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The first up-tracing, from the dreary void,
The chain of causes and effects to HIM,
The world-producing ESSENCE! who alone
Possesses being; while the last receives

1745

The whole magnificence of heaven and earth;
And every beauty, delicate or bold,

Obvious or more remote, with livelier sense,
Diffusive painted on the rapid mind.

1750

TUTOR'D by thee, bence POETRY exalts Her voice to ages; and informs the page With music, image, sentiment, and thought, Never to die! the treasure of mankind! Their highest honour, and their truest joy! WITHOUT thee, what were unenlighten'd Man?

A savage roaming thro' the woods and wilds,

In quest of prey; and with th' unfashion'd fur

Rough clad; devoid of every finer art,
And elegance of life. Nor happiness
Domestic, mix'd of tenderness and care,

1755

1760

Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss,

Nor guardian law, were his; nor various skill
To turn the furrow, or to guide the tool
Mechanic; nor the heaven-conducted prow

1765

Of navigation bold, that fearless braves
The burning line, or dares the wintry pole;
Mother severe of infinite delights!
Nothing, save rapine, indolence, and guile,

1770

And woes on woes, a still-revolving train !
Whose horrid circle had made human life
Than non-existence worse: but, taught by thee,
Ours are the plans of policy, and peace;
To live like brothers, and conjunctive all

1775

Embellish life. While thus laborious crowds

Ply the tough oar, PHILOSOPHY directs

The ruling helm; or like the liberal breath

Of potent Heaven, invisible, the sail

Swells out, and bears th' inferior world along. 1780
NOR to this evanescent speck of earth

Poorly confin'd, the radiant tracts on high
Are her exalted range; intent to gaze
Creation thro' and, from that full complex

Of never-ending wonders, to conceive

1785

Of the SOLE BEING right, who spoke the word,

1790

And Nature mov'd complete. With inward view,
Thence on th' ideal kingdom swift she turns
Her eye; and instant, at her powerful glance,
Th' obedient phantoms vanish or appear;
Compound, divide, and into order fhift,
Each to his rank, from plain perception up
To the fair forms of Fancy's fleeting train :
To reason then, deducing truth from truth;
And notion quite abstract; where first begins 1795
The world of spirits, action all, and life

Unfetter'd, and unmixt. But here the cloud,

I

So wills ETERNAL PROVIDENCE, sits deep.
Enough for us to know that this dark state,

In wayward passions lost, and vain pursuits,

This Infancy of Being, cannot prove

1800

The final issue of the works of God;

By boundless Love and perfect WISDOM form'd,

And ever rising with the rising mind.

AUTUM N.

BOOK THE THIRD.

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