From all professions careless Airy flies,
"For all professions can't be good," he cries;
And here a fault, and there another views,
And lives unfix'd for want of heart to choose;
So men, who know what some loose girls have done,
For fear of marrying such, will marry none.
The charms of all obsequious Courtly strike;
On each he dotes, on each attends alike;
And thinks, as different countries deck the dame,
The dresses altering, and the sex the same:
So fares Religion, chang'd in outward show,
But, 'tis Religion still where'er we go:
This blindness springs from an excess of light,
And men embrace the wrong to choose the right.
But thou of force must one Religion own,
And only one, and that the right alone;
To find that right one, ask thy reverend sire,
Let his of him, and him of his inquire;
Though Truth and Falsehood seem as twins allied,
There's eldership on Truth's delightful side;
Her seek with heed—who seeks the soundest first,
Is not of no Religion, nor the worst.
T'adore, or scorn an image, or protest,
May all be bad; doubt wisely for the best, 'Twere wrong to sleep, or headlong run astray; It is not wandering, to inquire the way.
On a large mountain, at the basis wide,
Steep to the top, and craggy at the side,
Sits Sacred Truth enthron'd; and he who means
To reach the summit, mounts with weary pains,
Winds round and round, and every turn essays,
Where sudden breaks resist the shorter ways.
Yet labour so, that ere faint age arrive,
Thy searching soul possess her rest alive:
To work by twilight were to work too late,
And age is twilight to the night of fate.
To will alone, is but to mean delay,
To work at present is the use of day.
For man's employ much thought and deed remain,
High thoughts the soul, hard deeds the body strain,
And mysteries ask believing, which to view,
Like the fair Sun, are plain, but dazzling too.
Be Truth, so found, with sacred heed possest,
Not kings have power to tear it from thy breast.
By no blank charters harm they where they hate,
Nor are they vicars, but the hands of fate.
Ah! fool and wretch, who lett'st thy soul be tied
To human laws! or must it so be tried?
Or will it boot thee, at the latest day,
When Judgment sits, and Justice asks thy plea,
That Philip that, or Gregory taught thee this,
Or John or Martin? All may teach amiss:
For every contrary in each extreme
This holds alike, and each may plead the same.
Wouldst thou to power a proper duty show? 'Tis thy first task the bounds of power to know; The bounds once pass'd, it holds the same no more,
Its nature alters, which it own'd before,
Nor were submission humbleness exprest,
But all a low idolatry at best.
Power from above, subordinately spread,
Streams like a fountain from th' eternal head;
There, calm and pure, the living waters flow,
But roars a torrent or a flood below;
Each flower ordain'd the margins to adorn,
Each native beauty, from its roots is torn,
And left on deserts, rocks and sands, are tost,
All the long travel, and in ocean lost.
So fares the soul, which more that power reveres,
Man claims from God, than what in God inheres.
ON BISHOP BURNET'S BEING SET ON FIRE IN HIS CLOSET.
FROM that dire era, bane to Sarum's pride, Which broke his schemes, and laid his friends
He talks and writes that popery will return,
And we, and he, and all his works will burn.
What touch'd himself was almost fairly prov'd:
Oh, far from Britain be the rest remov'd!
For, as of late he meant to bless the age,
With flagrant prefaces of party-rage,
O'erwrought with passion, and the subject's
weight,
Lolling, he nodded in his elbow seat;
Down fell the candle; grease and zeal conspire, Heat meets with heat, and pamphlets burn their
Here crawls a preface on its half-burn'd maggots,
And there an introduction brings its fagots:
Then roars the prophet of the northern nation,
Scorch'd by a flaming speech on moderation.
Unwarn'd by this, go on, the realm to fright,
Thou Briton vaunting in thy second-sight!
In such a ministry you safely tell,
How much you'd suffer, if religion fell.
ON MRS. ARABELLA FERMOR LEAVING
FROM town fair Arabella flies;
The beaux unpowder'd grieve: The rivers play before her eyes; The breezes, softly breathing, rise; The spring begins to live.
Her lovers swore, they must expire,
Yet quickly find their ease;
For as she goes, their flames retire;
Love thrives before a nearer fire,
Esteem by distant rays.
Yet soon the fair one will return,
When Summer quits the plain:
Ye rivers, pour the weeping urn;
Ye breezes, sadly sighing, mourn;
Ye lovers, burn again!
'Tis constancy enough in love
That nature's fairly shown:
To search for more, will fruitless prove;
Romances, and the turtle-dove,
The virtue boast alone.
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