So the Self-moving Spring has power to chufe,
Thefe methods to reject, and thofe to use ;
She can defign and profecute an end,
Exert her vigour, or her act fufpend;
Free from the infults of all foreign power,
She does her godlike liberty fecure;
Her right and high prerogative maintains,
Impatient of the yoke, and fcorns coercive chains
She can her airy train of forms difband,
And makes new levees at her own command;
O'er her ideas fovereign fhe prefides,
At pleasure these unites, and thofe divides.
The ready phantoms at her nod advance,
And form the bufy intellectual dance;
While her fair scenes to vary, or supply,
She fingles out fit images, that lie
In memory's records, which faithful hold
Objects immenfe in fecret marks inroll'd;
The fleeping forms at her command awake,
And now return, and now their cells forfake,
On active Fancy's crowded theatre,
As the directs, they rife or disappear.
Objects, which through the fenfes make their way,
And juft impresions to the foul convey,
Give her occafion firft herfelf to move,
And to exert her hatred, or her love;
Ideas, which to fome impulfive feem,
Act not upon the mind, but that on them.
When the to foreign objects audience gives,
Their ftrokes and motions in the brain perceives,
As thefe perceptions, we ideas name,
From her own power and active nature came,
So when difcern'd by intellectual light,
Herself her various paffions does excite,
To ill her hate, to good her appetite;
To fhun the first, the latter to procure,
She chufes means by free elective power;
She can their various habitudes furvey,
Debate their fitnefs, and their merit weigh,
And, while the means fuggefted she compares,
She to the rivals this or that prefers.
By her fuperior power the reafoning foul
Can each reluctant appetite control;
Can every paflion rule, and every sense,
Change Nature's course, and with her laws difpenfe;
Our breathing to prevent, fhe can arrest
Th' extenfion, or contraction, of the breaft;
When pain'd with hunger, we can food refuse,
And wholesome abstinence, or famine chuse.
Can the wild beaft his inftinct disobey,
And from his jaws release the captive prey?
Or hungry herds on verdant pastures lie,
Mindlefs to eat, and refolute to die?
With heat expiring, can the panting hart
Patient of thirst from the cool ftream depart?
Can brutes at will imprison'd breath detain ?
Torment prefer to ease, and life disdain?
From all reftraint. from all compulfion free,
Unforc'd, and unneceffitated, we
Ourfelves determine, and our freedom prove,
When this we fly, and to that object move.
Had not the mind a power to will and chufe,
One object to embrace, and one refuse;
Could the not act, or not her act fufpend,
As it obftructed, or advanc'd her end;
Virtue and Vice were names without a caufe,
This would not Hate deserve, nor that Applaufe; 490
Justice in vain has high tribunals rear'd,
Whom can her fentence punish, whom reward?
If impious children should their father kill,
Can they be wicked, when they cannot will
When only caufe foreign and unfeen
Strike with refiftlefs force the fprings within,
Whence in the engine man all motion must begin?
Are vapours guilty, which the vintage blast?
Are ftorms profcrib'd, which lay the forest waste?
Why lies the wretch then tortur'd on the wheel,
If forc'd to treafon, or compell'd to steal ?
Why does the warrior, by aufpicious fate
With laurels crown'd, and clad in robes of state,
In triumph ride amidst the gazing throng
Deaf with applaufes, and the Poet's fong;
If the victorious, but the brute machine
Did only wreaths inevitable win,
And no wife choice or vigilance has shown,
Mov'd by a fatal impulfe, not his own?
Should trains of atoms human fenfe impel,
Though not fo fierce, fo ftrong, fo vifible,
As foldiers arin'd, and do not men arrest
With clubs upheld and daggers at their breast;
Yet means compulfive are not plainer shown,
When ruffians drive, or conquerors drag us on;
As much we're forc'd, when by an atom 's fway
Control'd, as when a tyrant we obey;
And, by whatever cause constrain'd to act,
We merit no reward, no guilt contract.
Our mind of rulers feels a conscious awe,
Reveres their juftice, and regards their law.
She rectitude and deviation knows,
That vice from one, from one that virtue flows;
Of thefe fhe feels unlike effects within,
From virtue pleasure, and remorfe from fin;
Hopes of a juft reward by that are fed,
By this of wrath vindictive fecret dread.
The mind, which thus can rules of duty learn,
Can right from wrong, and good from ill, difcern,
Which, the sharp ftroke of justice to prevent,
Can fhame exprefs, can grieve, reflect, repent;
From fate or chance her rife can never draw,
Thofe caufes know not virtue, vice, or law.
She can a life fucceeding this conceive,
Of blifs or woe an endless ftate believe.
Dreading the juft and universal doom,
And aw'd by fears of punishment to come,
By hopes excited of a glorious crown,
And certain pleasures in a world unknown;
She can the fond defires of fense restrain,
Renounce delight, and chufe distress and pain;
Can rush on danger, can deftruction face,
Joyful relinquith life, and death embrace;
She to afflicted virtue can adhere,
And chains and want to profperous guilt prefer; 545
Unmov'd, these wild tempeftuous feats furvey,
And view ferene this reftlefs rolling fea.
In vain the monfters, which the coaft infeft,
Spend all their rage to interrupt her reft;
Her charming fong the fyren fings in vain, .
She can the tuneful hypocrite difdain;
Fix'd and unchang'd the faithlefs world behold,
Deaf to its threats, and to its favour cold.
Sages remark, we labour not to show
The will is free, but that the man is fo:
For what enlighten'd reafoner can declare
What human will and understanding are?
What fcience from thofe objects can we frame
Of which we little know, befides the name?
The learned, who with anatomic art
Diffect the mind, and thinking fubftance part,
And various powers and faculties affert,
Perhaps by fuch abstraction of the mind
Divide the things, that are in nature join'd.
What mafters of the fchools can make it clear
Thofe faculties, which two to them appear,
Are not refiding in the foul the fame,
And not distinct, but by a different name?
Thus has the Mufe purfued her hardy theme,
And fung the wonders of this artful frame.
Ere yet one fubterranean arch was made,
One cavern vaulted, or one girder laid;
Ere the high rocks did o'er the shores arife,
Or fnowy mountains tower'd amidst the skies;
Before the watery troops fil'd off from land,
And lay amidst the rocks entrench'd in fand;
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