From Nature's constant or eccentric laws,
The thoughtful soul this general inference draws,
That an effect must presuppose a cause:
And, while she does her upward flight sustain,
Touching each link of the continued chain,
At length she is oblig'd and forc'd to see
A First, a Source, a Life, a Deity,
What has for ever been, and must for ever be.
This great Existence, thus by reason found,
Blest by all power, with all perfection crown'd;
How can we bind or limit his decree,

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By what our ear has heard, or eye may see?
Say then, is all in heaps of water lost,
Beyond the islands, and the midland coast?
Or has that God, who gave our world its birth,
Sever'd those waters by some other earth,
Countries by future plowshares to be torn,
And cities rais'd by nations yet unborn!
Ere the progressive course of restless age
Performs three thousand times its annual stage,
May not our power and learning be supprest,
And arts and empire learn to travel west?

"Where, by the strength of this idea charm'd;
Lighten'd with glory, and with rapture warm'd,
Ascends my soul? what sees she white and great
Amidst subjected seas? An isle, the seat
Of power and plenty; her imperial throne,
For justice and for mercy sought and known;
Virtues sublime, great attributes of Heaven,
From thence to this distinguish'd nation given.
Yet farther west the western Isle extends
Her happy fame; her armed fleet she sends
To climates folded yet from human eye,
And lands, which we imagine wave and sky.
From pole to pole she hears her acts resound,
And rules an empire by no ocean bound;
Knows her ships anchor'd, and her sails unfurl'd,
In other Indies, and a second world.

"Long shall Britannia (that must be her name) Be first in conquest, and preside in fame : Long shall her favor'd monarchy engage The teeth of Envy, and the force of Age: Rever'd and happy she shall long remain, Of human things least changeable, least vain. Yet all must with the general doom comply, And this great glorious power, tho' last, must die. "Now let us leave this Earth, and lift our eye To the large convex of yon azure sky: Behold it like an ample curtain spread, Now streak'd and glowing with the morning red; Anon at noon in flaming yellow bright, And choosing sable for the peaceful night. Ask Reason now, whence light and shade were given, And whence this great variety of Heaven. Reason, our guide, what can she more reply, Than that the Sun illuminates the sky; Than that night rises from his absent ray, And his returning lustre kindles day?

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But we expect the morning-red in vain: "Tis hid in vapors, or obscur'd by rain. The noontide yellow we in vain require: 'Tis black in storm, or red in lightning fire. Pitchy and dark the night sometimes appears, Friend to our woe, and parent of our fears: Our joy and wonder sometimes she excites, With stars unnumber'd, and eternal lights. Send forth, ye wise, send forth your laboring

thought; Let it return with empty notions fraught,

Of airy columns every moment broke,

Of circling whirlpools, and of spheres of smoke:
Yet this solution but once more affords
New change of terms, and scaffolding of words:
In other garb my question I receive,
And take the doubt the very same I gave.

"Lo! as a giant strong, the lusty Sun
Multiplied rounds in one great round does run;
Twofold his course, yet constant his career,
Changing the day, and finishing the year.
Again, when his descending orb retires,
And Earth perceives the absence of his fires;
The Moon affords us her alternate ray,
And with kind beams distributes fainter day,
Yet keeps the stages of her monthly race;
Various her beams, and changeable her face.
Each planet, shining in his proper sphere,
Does with just speed his radiant voyage steer;
Each sees his lamp with different lustre crown'd;
Each knows his course with different periods bound;
And, in his passage through the liquid space,
Nor hastens, nor retards, his neighbor's race.
Now, shine these planets with substantial rays?
Does innate lustre gild their measur'd days?
Or do they (as your schemes, I think, have shown)
Dart furtive beams and glory not their own,

All servants to that source of light, the Sun ?
Again I see ten thousand thousand stars,
Nor cast in lines, in circles, nor in squares,

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(Poor rules, with which our bounded mind is fill'd,
When we would plant, or cultivate, or build,)
But shining with such vast, such various light,
As speaks the hand, that form'd them, infinite.
How mean the order and perfection sought,
In the best product of the human thought,
Compar'd to the great harmony that reigns
In what the Spirit of the world ordains!

"Now if the Sun to Earth transmits his ray,
Yet does not scorch us with too fierce a day!
How small a portion of his power is given
To orbs more distant, and remoter Heaven?
And of those stars, which our imperfect eye
Has doom'd and fix'd to one eternal sky,
Each, by a native stock of honor great,
May dart strong influence, and diffuse kind heat,
(Itself a sun) and with transmissive light
Enliven worlds denied to human sight.
Around the circles of their ambient skies
New moons may grow or wane, may set or rise,
And other stars may to those suns be earths,
Give their own elements their proper births,
Divide their climes, or elevate their pole,
See their lands flourish, and their oceans roll:
Yet these great orbs, thus radically bright,
Primitive founts, and origins of light,
May each to other (as their different sphere
Makes or their distance or their light appear)
Be seen a nobler or inferior star,

And, in that space which we call air and sky, Myriads of earths, and moons, and suns, may lie Unmeasur'd and unknown by human eye.

"In vain we measure this amazing sphere, And find and fix its centre here or there; Whilst its circumference, scorning to be brought Ev'n into fancied space, eludes our vanquish'd thought.

"Where then are all the radiant monsters driven, With which your guesses fill'd the frighten'd Heaven?

Where will their fictious images remain?
In paper-schemes, and the Chaldean's brain.
"This problem yet, this offspring of a guess,
Let us for once a child of truth confess,
That these fair stars, these objects of delight
And terror to our searching dazzled sight,
Are worlds immense, unnumber'd, infinite.
But do these worlds display their beams, or guide
Their orbs, to serve thy use, to please thy pride?
Thyself but dust, thy stature but a span,
A moment thy duration, foolish man!
As well may the minutest emmet say,
That Caucasus was rais'd to pave his way;
'The snail, that Lebanon's extended wood
Was destin'd only for his walk and food;
The vilest cockle, gaping on the coast
That rounds the ample seas, as well may boast,
The craggy rock projects above the sky,
That he in safety at its foot may lie;
And the whole ocean's confluent waters swell, [shell.
Only to quench his thirst, or move and blanch his

"A higher flight the venturous goddess tries,
Leaving material worlds and local skies;
Inquires what are the beings, where the space,
That form'd and held the angels' ancient race.
For rebel Lucifer with Michael fought,
(I offer only what tradition taught,)
Embattled cherub against cherub rose,
Did shield to shield, and power to power oppose;
Heaven rung with triumph, Hell was fill'd with

woes.

What were these forms of which your volumes tell,
How some fought great, and others recreant fell?
These bound to bear an everlasting load,
Durance of chain, and banishment of God;
By fatal turns their wretched strength to tire,
To swim in sulphurous lakes, or land on solid fire:
While those, exalted to primeval light,
Excess of blessing, and supreme delight,
Only perceive some little pause of joys

In those great moments when their God employs
Their ministry, to pour his threaten'd hate
On the proud king, or the rebellious state;
Or to reverse Jehovah's high command,
And speak the thunder falling from his hand,
When to his duty the proud king returns,
And the rebellious state in ashes mourns;
How can good angels be in Heaven confin'd,
Or view that presence, which no space can bind?
Is God above, beneath, or yon, or here?
He who made all, is he not everywhere?
Oh, how can wicked angels find a night
So dark, to hide them from that piercing light,
Which form'd the eye, and gave the power of sight?
"What mean I now of angel, when I hear
Firm body, spirit pure, or fluid air?

Spirits, to action spiritual confin'd,
Friends to our thought, and kindred to our mind,
Should only act and prompt us from within,
Nor by external eye be ever seen.

Was it not, therefore, to our fathers known,
That these had appetite, and limb, and bone?
Else how could Abraham wash their wearied feet?
Or Sarah please their taste with savory meat?
Whence should they fear? or why did Lot engage
To save their bodies from abusive rage?
And how could Jacob, in a real fight,
Feel or resist the wrestling angel's might?
How could a form in strength with matter try?
Or how a spirit touch a mortal's thigh?

How comes it, since with them we jointly share
The great effect of one Creator's care,
That, whilst our bodies sicken and decay,
Theirs are for ever healthy, young, and gay?
Why, whilst we struggle in this vale beneath
With want and sorrow, with disease and death,
Do they, more bless'd, perpetual life employ
On songs of pleasure, and in scenes of joy?

"Now when my mind has all this world survey'd, And found, that nothing by itself was made; When thought has rais'd itself, by just degrees, From valleys crown'd with flowers, and hills with trees;

From smoking mineral, and from rising streams;
From fattening Nilus, or victorious Thames;
From all the living, that four-footed move
Along the shore, the meadow, or the grove;
From all that can with fins or feathers fly
Through the aerial or the watery sky;
From the poor reptile with a reasoning soul,
That miserable master of the whole;
From this great object of the body's eye,
This fair half-round, this ample azure sky,
Terribly large, and wonderfully bright,
With stars unnumber'd, and unmeasur'd light;
From essences unseen, celestial names,
Enlightening spirits, ministerial flames,
Angels, dominions, potentates, and thrones,
All that in each degree the name of creature owns:
Lift we our reason to that sovereign Cause,
Who blest the whole with life, and bounded it with

laws;

Who forth from nothing call'd this comely frame,
His will and act, his word and work the same;
To whom a thousand years are but a day;
Who bade the Light her genial beams display,
And set the Moon, and taught the Sun its way;
Who, waking Time, his creature, from the source
Primeval, order'd his predestin'd course;
Himself, as in the hollow of his hand,
Holding, obedient to his high command,
The deep abyss, the long-continued store,
Where months, and days, and hours, and minutes
pour

Their floating parts, and thenceforth are no more:
This Alpha and Omega, first and last,
Who like the potter in a mould has cast
The world's great frame, commanding it to be
Such as the eyes of Sense and Reason see;
Yet, if he wills, may change or spoil the whole;
May take yon beauteous, mystic, starry roll,
And burn it like an useless parchment scroll;
May from its basis in one moment pour
This melted earth-

Like liquid metal, and like burning ore;
Who, sole in power, at the beginning said,
Let Sea, and Air, and Earth, and Heaven be made;
And it was so;-and, when he shall ordain
In other sort, has but to speak again,

And they shall be no more of this great theme,
This glorious, hollow'd, everlasting name,
This GOD, I would discourse."-

The learned elders sat appall'd, amaz'd, And each with mutual look on other gaz'd;

Nor speech they meditate, nor answer frame,
(Too plain, alas! their silence spake their shame)
Till one, in whom an outward mien appear'd,
And turn superior to the vulgar herd,
Began: That human learning's furthest reach
Was but to note the doctrine I could teach;
That mine to speak, and theirs was to obey;
For I in knowledge more than power did sway:
And the astonish'd world in me beheld
Moses eclips'd, and Jesse's son excell'd.
Humble a second bow'd, and took the word;
Foresaw my name by future age ador'd:
"O live," said he, "thou wisest of the wise;
As none has equall'd, none shall ever rise
Excelling thee."-

Parent of wicked, bane of honest deeds,
Pernicious Flattery! thy malignant seeds,
In an ill hour, and by a fatal hand,
Sadly diffus'd o'er Virtue's gleby land,
With rising pride amidst the corn appear,
And choke the hopes and harvest of the year.

And now the whole perplex'd ignoble crowd,
Mute to my questions, in my praises loud,
Echo'd the word: whence things arose, or how
They thus exist, the aptest nothing know:
What yet is not, but is ordain'd to be,
All veil of doubt apart, the dullest see!

My prophets and my sophists finish'd here
The civil efforts of the verbal war:
Not so my rabbins and logicians yield;
Retiring, still they combat; from the field
Of open arms unwilling they depart,
And skulk behind the subterfuge of art.
To speak one thing, mix'd dialects they join,
Divide the simple, and the plain define :
Fix fancied laws, and form imagin'd rules,
Terms of their art, and jargon of their schools,
Ill-grounded maxims, by false gloss enlarg'd,
And captious science against reason charg'd.

Soon their crude notions with each other fought;
The adverse sect denied what this had taught;
And he at length the amplest triumph gain'd,
Who contradicted what the last maintain'd.

O wretched impotence of human mind! We, erring still, excuse for error find, And darkling grope, not knowing we are blind. Vain man! since first thy blushing sire essay'd His folly with connected leaves to shade, How does the crime of thy resembling race With like attempt that pristine error trace! Too plain thy nakedness of soul espied, Why dost thou strive the conscious shame to hide By masks of eloquence and veils of pride?

With outward smiles their flattery I receiv'd, Own'd my sick mind by their discourse reliev'd; But bent, and inward to myself, again Perplex'd, these matters I revolv'd in vain. My search still tir'd, my labor still renew'd, At length I ignorance and knowledge view'd, Impartial; both in equal balance laid, [weigh'd. Light flew the knowing scale, the doubtful heavy Forc'd by reflective reason, I confess, That human science is uncertain guess. Alas! we grasp at clouds, and beat the air, Vexing that spirit we intend to clear. Can thought beyond the bounds of matter climb? Or who shall tell me what is space or time? In vain we lift up our presumptuous eyes To what our Maker to their ken denies : The searcher follows fast; the object faster flies.