For what avails to Man this pow'r to roam
Through ages past, and ages yet to come,
T'explore new worlds o'er all th' ætherial way,
Chain'd to a fpot, and living but a day?
Since all must perish in one common grave,
Nor can these long laborious searches save.
Were it not wiser far, fupinely laid,

To sport with Phyllis in the noontide shade?
Or at thy jovial festivals appear,

Great Bacchus, who alone the foul can clear
From all that it has felt, and all that it can fear?

Come on then, let us feast: let Chloe fing,
And foft Neæra touch the trembling string;
Enjoy the present hour, nor feek to know
What good or ill to-morrow may bestow.
But thefe delights foon pall upon the taste;
Let's try then if more ferious cannot last:
Wealth let us heap on wealth, or fame pursue,
Let pow'r and glory be our points in view
In courts, in camps, in fenates let us live,

Our levees crowded like the buzzing hive:
Each weak attempt the fame fad leffon brings,
Alas, what vanity in human things!

"What

What means then shall we try? where hope to find A friendly harbour for the restless mind?

Who ftill, you fee, impatient to obtain
Knowledge immenfe, (fo Nature's laws ordain)
Ev'n now, though fetter'd in corporeal clay,
Climbs step by step the prospect to furvey,
And feeks, unweary'd, Truth's eternal ray.
No fleeting joys she asks, which must depend
On the frail fenfes, and with them must end;
But fuch as fuit her own immortal fame,
Free from all change, eternally the fame.

Take courage then, these joys we shall attain;
Almighty Wisdom never acts in vain ;

Nor fhall the foul, on which it has bestow'd
Such pow'rs, e'er perish, like an earthly clod;
But purg'd at length from foul corruption's stain,
Freed from her prison, and unbound her chain,
She shall her native strength, and native skies regain :
To heav'n an old inhabitant return,

And draw nectareous ftreams from truth's perpetual urn.
Whilft life remains, (if life it can be call'd
T'exift in fleshly bondage thus enthrall'à)
Tir'd with the dull purfuit of worldly things,
The foul scarce wakes, or opes her gladfome wings,

Yet

Yet ftill the godlike exile in difgrace
Retains fome marks of her celestial race;

Elfe whence from Mem'ry's ftore can fhe produce

Such various thoughts, or range them fo for use?
Can matter these contain, difpofe, apply?

Can in her cells fuch mighty treasures lye ?

Or can her native force produce them to the eye?
Whence is this pow'r, this foundress of all arts,
Serving, adorning life, through all its parts,

Which names impos'd, by letters mark'd those names,
Adjusted properly by legal claims,

From woods, and wilds collected rude mankind,
And cities, laws, and governments defign'd?
What can this be, but fome bright ray from heaven,
Some emanation from Omniscience given?
When now the rapid ftream of Eloquence
Bears all before it, paffion, reason, sense,
Can its dread thunder, or its light'ning's force
Derive their effence from a mortal fource?
What think you of the bard's enchanting art,
Which, whether he attempts to warm the heart
With fabled scenes, or charm the ear with rhyme,
Breathes all pathetic, lovely, and sublime?

Whilst things on earth roll round from age to age,
The fame dull farce repeated; on the stage
The poet gives us a creation new,

More pleasing, and more perfect than the true;
The mind, who always to perfection haftes,
Perfection, fuch as here fhe never tastes,
With gratitude accepts the kind deceit,
And thence forefees a fyftem more compleat.
Of those what think you, who the circling race
Of funs, and their revolving planets trace,
And comets journeying through unbounded space?
Say, can you doubt, but that th' all-searching foul,
That now can traverse heaven from pole to pole,
From thence descending visits but this earth,

And shall once more regain the regions of her birth?
Could fhe thus act, unless fome Power unknown,
From matter quite distinct, and all her own,
Supported, and impell'd her? She approves
Self-conscious, and condemns; fhe hates, and loves,
Mourns, and rejoices, hopes, and is afraid,
Without the body's unrequested aid:
Her own internal ftrength her reafon guides,
By this fhe now compares things, now divides;

Truth's

Truth's fcatter'd fragments piece by piece collects,

Rejoins, and thence her edifice erects;
Piles arts on arts, effects to causes ties,
And rears th' afpiring fabric to the skies:
From whence, as on a distant plain below,
She fees from caufes confequences flow,
And the whole chain diftinctly comprehends,
Which from th' Almighty's throne to earth defcends:
And lastly, turning inwardly her eyes,

Perceives how all her own ideas rife,

Contemplates what the is, and whence the came,
And almost comprehends her own amazing frame.
Can mere machines be with fuch pow'rs endued,
Or conscious of those pow'rs, suppose they could?
For body is but a machine alone

Mov'd by external force, and impulse not its own.
Rate not the extenfion of the human mind

By the plebeian standard of mankind,

But by the size of those gigantic few,

Whom Greece and Rome ftill offer to our view;
Or Britain well-deferving equal praise,

Parent of heroes too in better days.

Why should I try her num'rous fons to name
By verfe, law, eloquence confign'd to fame?