; where that chofen, all the r
Difpers'd, leave reafon's whole horizon
What vaft preponderance is here! Can r
With louder voice exclaim-Believe a C
What things impoffible muft man think
On any other fyftem? and how ftrange
To difbelieve, through mere credulity!

§ 297. The Power of God infinite
CAN man conceive beyond what God c
Nothing, but quite-impoffible, is hard;
He fummons into being, with like eafe,
A whole creation, and a fingle grain. [
Speaks he the word? a thouland wor
A thoufand worlds? there's fpace for m
And in what space can his great fiat fail:
Still feems my thought enormous?

again;

Experience felf fhall aid thy lame belief
Glaffes (that revelation to the fight!)
Have they not led us deep in the difch
Of fine-fpun nature, exquifitely fmall;
And, tho' demonftrated, still ill-concei
If, then, on the reverfe, the mind would
In magnitude, what mind can mount to
To keep the balance, and creation poile
Stupendous Archite&t! Thou, Thou art
My foul flies up and down in thoughts of
And finds herself but at the centre til
I Am, thy name! exiftence all thine ow
Creation's nothing; flatter'd much, if th
The thin, the fleeting atmosphere of

But that I am; and, fince I am, conclude
Something eternal: had there e'er been nought,
Nought ftill had been: eternal there muft be:
But what eternal ?Why not human race;
And Adam's ancestors without an end?
That's hard to be conceiv'd; fince every link
Of that long-chain'd fucceflion is fo frail;
Can every part depend, and not the whole?
Yet grant it true; new difficulties rife; [too?
Whence earth, and thefe bright orbs ?-eternal
Grant matter was eternal; ftill these orbs
Would want fome other father :-much defign
Is feen in all their motions, all their makes:
Defign implies intelligence, and art :
That can't be from themfelves, orman: that art"
Man fcarce can comprehend, could man beftow?
And nothing greater, yet allow'd, than man.-
Who, motion, foreign to the fmallest grain,
Shot thro' vaft maffes of enormous weight?
Who bid brute matter's reftive lump affume
Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?
Has matter innate motion? Then each atom,
Aflerting its indisputable right

To dance, would form an univerfe of duit:
Has matter none? Then whence thefe glorious
forms,
[pos'd
And boundiefs flights, from fhapelefs, and re-
His matter more than motion? has it thought,
Judgment, and genius? Is it deeply learn'd
In mathematics? Has it fiam'd fuch laws,
Which, but to guefs, a Newton made immortal
1 to, how each fage atom laughs at me,
Who think a clod inferior to a man!
If art, to form; and council, to conduct;
And that with greater far than human skill;

$298. The World fufficient for Man.

templation of the Heavens. YET why drown fancy in fuch depths as Return, prefumptuous rover! and conf The bounds of man; nor blame them,as to Enjoy we not full fcope in what is feen Full ample the dominions of the fun! Full glorious to behold! how far, how w The matchlefs monarch from his flamingt Lavifh of luftre, throws his beams about Farther, and fafter, than a thought can f And feeds his planets with eternal fires Beyond this city, why ftrays human th One wonderful, enough for man to kno One firmament, enough for man to read Nor is inftruction, here, our only gain; There dwells a nobler pathos in the kies Which warms our paffions, profelytes our How eloquently fhines the glowing pole

Rides not in each block,-a Godhead reigns.With what authority it gives its cha

Caut then, invifible, eternal, mind;

Remonstrating great truths in ftyle tubi

Without, or ftar, or angel, for their guide,
Who worship God, fhall find him: humble love,
And not proud reafon, keeps the door of heaven;
Love finds admiffion, where proud fcience fails.
Man's fcience is the culture of his heart;
And not to lofe his plummet in the depths
Of nature, or the more profound of God:
To fathom nature; (ill attempted here!)
Paft doubt, is deep philofophy above;
Higher degrees in blifs archangels take,
As deeper learn'd; the deepeft, learning still:
For, what a thunder of omnipotence
Is feen in all! in man! in earth! in skies!
Teaching this leffon, pride is loth to learn-
"Not deeply to difcern, not much to know,
"Mankind was born to wonder and adore."

2 guide the wilder'd in the waves, Catch and muft I bend my courfe to find

The corners keep the fecret of their king;
we whole nights, in vain, to steal it from
et contemplation's rapid car, [them.
marth, as from my barrier, I fet out:

I mount! diminish'd earth recedes; Imoon; and, from her further side, Fen'sblue curtain; paufe at everyplanet,|' for him, who gives their orbs to roll. turn's ring, I take my bolder flight, fovereign glories of the fkies,

fendant, native luftre, proud, Tama fyftem!-What behold I now? As of wonders burning round; Wer funs inherit higher spheres; Are; my toil is but begun; threfhold of the Deity; ,th it, I am grovelling till.

THO' blind of heart, ftill open is thine eye;
Why fuch magnificence in all thou feeft?
Of matter's grandeur, know, one end is this,
To tell the rational, who gazes on it-
Tho' that immenfely great, ftill greater he,
Whofe breaft, capacious, can embrace, and lodge,
Unburthen'd, nature's univerfal fcheme;
Can grafp creation with a fingle thought;
Heart.Creation grafp; and not exclude its fire

Tenda me to my point: Lorenzo! know, To guard the important, yet depending, fate

$304. Death.

By filence, death's peculiar attribute!
By darkness, guilt's inevitable doom:
By darkness, and by filence, fifters dread!
That draw the curtain round night's ebon throne,
And raise ideas, folemn as the scene:
By night, and all of awful, night prefents
To thought, or fenfe, by thefe her trembling fires,
By these bright orators, that prove and praise,
And prefs thee to revere, the Deity:
Perhaps, too, aid thee, when rever`d a while,
To reach his throne; as itages of the foul,
Thro' which, at different periods, the fhail pafs,
Refining gradual, for her final height;
And purging off fome drofs at every sphere:
By this dark pall thrown o'er the filent world:
By the world's kings, and kingdoms, moft

renown'd,

From fhort ambition's zenith fet for ever;
By the long lift of swift mortality,
From Adam downward to this evening's knell,
Which midnight waves in fancy's ftartled eye;
And fhocks her with a hundred centuries
Round death's black banner throng`d, in human
thought:

By thoufands, now, refigning their laft breath,
And calling thee-wert thou fo wife to hear:
By tombs o'er tombs arifing, human earth;
Ejected, to make room for-human earth;
By pompous obfequies, that fhun the day,
The torch funereal, and the nodding plume,
Boaft of our ruin! triumph of our duft!
By the damp vault that weeps o'er royal bones;
And the pale lamp, that thews the ghaftly dead,
More ghaftly thro' the thick-incumbent gloom!
By vitits (if there are) from darker fcenes,
The gliding spectre and the groaning grove!
By groans and graves, and miferies that groan
For the grave's thelter: by defponding men,
Senfeiefs to pains of death, from pangs of guilt:
By guilt's last audit: by yon moon in blood,
The rocking firmament, the falling ftars,
And thunder's laft difcharge, great nature's
By fecond chaos; and eternal night (knell!
Be wife-nor let Philander blame my charm;
But own not ill-difcharg'd my double debt,
Love to the living; duty to the dead.

§ 305. Reflections on Sleep.

BUT oh-my spirits fail!-sleep's dewy wand
His ftrok'd my drooping lids to foft repose:

Hafte,halte,fweet stranger! from the peafant's
The fhip-boy's hammock, or the foldier's ft
Whenceforrow never chas'd thee; with theeb
Not hideous vifions, as of late; but draugh
Delicious of well-tafted, cordial, reft;
Man's rich reitorative; his balmy bath,
That fupplies, lubricates, and keeps in play
The various movements of this nice machi

Sleep winds us up for the fucceeding dawn;
Fresh we fpin on, till fickness clogs our whe
Or death quite breaks the spring, and mo
When will it end with me?
[er

-Thou only know`ft,
Thou, whofe broad eye the future and the p
Joins to the prefent; thou, and thou alone,
All-knowing!-all unknown! and yet v
Thee, tho' invifible, for ever seen! [knov
And feen in all the great, and the minute,
Each globe above, with its gigantic race,
Each flower, each leaf, with its fmall pec
fwarm'd,

[dec

To the first thought, that asks, from when
Their common fource, thou fountain runn
In rivers of communicated joy!
Who gav'ft us fpeech for far, far humbler them
Say, by what name fhall I prefume to call
Him I fee burning in thefe countless funs,
As Mofes in the bufh? illuftrious mind!
How fhall I name Thee?-how my labouring
Heaves underneath the thought, too big for bir

$306. Address to the Trinity.
GREAT fyftem of perfections! mighty caule
Of nature, that luxuriant growth of God,
Father of this immeafurable mafs
Of matter multiform: mov'd, or at reft:
Father of thefe bright millions of the night
Of which the leaft full Godhead had procia
Father of matter's temporary lords!
Father of fpirits! nobler offspring! fparks
Of high paternal glory; rich-endow'd
With various mealures, and with various me
Of instinct, reafon, intuition; beams
More pale, or bright from day divine, that ra
Each over other in fuperior light,
Till the laft ripens into luftre trong
Of next approach to Godhead: Father kind
Of intellectual beings! beings bleft
With powers to pleafe thee: not of paffive p
To laws they know not; beings lodg'd in fe
Of well adapted joys; in different domes
Of this imperial palace for thy fons.
Or, oh! indulge, immortal King! indulge
A title, lefs auguft indeed, but more
Endearing; ah! how sweet in human ears!
Father of immortality to man!
And thou the next! yet equal! thou, by who
That bleifing was convey'd; far more! w
bought;

Ineffable the price! by whom all worlds
Were made; and one redeem'd! illuftrious lig
From light illuftrious! Thou, whofe regal powe
On more than adamantine basis fix'd,
O'er more, far more, than diadems and throne
Inviolab

avily reigns; beneath whose foot
And be mandate of whofe awful nod,
As revolations, fortunes, fates,
Cg of low, of mind, and matter roll
Tgh the fhort channels of expiring time,
Or Boreiefs ocean of eternity,

more:

Joy breaks, fhines, triumphs; 'tis eternal day!
Shall that which rifes out of nought complain,
Of a tew evils, pay'd with endless joys?
My foul! henceforth, in fweeteft union join
The two fupports of human happiness,
Which fome, erroneous, think can never meet;
True taste of life, and conftant thought of death;
Thy patron, he, whofe diadem has dropp'd
Yon gems of heav'n; eternity thy prize.
How muft a fpirit, late efcap'd from earth,
The truth of things new-blazing in its eye,
Look back, aftonif'd, on the ways of men,
Whofe life's whole drift is to forget their graves!
And when our prefent privilege is pait,
The fame aftonishment will feize us all.
What then muft pain us, would preferveus now!
Seize wifdom, ere 'tis torment to be wie;
That is, feize wildom, ere fhe feizes thee:
For, what is hell? full knowledge of the truth,
When truth, refifted long, is fworn our foe;
And calls eternity to do her right.

In ablute fübjection!-and, O Thou
The glorious third! diftinct, not feparate,
Being from both! incorporate with dust!
By condetenfion, as thy glory, great;
Isra'da man! of human hearts, if pure,
Divise abbetant! the tie divine
Chaith ditant earth!-myfterious pow'r!
Re-yet unreveal'd! darknefs in light!
Ne in unity! our joy! our dread!
Tie, unutterable, unconceiv'd,
Abiding yet demonftrable, great God!
Greater than greatest! with foft pity's eye,
Frthy bright home,fromthat high firmament,
Where thou, from all-eternity, haft dwelt;
Beyond archangels unafflifted ken;
Tho' radiant ranks of effences unknown;
The hierarchies from hierarchies detach'd,
Band nous banners of omnipotence,
Whis change of rapturous duties fir'd;
The wondrous beings interpofing fwarms;
A cabg at the call, to dwell in thee;
Thes this wide wafte of worlds-look down-My
down-down,

apoor breathing particle in duft,
Or, lower, an immortal in his crimes:
Es cries forgive! forgive his virtues too!
Thofe maller faults; half-converts to the right.
Nor let me clofe thefe eyes, which never more
May for the fan (tho' night's defcending scale
Now weighs up morn) unpity'd and unblelt!
In thy difpare dwells eternal pain;
And face all pain is terrible to man,
Gently, a gently, lay me in my bed,
My chay-cold bed! by nature, now, fo near!
And when (the thelter of thy wing implor'd)
My feafes, footh'd, fhall fink in foft repofe;
O Enk this truth ftill deeper in my foul,
Man's fekly foul, tho' turn'd,and tofs'd for ever,
Ffide to fide, can reft on nought but thee,,

a full truft; hereafter, in full joy.

God and mortal! thence more God to man!
The caft not 'fcape uninjur'd from our praife,
Tar'd from our praife can he escape,
Wadembofom'd from the Father, bows
Bes out in agonies a finlefs foul!
The seven of heavens, to kifs the distant earth!

Thus, darkness aiding intellectual light. And facred filence whispering truths divine, And truths divine converting pain to peace,

Throw wide the gates celeftial to his foes!
the crofs, death's iron fceptre breaks!
Theritude, for fuch a boundless debt,
Deputes their fuffering brothers to receive!
Is it as our duty, to rejoice!
And to clofe all) omnipotently kind,
Takes his delights among the fons of men.
What words are thefe ?-And did they come

from heav'n?

And were they spoke to man? to guilty man?
What are all myfteries to love like this?

a prelibation of confummate joy!

fong the midnight raven has outwing'd,
And fhot, ambitious of unbounded fcenes,
Beyond the flaming limits of the world,
Her gloomy flight. But what avails the flight
Of fancy, when our hearts remain below?
Virtue abounds in flatterers and foes;
Lorenzo! rife, at this aufpicious hour;
An hour, when heaven'smoft intimate with man;
When, like a falling ftar, the ray divine
Glides fwift into the bofom of the juft;
And juft are all, determin'd to reclaim;
Which fets that title high within thy reach,
Awake, then, thy Philander calls, awake,
Thou who fhalt wake, when the creation neeps
When, like a taper, all thefe funs expire:
When time, like him of Gaza, in his wrath

Plucking the pillars that fupport the world,
In nature's ample ruins lies entomb'd;
And midnight, univerfal midnight! reigns.

$308. Solitude. Young.

O SACRED folitude! divine retreat!
Choice of the Prudent! envy of the Great!

By thy pure stream, or in thy waving fhade,

We court fair wisdom, that celeftial maid:
The genuine offspring of her lov d emi race
(Strangers on earth) are innocence and peace:
There, from the ways of men laid fafe athore,
We fmile to hear the diftant tempelt roar;
There, bleft with health, with us nefs unper.
This life we relith, and enfure the next. [plex'd,
There too the Mules 1port; the e numbers free,
Pierian Eastbury! I owe to thee.

$309 The Day of Jud, mint. Young. Lo! the wide theatre, whole ample space Muft entertain the whole of human race,

M