Pour
every

luftre on the exalted eye.
A friend, a book, the stealing hours secure,
And mark them down for wisdom. With swift winga.
O'er land and í e the Imagination roams ;
Or Truth divinely breaking on his mind,
Elates his being, and unfolds his powers';;
Or in his breast heroic virtue burns.
The touch of kindred too and love he feels ;
The modeft eye, whose beams on his alone
Ecstatic shine : the little itrong embrace
Of prattling children, twift around his neck,
And emulous to please him, calling forth
The fond parental fout. Nor parpole gay,
Amusement, dance, or fong, he sternly fcorne:
For happiness and true philosophy
Are of the social, ftill, and smiling kind.
This is the life which those who fret in- guilt,
And guilty cities, never knew; the life,
Led by primeval ages, unicorrupt,
When angels dwelt, and God himself, with man!

THOMSON

GENIU S. FROM heav'n my trains begin; from heav'n descendo The flame of genias to the human breaft, And love and beauty, and poetic joy And inspiration. Ere the radiant fun Sprang from the eaft, or ’mid the vault of night The moon fuspended her serener lamp; Ere mountains, woods, or streams adorn'd the globe,

06

Or Wisdom taught the fons of men her lore ;
Then liv'd the Almighty ONE: then deep retird
In his unfathom'd essence, view'd the forms,
The forms eternal of. created things;
The radiant fun, the moon?s nocturnal lamp,
The mountains, woods, and streams, the rolling globe;
And Wisdom's mien celestial. From the first
Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd,
His admiration : till in time complete,
What he admir'd and loved, his vital smile
Unfolded into being.. Hence the breath
Of life informing each organic frame,
Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves ;
Hence light and hade alternate ; warnıth and cold;
And clear automnal skies and vernal show'rs,
And all the fair variety of things.

But not alike to every, mortal eye
Is this great scene unveild. For since the claims
Of social life, to diff'rent labours urge.
The active pow'rs of man ; with wife intent
The hand of Nature on peculiar minds
Imprints a diff'rent bias, and to each
Decrees its province in the common toil.
To fome she taught the fabric of the sphere,

The changeful moon, the circuit of the stars,
The golden zones of heav'n: to some she gave
To weigh the moment of eternal things,
Of Time, and Space, and Fate's unbroken chain,
And Will's quick impulse : others by the hand
She led o'er vales and mountains, to explore
What healing virtuę swells the tender veins
Of herbs.and flow'rs; or what the beams of morn

Draw

Draw forth, distilling from the clifted rind
In balmy tears. But some to higher hopes
Were destin'd; some within a finer mould
She wrought, and temper?d with a purer flame..
To these the Sire Omnipotent unfolds
The world's harmonious volume, there to read
The transcript of himself. On every part
They trace the bright impressions of his hand :
In earth, or air, the meadow's purple stores.
The Moon's mild radiance, or the Virgin's form
Blooming with rofy smiles, they fee pourtray'd
That uncreated beauty, which delights
The mind supreme. They also feel her charms,
Enamour'd they partake th' eternal joy.

AKENSIDE.

CHAP. XXX.

GREATNES S..
SAY,

AY, why was man so eminently rais'd
Amid the vast creation; why ordain'd
Thro' life and death to dart his piercing eye,
With thoughts beyond the limits of his frame;
But that th' Omnipotent might send him forth
In fight of mortal and immortal pow'rs,
As on a boundless theatre, to run
The great career of justice; to exalt
His gen'rous aim to all diviner deeds;
To chace each partial purpose from his breast;
And thro' the mists of passion and of sense,
And thro' the tosling tide of chance and pain,

TO

To hold his course unfault'ring, while the voice
Of Truth and Virtue, up the steep ascent
Of Nature, calls him to his high reward,
Th’applauding smile of Heav'n: Else wherefore burns
In mortal bosoms this unquenched hope,
That breathes from day to day fublimer things,

And mocks pofleffion? Wherefore darts the mind,
With such refifless ardour to embrace
Majestic forms; impatient to be free,
Spurning the gross controul of wilful Might;
Proud of the strong contention of her toils ;
Proud to be daring? Who but rather turns
To Heav'n's broad fire his unconstrained view,
Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame?
Who that, from Alpine heights, his lab'ring eye
Shoots round the wild horizon, to survey
Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave
Thro mountains, plains, thro' empires black with shade,
And continents of sand! will turn his

gaze
To mark the windings of a fcanty rill
That murmurs at his feet? The high-born fout
Disdains to rest her heav'n aspiring wing
Beneath its native quarry. Tir'd of earth
And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft
Thro' fields of air ; pursues the flying storm;
Rides on the volly'd light’ning thro' the heav'ns ;
Or yok'd with whirlwinds and the northern blast,
Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high she foars
The blue profound, and hovering round the fun.
Benolds him pouring the redundant stream
Of light; beholds his unrelenting fway
Bend the relunctant planets to absolve

The

The fatal rounds of Time. Thence far effus'd
She darts her swiftness up the long career
Of devious comets; thro? its burning ligne-
Exalting meafures the perennial wheel
Of Nature, and looks back on all the stars,
Whofe blended light, as with a milky zone,
Invefts the Orient. Now amaz'd she views
Th' empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold,
Beyond this concave heav'n, their calm abode
And fields of radiance, whose unfading light
Has travell’d the profound fix thousand years,
Nor yet arrives in fight of mortal things.
Ev’n on the barriers of the world untir'd
She meditates th' eternal depth below;
Till, half-recoiling, down the headlong steep
She plunges; foon o'erwhelm'd and swallow'd up :
In that immense of being. There her hopes
Reft at the fated goal. For from the birth
Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said,
That not in humble nor in brief delight,
Not in the fading echoes of renown,
Pow'r's purple robes, nor Pleasure's flow'ry lap,
The foul shall find enjoyment: but from these
Turning disdainful to an equal good,
Thro' all th' ascent of things enlarge her view,
Till every bound at length should disappear,
And infinite Perfection close the scene.

AKENSIDE.

CHAP