Why does the constant sun
With measur'd steps his radiant journies run?
Why does he order the diurnal hours,
To leave earth's other part, and rise in ours?
Why does he wake the correspondent moon,
And fill her willing lamp with liquid light,
Commanding her with delegated powers
To beautify the world, and blefs the night?
Why does each animated star
Love the juft limits of its proper sphere ?
Why does each confenting fign
With prudent harmony combine
In turns to move, and subsequent appear,
To gird the globe, and regulate the year?
Man does with dangerous curiofity
Thefe unfathom'd wonders try: With fancied rules and arbitrary laws
Matter and motion he reftrains;
And ftudied lines and fictious circles draws:
Then with imagin'd fovereignty
Lord of his new hypothefis he reigns.
He reigns how long? till fome ufurper rife;
And he too, mighty thoughtful, mighty wife,
Studies new lines, and other circles feigns.
From this laft toil again what knowledge flows?
Juft as much, perhaps, as fhows
That all his predeceffor's rules
Were empty cant, all jargon of the schools;
That he on t'other's ruin rears his throne;
And fhows his friend's mistake, and thence confirms his
On earth, in air, amidft the feas and skies,
Mountainous heaps of wonders rife ;
Whofe towering ftrength will ne'er fubmit
To reafon's batteries, or the mines of wit:
Yet ftill enquiring, still mistaken man,
Each hour repuls'd, each hour dares onward prefs;
And, leveling at God his wandering guefs
(That feeble engine of his reafoning war,
Which guides his doubts, and combats his despair),.
Laws to his Maker the learn'd wretch can give :
Can bound that nature, and prescribe that will,
Whofe pregnant word did either occap fill:
Can tell us whence all beings are, and how they move and live.
Through either ocean, foolish man!
That pregnant word fent forth again,
Might to a world extend each atom there;
For every drop call forth a sea, a heaven for every star. VIII.
Let cunning earth her fruitful wonders hide;
And only lift thy staggering reafon up
To trembling Calvary's aftonish'd top ;
Then mock thy knowledge, and confound thy pride,
Explaining how Perfection fuffer'd pain,
Almighty languifh'd, and Eternal dyed :
How by her patient victor death was flain;
And earth prophan'd, yet bless'd, with Deicide.
Then down with all thy boasted volumes, down
Only referve the Sacred One:
Low, reverently low,
Make thy ftubborn knowledge bow;
Weep out thy Reafon's and thy body's eyes;
Deject thyfelf, that thou mayst rise;
To look to Heaven, be blind to all below.
Then Faith, for Reafon's glimmering light, fhall give Her immortal perspective;
And Grace's prefence Nature's lofs retrieve.:
Then thy enliven'd foul fhall fee,
That all the volumes of Philofophy,
With all their comments, never could invent,
So politic an inftrument,
To reach the Heaven of Heavens, the High Abode,
Where Mofes places his myfterious God,
As was the ladder which old Jacob rear'd,
When light divine had human darkness clear'd;
And his enlarg'd ideas found the road,
Which Faith had dictated, and Angels trod.
Confiderations on Part of the 88th PSALM..
A COLLEGE EXERCISE. 1690.
H
EAVY, O Lord, on me thy judgements lie,
Accurft I am, while God rejects my cry.
O'erwhelm'd in darkness and defpair I groan;
And every place is hell, for God is gone.
O! Lord, arife, and let thy beams controul
Those horrid clouds, that prefs my frighted foul:
Save the poor wanderer from eternal night,
Thou that art the God of Light.
Downward I haften to my deftin'd place;
There none obtain thy aid, or fing thy praife.
Soon I fhall lie in death's deep ocean drown'd:
Is mercy there; or sweet forgiveness found?
O fave me yet, whilst on the brink I stand;
Rebuke the ftorm, and waft my foul to land.
O let her reft beneath thy wing fecure,
Thou that art the God of Power.
Behold the prodigal! to thee I come,
To hail my father, and to feek my home.
Nor refuge could I find, nor friend abroad,
Straying in vice, and deftitute of God.
O let thy terrors, and my anguifh end !
Be thou my refuge and be thou my friend :
Receive the fon thou didft fo long reprove,
Thou that art the God of Love.
To the Rev. Dr. F. TURNER, Bishop of ELY; who had advised a Tranflation of PRUDENTIUS.
F poets, ere they cloath'd their infant thought,
And the rude work to just perfection brought,
Did ftill fome god, or godlike man invoke,
Whofe mighty name their facred filence broke :
Your goodness, Sir, will eafily excufe,
The bold requests of an aspiring Mufe;
Who, with your bleffing would your aid implore,
And in her weakness justify your power.―
From your fair pattern fhe would strive to write,
And with unequal strength pursue your flight;
Yet hopes, the ne'er can err that follows
you, Led by your bleft commands, and great example too. Then smiling and aspiring influence give,
And make the Mufe and her endeavours live;
Claim all her future labours as your due,
Let every fong begin and end with
you: So to the bleft retreat she'll gladly go,
Where the Saints' palm and Mufes' laurel grow;
Where kindly both in glad embrace shall join,
And round your brow their mingled honours twine;
Both to the virtue due, which could excel,
As much in writing, as in living well.-
So fhall the proudly prefs the tuneful string
And mighty things in mighty numbers fing;
Nor doubt to ftrike Prudentius' daring lyre,
And humbly bring the verfe which you infpire.
A PASTORA L. To the Bishop of ELY; on his Departure from Cambridge.
ELL, dear Alexis, tell thy Damon, why
Doft thou in mournful shades obfcurely lie?
|