Opprobrious residence he finds them all.
Propense his heart to idols, he is held
In silly dotage on created things,
Careless of their Creator. And that low
And sordid gravitation of his powers
To a vile clod so draws him, with such
force
589
Resistless, from the centre he should seek,
That he at last forgets it. All his hopes
Tend downwards; his ambition is to sink,
To reach a depth profounder still, and still
Profounder, in the fathomless abyss
Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death.
But ere he gain the comfortless repose
He seeks, and acquiescence of his soul
In heaven-renouncing exile, he endures.
What does he not? from lusts opposed in
vain,

And self-reproaching conscience. He fore

Perversely, which of late she so condemned; With shallow shifts and old devices, worn And tattered in the service of debauch, Covering his shame from his offended sight. "Hath God indeed given appetites to man, And stored the earth so plenteously with

means

To gratify the hunger of his wish,

And doth He reprobate, and will He damn, The use of His own bounty? making first So frail a kind, and then enacting laws 640 So strict, that less than perfect must despair?

Falsehood! which whoso but suspects of truth

Dishonours God, and makes a slave of man.
Do they themselves, who undertake for hire
'The teacher's office, and dispense at large
Their weekly dole of edifying strains,
Attend to their own music? Have they faith
In what, with such solemnity of tone
And gesture, they propound to our belief?
Nay, conduct hath the loudest tongue.
The voice

650

Is but an instrument on which the priest May play what tune he pleases. In the deed, The unequivocal authentic deed,

We find sound argument, we read the heart." Such reasonings (if that name must needs belong

660

To excuses in which reason has no part)
Serve to compose a spirit well inclined
To live on terms of amity with vice,
Aud sin without disturbance. Often urged,
(As often as, libidinous discourse
Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes
Of theological and grave import,)
They gain at last his unreserved assent;
Till hardened his heart's temper in the forge
Of lust, and on the anvil of despair,
He slights the strokes of conscience. Noth-
ing moves,

Or nothing much, his constancy in ill; Vain tampering has but fostered his disease; 'Tis desperate, and he sleeps the sleep of

Grace makes the slave a freeman. 'Tis a change

That turns to ridicule the turgid speech
And stately tone of moralists, who boast, 690
As if, like him of fabulous renown,
They had indeed ability to smooth
The shag of savage nature, and were each
An Orpheus, and omnipotent in song.
But transformation of apostate man
From fool to wise, from earthly to divine,
Is work for Him that made him. He alone,
And He by means in philosophic eyes
Trivial and worthy of disdain, achieves
The wonder; humanizing what is brute 700
In the lost kind, extracting from the lips
Of asps their venom, overpowering strength
By weakness, and hostility by love.

Patriots have toiled, and in their country's cause

Bled nobly; and their deeds, as they de

710

Proud of the treasure, marches with it down
To latest times; and Sculpture, in her turn,
Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass
To guard them, and to immortalize her trust.
But fairer wreaths are due, though never
paid,

To those who, posted at the shrine of truth,
Have fallen in her defence. A patriot's blood,
Well spent in such a strife, may earn indeed,
And for a time ensure to his loved land,
The sweets of liberty and equal laws;
But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize,
And win it with more pain. Their blood is
shed

Calls the delightful scenery all his own.
His are the mountains, and the valleys his,
And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,
But who, with filial coufidence inspired,
Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say-"My Father made them
all!

Are they not his by a peculiar right,
And by an emphasis of interest his,
Whose eye they fill with tears of holy
joy,

750

Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind

With worthy thoughts of that unwearied

And in the school of sacred wisdom taught To read His wonders, in whose thought the world,

Fair as it is, existed ere it was.

Not for its own sake merely, but for His 800 Much more who fashioned it, he gives it praise;

Praise that from earth resulting, as it ought, To earth's acknowledged Sovereign, finds

at once

Its only just proprietor in Him.

The soul that sees Him, or receives sublimed

New faculties, or learns at least to employ More worthily the powers she owned before, Discerns in all things what, with stupid gaze Of ignorauce, till then she overlooked, 809 A ray of heavenly light gilding all forms Terrestrial, in the vast and the minute, The unambiguous footsteps of the God Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing. And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds.

Much conversant with Heaven, she often holds

With those fair ministers of light to man That fill the skies nightly with silent pomp, Sweet conference; enquires what strains were they

With which heaven rang, when every star, in haste

820

To gratulate the new-created earth,
Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of God
Shouted for joy. - "Tell me, ye shining

hosts

Ordained to guide the embodied spirit

home,

840

From toilsome life to never-ending rest.
Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desires
That give assurance of their own success,
And that, infused from Heaven, must
thither tend."

So reads he nature whom the lamp of truth Illuminates. Thy lamp, mysterious Word! Which whoso sees, no longer wanders lost, With intellects bemazed in endless doubt, But runs the road of wisdom. Thou hast built,

With means that were not till by thee employed,

850 Worlds that had never been hadst Thou in strength

Been less, or less benevolent than strong. They are thy witnesses, who speak thy power And goodness infinite, but speak in ears That hear not or receive not their report. In vain thy creatures testify of thee

Till Thou proclaim thyself. Theirs is indeed

A teaching voice; but 'tis the praise of thine That whom it teaches it makes prompt to learn, 859

And with the boon gives talents for its use. Till Thou art heard, imaginations vain Possess the heart, and fables false as hell, Yet deemed oracular, lure down to death The uninformed and heedless souls of men. We give to Chance, blind Chance, ourselves as blind,

The glory of thy work, which yet appears Perfect and unimpeachable of blame, Challenging human scrutiny, and proved Then skilful most when most severely judged.

But Chance is not; or is not where Thou reignest:

870

Thy Providence forbids that fickle power (If power she be that works but to con

found)

To mix the wild vagaries with thy laws.
Yet thus we dote, refusing, while we can
Instruction, and inventing to ourselves
Gods such as guilt makes welcome; gods
that sleep,

Or disregard our follies, or that sit
Amused spectators of this bustling stage.
Thee we reject, unable to abide

Thy purity, till pure as Thou art pure, 880 Made such by thee, we love thee for that

cause

For which we shunned and hated thee before.
Then we are free: then liberty like day
Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from
heaven

Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.
A voice is heard that mortal ears hear not
Till Thou hast touched them; 'tis the voice
of song,

A loud Hosanna sent from all thy works, 888
Which he that hears it with a shout repeats,
And adds his rapture to the general praise.
In that blest moment, Nature throwing
wide

Her veil opaque, discloses with a smile
The Author of her beauties, who, retired
Behind his own creation, works unseen
By the impure, and hears his power de-
nied.

Thou art the source and centre of all minds,

Their only point of rest, Eternal Word! From thee departing, they are lost and

Then over all, that he might be
Equipped from top to toe,

His long red cloak, well brushed and neat,
He manfully did throw.

Now see him mounted once again
Upon his nimble steed,
Full slowly pacing o'er the stones,

With caution and good heed.

But finding soon a smoother road
Beneath his well-shod feet,
The snorting beast began to trot,
Which galled him in his seat.

So, "Fair and softly," John he cried,
But John he cried in vain;
That trot became a gallop soon,
In spite of curb and rein.

So stooping down, as needs he must
Who cannot sit upright,

He grasped the mane with both his hands, And eke with all his might.

His horse, who never in that sort
Had handled been before,
What thing upon his back had got
Did wonder more and more.