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Eruptions, earthquakes, comets, lightnings, play
Their various engines; all at once difgorge
Their blazing magazines; and take by storm
This poor terreftrial citadel of man.

Amazing period! when each mountain-height
Out-burns Vefuvius; rocks eternal pour
Their melted mafs, as rivers once they pour'd;
Stars ruth; and final Ruin fiercely drives
Her ploughfhare o'er creation !-while aloft
More than aftonishment! if more can be!
Far other firmament than e'er was feen,

What hero, like the man who ftands himself?
Who dares to meet his naked heart alone?
Who hears intrepid the full charge it brings,
Refolv'd to filence future murmurs there?
The coward flies; and, flying, is undone.

Shall all, but man, look out with ardent eye,
For that great day, which was ordain'd for man?
O day of confummation! mark fupreme
(İf

men are wife) of human thought! nor leaft,
Or in the fight of angels, or their King!
Angels, whofe radiant circles, height o'er height,

Than e'er was thought by man! far other ftars! As in a theatre, furround this fcene,
Stars animate, that govern thefe of fire;
Far other fun!-A fun, O how unlike
The babe at Bethlem! How unlike the man
That groan'd on Calvary !-Yet He it is;
That man of forrows! O how chang'd! What
In grandeur terrible, all heav'n defcends! [pomp!
A fwift archangel, with his golden wing,
As blots and clouds, that darken and difgrace
The scene divine, fweeps ftars and funs afide :
And now, all drofs remov'd,heav'n's own pure day,
Full on the confines of our ether, flames.
While (dreadful contrast !) far, how far beneath!
Hell, bursting, belches forth her blazing feas,
And ftorms fulphureous: her voracious jaws
Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey. [peace,
At midnight, when mankind is wrapp'd in
And worldly fancy feeds on golden dreams,
Man, starting from his couch, fhall fleep no more!
The day is broke, which never more fhall clofe!
Above, around, beneath, amazement all!
Terror and glory join'd in their extremes!
Our God in grandeur, and our world on fire!
All nature ftruggling in the pangs of death!
Doft thou not hear her doft thou not deplore
Her strong convulfions, and her final groan ?
Where are we now? Ah me! the ground is gone
On which we ftood! Lorenzo! while thou mayft,
Provide more firm support, or fink for ever!
Where? how? from whence? Vain hope! it is
too late!

Intent on man, and anxious for his fate.
Angels look cut for thee: for thee, their Lord,
To vindicate his glory; and for thee,
Creation univerfal calls aloud,

To dif-involve the moral world, and give
To nature's renovation brighter charms.

Shall man alone, whofe fate, whofe final fate,
Hangs on that hour, exclude it from his thought?
I think of nothing elfe; I fee! I feel it!
All nature, like an earthquake, trembling round!
I fee the Judge enthron'd the flaming guard!
The volume open'd' open'd ev'ry heart!
A fun-beam pointing out cach fecret thought!
No patron! interceffor none! now past
The fweet, the clement, inediatorial hour!
For guilt no plea! to pain, no paufe! no bound!
Inexorable, all! and all extreme!
Nor man alone; the foe of God and man,
From his dark den, blafpheming, drags his chain,
And rears his brazen front, with thunder fearr'd;
Like meteors in a formy fky, how roll
His baleful eyes! he curfes whom he dreads;
And deems it the first moment of his fall.

Where, where, for fhelter, fhall the guilty fly,
When confternation turns the good man pale?
Great day! for which all other days were made;
For which earth rofe from chaos; man from earth;
And an eternity, the date of Gods,
Defcended on poor earth-created man!
Great day of dread, decifion, and despair!
At thought of thee, each fublunary with
Lets go its eager grafp, and drops the world;
And catches at each reed of hope in heav'n.
Already is begun the grand atlize,
In us, in all: deputed confcience scales
The dread tribunal, and foreftalls our doom;
Foreftalls; and, by foreftalling, proves it fure.
Why on himself fhould man void judgment pafs
Is idle Nature laughing at her fors?
Who confcience fent, her fentencé will fupport,
And God above affert that God in man.

288. Thong bilefsness of the Laft Day.
THRICE happy they, that enter now the court
Heav'n opens in their bofoms: but, how rare!
Ah me! that magnanimity, how care!

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§ 289. Eternity and Time. TIS prefent to my thought!—And, yet, where

is it?

Say, thou great clofe of human hopes and fears!
Great key of hearts! great finisher of fates!
Great end and great beginning! fay, where art
Art thou in time, or in eternity? [thou
Nor in eternity, nor time, I find thee:
Thefe, as two monarchs, on their borders meet
(Monarchs of all elaps'd, or un-arriv'd!)
As in debate, how beft their pow'rs ally'd,
May fwell the grandeur, or discharge the wrath,
Of him, whom both their monarchies obey.

Time, this vaft fabric for him built (and doom'd
With him to fall) now bursting o'er his head;
His lamp, the fun, extinguifh'd, calls his fons
From their long flumber; from earth's heaving
womb

To fecond birth; upftarting from one bed;

He turns them o'er, eternity! to thee:
Then (as a king depos'd difdains to live
He falls on his own fcythe; nor falls alone;
His greateft foe falls with him; time, and he
Who murder'dall time's offspring, death, expire.

Time was! eternity now reigns alone!
And lo! hertwice ten thousand gates thrown wide,
With banners, ftreaming as the comets blaze,
And clarions, louder than the deep in ftorms,
Pour forth their myriads, potentates, and pow rs,

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Of light, of darkness; in a middle field,
Wide as creation! there to mark th' event
Of that great drama, whofe preceding icenes
Detain'd them clofe fpectators, thro' a length
Of ages, rip'ning to this grand refult;
Ages, as yet unnumber'd but by God;
Who now, pronouncing fentence, vindicates
The rights of virtue, and his own renown.
Eternity, the various fentence paft,
Afgas the fever'd throng diftinét abodes,
Sulphureous or ambrofial: What enfues?
The goddels, with determin'd afpect, turns
Her adamantine key's enormous fize
Thro' deftiny's inextricable wards,
Deep-driving ev'ry bolt; on both their fates;
Then from the cryftal battlements of heav'n,
Down, down, the hurls it thro' the dark profound,
Ten thousand thoufand fathom; there to rust,
And ne'er unlock her refolution more.

The deep refounds, and hell, thro' all her glooms,
Returns, in groans, the melancholy roar.

$290. The Unreasonableness of Complaint. WHAT then am

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Amid applauding worlds,
And worlds celeftial, is there found on earth,
A peevish, diffonant, rebellious ftring,
Which jars in the grand chorus, and complains
All, all is right, by God ordain'd, or done;
And who, but God, refum'd the friends he gave:
And have I been complaining, then, fo long?-
Complaining of his favours; pain, and death?
Who without pain's advice would c'er be good
Who, without death, but would be good in vaia:
Pain is to fave from pain! all punishment,
To make for peace! and death to fave from death;
And fecond death to guard immortal life;
To roufe the carelefs, the prefumptuous awe,
And turn the tide of fouls another way;
By the fame tendernefs divine ordain'd,

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

§ 293. Regularity of the Heavenly Bodies.
NOR think thou feeft a wild disorder here;
Thro' this illuftrious chaos, to the fight,
Arrangement neat, and chafteft order, reign.
The path prefcrib'd, inviolably kept,
Upbraids the lawlefs fallies of mankind:
Worlds, ever thwarting, never interfere;
They rove for ever, without error rove :
Confufion unconfus'd! nor less admire
This tumult untumultuous: all on wing.
In motion, all! yet what profound repole !
What fervid action, yet no noife! as aw'd
To filence by the prefence of their Lord;
Or huth'd, by his command, in love to man,

And bid let fall foft beams on human reft.
Reftlefs themselves. On yon cerulean plain,
fa exultation to their God and thine,
They dance, they fing eternal jubilee,
Eternal celebration of his praife:
But, fince their fong arrives not at our ear,
Their dance perplex'd exhibits to the fight
Fair hieroglyphic of his peerlefs power:
Mark, how, the labyrinthian turns they take,
The circles intricate, and myftic maze,
Weave the grand cypher of Omnipotence;
To Gods, how great! how legible to man!
$294. Miracles.

AND yet Lorenzo calls for miracles,

To give his tott'ring faith a folid base:

That planted Eden, and high-bloom'd for man, Why call for lefs than is already thine

A fairer Eden, endlefs in the fkies.

291. Grief and Joy.

LET impious grief be banish'd, joy indulg'd,
Butchiefly then, when grief puts in her claim:
Joy from the joyous, frequently betrays,
Oft lives in vanity, and dies in woe:
Joy amidit ills, corroborates, exalts;
Tis joy and conqueft; joy, and virtue too:
A noble fortitude in ills, delights

Heav'n, earth, curfelves; 'tis duty, glory, peace.
Afiction is the good man's fhining fcene;
Profperity conceals his brightest ray:
As night to ftars, woe luftre gives to man:
Heroes in battle, pilots in the storm,
And virtue in calamities, admire.
The crown of manhood is a winter-joy ;
An evergreen, that ftands the northern blaft,
And bloffoms in the rigour of our fate.

§ 292. Night.

MAJESTIC Night!

Nature's

Say, which imports more plenitude of power,
Or nature's laws to fix, or to repeal?
To make a fun, or stop his mid-career ?

To countermand his orders, and fend back
The flaming courier to the frighted caft,
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; refiftlefs is their pow'r? [train
They do not, cannot, more amaze the mind,
Than this, call'd un-miraculous furvey.
Say ft thou," The courfe of nature governs all?”
The course of nature is the art of God:
The miracles ou call'ft for, this atteft;
For, fay, could hature nature's courfe controul?

$295. Nature the Fue of Scepticifm.
OPEN thy bofom, fet thy wishes wide,

And let in manhood, let in happiness;
Admit the boundless theatre of thought.
From nothing up to God; which makes a man:

great anceftor! day's elder-Lorn! 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 diftiefs! how clofe art thou befieg'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 reafon fets thee free?
This fcene is heaven's indulgent violence:
Canft thou bear up against this tide of glory?
What is earth bofom'd in the ambient orbs,
But faith in God impos'd, and prefs'd on man?
God is a fpirit; fpirit cannot ftrike
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, distance, size !
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.

$296. Reafons for Belief.

"WHAT

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

But that I am; and, fince I am, conclude
Something eternal: had there e'er been nought,
Nought ftill had been eternal there must 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 fucceffion is fo frail;
Can every part depend, and not the whole?
Yet grant it true; new difficulties rife ;
Whence earth, and thefe bright orbs?-eternal too?
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-or man : that art
Man fcarce can comprehend, could man beftow?
And nothing greater, yet allow'd, than man.-
Who, motion, foreign to the finallest grain,
Shot thro' vaft mafies 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,
Afferting its indisputable right

To dance, would form an univerfe of duft:
Has matter none? Then whence thefe glorious
forms,

And boundless flights, from fhapeless, and repos'd?
Has matter more than motion? has it thought,
Judgment, and genius? Is it deeply learn'd
In mathematics? Has it fram'd fuch laws,
Which, but to guefs, a Newton made immortal?
If fo, 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;
Refides not in each block,-a Godhead reigns.
Grant then, invifible, eternal, mind;

That granted, all is folv'd.-But, granting that,
Draw I not o'er me still a darker cloud?
Grant I not that which I can ne'er conceive?

A being without origin, or end!

Hail, human liberty! There is no God.
Yet why? on either scheme the knot fubfifts:
Subfift it muft, in God, or human race:
If in the laft, how many knots befide,
Indiffoluble all-why choose it there,
Where, chofen, ftill fubfift ten thousand more!
Reject it; where that chofen, all the reft
Difpers'd, leave reafon's whole horizon clear?
What vaft preponderance is here! Can reafon
With louder voice exclaim-Believe a God?
What things impofiible must man think true,
On any other fyftem? and how strange
To difbelieve, through mere credulity!"

297. The Power of God infinite..

AN man conceive beyond what God can do?
Nothing, but quite-impoffible, is hard;
He fummons into being, with like ease,
A whole creation, and a fingle grain. [born!-
Speaks he the word? a thoufand worlds are
A thoufand worlds? there's space for millions
And in what space can his great fiat fail? [more;
Still feems my thought enormous? Think
again;-

Experience felf fhall aid thy lame belief:
Giaffes (that revelation to the fight!)
Have they not led us deep in the difclofe
Of fine-ipun nature, exquifitely fmall;
And, tho' demonftrated, ftill ill-conceiv'd?
If, then, on the reverfe, the mind would mount
In magnitude, what mind can mount too far,
To keep the balance, and creation poize?
Stupendous Architect! Thou, Thou art all!
My foul flies up and down in thoughts of Thee,
And finds herfelf but at the centre ftill!

I Am, thy name! existence, all thine own!
Creation's nothing; flatter'd much, if styl'd
"The thin, the ficeting atmosphere of God."

$298. The World pufficient for Man. Contemflation of the Heavens.

YET

ET why drown fancy in fuch depths as these? Return, prefùmptuous rover! and confefs The bounds of man; nor blame them, as too ímall: Enjoy we not full fcope in what is feen? Full ample the dominions of the fun! Full glorious to behold! how far, how wide, The matchlefs monarch from his flaming throne, Lavish of luftre, throws his beams about him, Farther, and fafter, than a thought can fly, And feeds his planets with eternal fires ? Beyond this city, why ftrays human thought? One wonderful, enough for man to know! One firmament, enough for man to read! Nor is inftruction, here, our only gain;" There dwells a noble pathos in the skies, Which warms our paflions, profelytes cur hearts: How eloquently thines the glowing pole! With what authority it gives its charge, Remonftrating great truths in Byle fublime,

Tho' filent, loud! heard earth around; above
The planets heard; and not unheard in hell;
Hell has its wonder, tho' too proud to praife.
Divne inftructor! thy firft volume, this,
For man's perufal; all in capitals!

in moon, and stars (heaven's golden alphabet!)
Emblaz'd to seize the fight; who runs, may read;
Who reads, can understand: 'tis unconfin'd,
To chriftian land, or Jewry; fairly writ
Je language univerfal, to mankind:
A language, lefty to the learn'd: yet plain,
To thofe that feed the flock, or guide the plough,
Or from its husk ftrike out the bounding grain!
A language, worthy the great mind, that ipeaks!
Preface, and comment, to the facred page!
Stupendous book of witdom, to the wife!
Stupendous book and open'd, Night! by thee.
By thee much open'd, I confefs, O Night!
Yet more I with; fay, gentle Night! whofe beams
Give us a new creation, and prefent
The world's great picture, foften'd to the fight;
Say, thou, whole mild dominion's filver key
Unlocks our hemifphere, and sets to view
Worlds beyond number; worlds conceal'd by day
Behind the proud, and envious, star of noon!
Carit thou not draw a deeper fcene?-and fhew
The mighty potentate, to whom belong
Thefe rich regalia, pompoufly difplay'd?
O for a glimpic of him my foul adores!
As the chas'd hart, amid the defert waste,.
Pants for the living ftream; for him who made her,
So pants the thirty foul, amid the blank
Of fublunary joys: fay, goddefs! where? [throne?
Where blazes his bright court? where burns his
Thou know'ft; for thou art near him; by thee,
His grand pavilion, facred fame reports, [round
The fable curtain 's drawn: if not, can pone
Of thy fair daughter-train, fo swift of wing,
Who travel far, difcover where he dwclis?
A ftar his dwelling pointed out below:
Say, ye, who guide the wilder'd in the waves,
On which hand must I bend my courfe to find
him?

Thefe courtiers keep the fecret of their King;
I wake whole nights, in vain, to steal it from them.
In ardent contemplation's rapid car,
From earth, as from my barrier, I let out:
How fwift I mount ! diminith'd earth recodes;
I pafs the moon; and, from her further fide,
Pierce heaven's blue curtain; paufe atevery planet,
And atk for him, who gives their orbs to roll.
From Saturn's ring, I take my bolder flight,
Amid those sovereign glories of the skies,
Of independent, native luftre, proud,
The fouls of fyftem I-What behold I now ?
A wilderness of wonders burning round;
Where larger funs inhabit higher spheres ;
Nor halt I here; my toil is but begun;
'Tis but the threshold of the Deity;
Or, far beneath it, I am grovelling ftill.

Without or star, 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 blif's archangels take,
As deeper learn'd; the deepeft, learning ftill:
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."
$300. The Greatness of God inexpreffible.

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WHAT a root! O what a branch is here! O what a father! what a family! Worlds! fyftems! and creations!-and creations, In one agglomerated cluster, hung, Great Vine! on thee: on thee the cluster hangsi The filial cluster! infinitely spread In glowing globes, with various being fraught; Or, thall I fay (for who can fay enough?) A conftellation of ten thousand gems, Set in one fignet, flames on the right-hand Of majefty divine! the blazing feal, That deeply stamps, on all created mind,' Indelible, his fovereign attributes Omnipotence and love: nor ftop we here, For want of power in God, but thought in man. Lf greater aught, that greater all is thine, Dread fire !-Accept this miniature of thee; And pardon an attempt from mortal thought, In which archangelsmight have fail'd, unbiam'd."

301. The Mifery of Sin.

THOU, ambitious of difgiace alone! Rank coward to the fashionable world! Art thou afham'd to bend thy knee to heaven? Not all thefe luminaries, quench'd at once, Were half fo fad, as one benighted mind, Which gropes for happiness, and meets defpais. How, like a widow in her weeds, the night, Amid her glimmering tapers, filent fits How forrowful, how defolate, the weeps Perpetual dews, and faddens nature's fcene! A fcene more fad fin makes the darken'd foul, All comfort kills, nor leaves one fpark alive.

§302. Reafon.

TH
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,
Whose breast, capacious, can embrace, and lodge,
Unburthen'd, nature's universal scheme;
Can grafp creation with a fingle thought;
Heart.Creation grafp; and not exclude its fire.-
To tell him farther-It behoves him much

§ 299.. Man's Science the Culture of bis
'TIS
IS not the curious, but the pious path,
That leads me to my point: Lorenzo! know, To guard the important, yet-depending, fate

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Of being, brighter than a thoufand funs; One fingle ray of thought outfhines them all.

$303. Man.

THOU moft awful being! and moft vain! Thy will, how frail! how glorious is thy Tho' dread eternity has fown her feeds [power! Of bliss, and woe, in thy defpotic breaft; Tho' heaven and hell depend upon thy thought, A butterfly comes crofs, and both are fled. My folemn night-born adjuration hear; Hear, and I'll raife thy fpirit from the dust.

§304. Death.

Hafte, hafte, sweet ftranger! from the pea fant's cot;
The fhip-boy's hammock, or the foldier's ftraw,
Whence forrow never chas'd thee: with thee bring
Not hideous vifions, as of late; but draughts
Delicious of well-tafted, cordial, reft;.
Man's rich restorative; his balmy bath,
That fupples, lubricates, and keeps in play,
The various movements of this nice machine.
Sleep winds us up for the fucceeding dawn;
Freth we fpin on, till fickness clogs our wheels,
Or death quite breaks the fpring, and motion ends.
When will it end with me?

-Thou only know'ft,

Thon, whofe broad eye the future and the past Joins to the prefent; thou, and thou alone, All-knowing!-all unknown and yet well Thee, tho' invifible, for ever feen! [known! And feen in all the great, and the minute, Each globe above, with its gigantic race, Each flower, cach leaf, with its small people fwarm'd, [declare To the first thought, that afks, from whence? Their common fource, thou fountain running o'er In rivers of communicated joy! Who gav'it us fpecch for far, far humbler themes! Say, by what name thall 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 fout re-¡Heaves underneath the thought, too big for birth!

BY filence, death's peculiar attribute:
By darkness, guilt's inevitable doom:
By darknefs, and by filence, fifters dread!
That draw the curtain round night's ebon throne,
And raife ideas, folemn as the scene:
By night, and all of awful, night prefents
To thought, or fenfe, by thefe her trembling fires,
By thefe bright orators, that prove and praife,
And press thee to revere, the Deity:
Perhaps, too, aid thee, when rever'd a while,
To reach his throne; as ftages of the soul,
Thro' which, at different periods, fhe fhall 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
nown'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 startled eye;
And fhocks her with a hundred centuries
Round death's black banner throng'd, in human
thought:

By thousands, now, refigning their laft breath,
And calling thee-wert thou fo wife to hear:
By tombs o'er tombs arising, human caith:
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 fhews the ghaftly dead,
More ghastly thro' the thick-incumbent gloom:
By vifits (if there are) from darker fcenes,
The gliding spectre ! and the groaning grove!
By groans and graves, and milerics that groan
For the grave's fhelter: by defponding men,
Senfelefs to pains of death, from pangs of guilt:
By guilt's laft audit: by yon moon in blood,
The rocking firmament, the failing stars,
And thunder's last discharge, great nature's knell!
By fecond chaos; and eternal night-
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 fpirits fail!-fleep's dewy wand Has ftrok'd my drooping lids to foft repofe:

$306. Addrefs to the Trinity.

GREAT fyftem of perfections! mighty cause

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 proclaim'd,
Father of matter's temporary lords!
Father of fpirits! nobler offspring! sparks
Of high paternal glory; rich-endow'd
With various meafurcs, and with various modes
Of inftinct, reafon, intuition; beams
More pale, or bright from day divine, that raise
Each over other in fuperior light,
Till the laft ripens into luftre ftrong
Of next approach to Godhead : Father kind
Of intellectual beings! beings bleft
With powers to plcafe thee: not of paffive ply
To laws they know not; beings lodg'd in feats
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 fweet in human ears!
Father of immortality to man !

And thou the next! yet cqual! thou, by whom That blefling was convey'd; far more! was bought;

Ineffable the price! by whom all worlds
Were made; and one redeem'd! illuftrious light
From light illuftrious! thou, whofe regal power,
On more than adamantine bafis fix'd,
O'er more, far more, than diadems and thrones
Inviolably

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