Written 1688, as an Exercife at St. John's College,

Cambridge.

MAN1 foolish man!

I.

Scarce know'ft thou how thyfelf began;

Scarce haft thou thought enough to prove thou art;
Yet, fteel'd with study'd boldness, thou dar'ft try
To fend thy doubting reason's dazzled eye
Through the myfterious gulph of vaft immenfity.
Much thou canft there difcern, much thence impart,
Vain wretch! fupprefs thy knowing pride;
Mortify thy learned luft.

Vain are thy thoughts, while thou thyself art duft.

II.

Let wit her fails, her oars let wifdom lend;
The helm let politic experience guide:

Ye: ceafe to hope thy fhort-liv'd bark shall ride,
Down fpreading fate's unnavigable tide.
What though ftill it farther tend,

Still 'tis farther from its end;

And, in the bofom of that boundless fea,
Still finds its error lengthen with its way.
III.

With daring pride and infolent delight,

Your doubts refolv'd you boaft, your labours crown'd; And, EYPHKA! your God, forfooth, is found.

Incomprehenfible and infinite.

But is he therefore found? Vain fearcher! no:

Let your imperfect definition show,

That nothing you, the weak definer, know.

IV.

Say, why should the collected main

Itfelf within itfelf contain?

Why to its caverns fhould it fometimes creep,

And, with delighted filence fleep

-On the lov'd bofom of its parent deep?
Why should its numerous waters stay

In comely difcipline, and fair array,

Till, winds and tides exert their high command"!
Then, prompt and ready to obey,

Why do the rifing furges fpread

Their opening ranks o'er earth's fubmiffive head, Marching through different paths to different lands?

V.

Why does the conftant fun

With measur'd steps his radiant journies run?
Why does he order the diurnal hours,

To leave earth's other part, and rife 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 bless the night ?.
Why does each animated star

Love the juft limits of its proper fphere?
Why does each confenting fign

With prudent harmony combine
In turns to move, and subsequent appear,
To gird the globe, and regulate the year?

VI.

Man does with dangerous curiofity

Thefe unfathom'd wonders try: With fancied rules and arbitrary laws

Matter and motion he restrains;

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 shows

That all his predeceffor's rules

Were empty cant, all jargon of the fchools;

That he on t'other's ruin rears his throne;

And shows his friend's mistake, and thence confirms his

own.

VII.

On earth, in air, amidft the feas and skies,'
Mountainous heaps of wonders rise;
Whose towering ftrength will neʼer submit
To reafon's batteries, or the mines of wit :
Yet ftill enquiring, ftill mistaken man,
Each hour repuls'd, each hour dares onward prefs;
And, leveling at God his wandering guess

(That feeble engine of his reasoning war,

Which guides his doubts, and combats his defpair), Laws to his Maker the learn'd wretch can give : Can bound that nature, and prescribe that will, Whofe pregnant word did either ocean 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 fea, a heaven for every star. VIII.

Let cunning earth her fruitful wonders hide;

And only lift thy ftaggering reafon up

To trembling Calvary's aftonifh'd top;

Then mock thy knowledge, and confound thy pride,
Explaining how Perfection fuffer'd pain,
Almighty languish'd, and Eternal dyed :
How by her patient victor death was flain ;
And earth prophan'd, yet blefs'd, with Deicide.

Then

Then down with all thy boafted volumes, down;
Only referve the Sacred One:
Low, reverently low,

Make thy ftubborn knowledge bow;
Weep out thy Reason's and thy body's eyes;
Deject thyfelf, that thou mayst rise;

To look to Heaven, be blind to all below.

IX.

Then Faith, for Reafon's glimmering light, fhall give. Her immortal perspective;

And Grace's prefence Nature's loss 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 mysterious 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.

I.

HEAVY, O Lord, on me thy judgements lie, Accurft I am, while God rejects my cry.

O'erwhelm'd in darkness and despair I groan;

And every place is hell; for God is gone.