It is not from his form, in which we trace
Strength join'd with beauty, dignity with grace,
That man, the master of this globe, derives
His right of empire over all that lives.
That form, indeed, th' affociate of a mind
Vaft in its pow'rs, ethereal in its kind,
That form, the labour of almighty skill,
Fram'd for the service of a free-born will,
Afferts precedence, and befpeaks control,
But borrows all its grandeur from the foul.
Here is the state, the splendour, and the throne,
An intellectual kingdom, all her own.
For her the mem'ry fills her ample page
With truths pour'd down from ev'ry distant age; For her amaffes an unbounded store,
The wisdom of great nations, now no more:
Though laden, not incumber'd with her spoil;
Laborious, yet unconscious of her toil;
When copiously supplied, then most enlarg'd;
Still to be fed, and not to be furcharg'd.
For her the fancy, roving unconfin'd,
The prefent mufe of ev'ry penfive mind,
Works magic wonders, adds a brighter hus
To nature's fcenes than nature ever knew.
At her command winds rife and waters roar,
Again the lays them flumb'ring on the shore;
With flow'r and fruit the wilderness supplies,
Or bids the rocks in ruder pomp arise.
For her the judgment, umpire in the strife
That grace and nature have to wage through life,
Quick-fighted arbiter of good and ill,
Appointed fage preceptor to the will,
Condemns, approves, and with a faithful voice
Guides the decifion of a doubtful choice.
Why did the fiat of a God give birth
fair fun and his attendant earth?
And, when defcending he refigns the skies,
Why takes the gentler moon her turn to rise,
Whom ocean feels through all his countless waves,
And owns her pow'r on ev'ry fhore he laves?
Why do the seasons still enrich the year,
Fruitful and young as in their first career?
Spring hangs her infant bloffoms on the trees;
Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze;
Summer in hafte the thriving charge receives
Beneath the fhade of her expanded leaves,
Till autumn's fiercer heats and plenteous dews
Dye them at laft in all their glowing hues.-
'Twere wild profufion all, and bootless wafte,
Pow'r mifemploy'd, munificence misplac'd,
Had not its author dignified the plan,
And crown'd it with the majefty of man.
Thus form'd, thus plac'd, intelligent, and taught,
Look where he will, the wonders God has wrought,
The wildeft fcorner of his Maker's laws
Finds in a fober moment time to pause,
To prefs th' important queftion on his heart,
"Why form'd at all, and wherefore as thou art?"
If man be what he seems-this hour a slave,
The next mere duft and ashes in the grave;
Endu'd with reafon only to defcry
His crimes and follies with an aching eye;
With paffions, juft that he may prove, with pain,
The force he spends against their fury vain;
And if, foon after having burnt, by turns,
With ev'ry luft with which frail nature burns,
His being end where death dissolves the bond,
The tomb take all, and all be blank beyond—
Then he, of all that nature has brought forth,
Stands felf-impeach'd the creature of least worth,
And, useless while he lives, and when he dies,
Brings into doubt the wisdom of the skies.
Truths that the learn'd purfue with eager thought Are not important always as dear bought, Proving at laft, though told in pompous ftrains, A childish waste of philosophic pains;
But truths on which depend our main concern,
That 'tis our fhame and mis'ry not to learn,
Shine by the fide of ev'ry path we tread
With fuch a luftre, he that runs may read.
"Tis true that, if to trifle life away
Down to the fun-set of their latest day,
Then perish on futurity's wide fhore
Like fleeting exhalations, found no more,
Were all that Heav'n requir'd of human kind, And all the plan their deftiny defign'd,
What none could rev'rence all might justly blame,
And man would breathe but for his Maker's fhame.
But reason heard, and nature well perus'd,
At once the dreaming mind is difabus'd.
If all we find poffeffing earth, fea, air,
Reflect his attributes who plac'd them there,'
Fulfil the purpofe, and appear defign'd
Proofs of the wisdom of th' all-seeing mind,
'Tis plain the creature, whom he chose t'inveft
With kingfhip and dominion o'er the reft,
Receiv'd his nobler nature, and was made
Fit for the pow'r in which he stands array'd,
That firft or laft, hereafter if not here,
He too might make his author's wifdom clear,
Praise him on earth, or, obftinately dumb,
Suffer his juftice in a world to come.
This once believ'd, 'twere logic mifapplied
To prove a confequence by none denied,
That we are bound to caft the minds of youth
Betimes into the mould of heav'nly truth,
That, taught of God, they may indeed be wife,
Nor, ignorantly wand'ring, mifs the fkies.
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