should have avoided their censure. The heat that offended them is the ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country | which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress.
I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. | I will exert my endeavours, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, | what power soever may protect the villany, and whoever may partake of the plunder. |
From heaven my strains begin; | from heaven descends The flame of genius to the human breast, |
And love, and beauty, and poetic joy, And inspiration. Ere the radiant sun
Sprang from the east, or 'mid the vault of night | The moon suspended her serener lamp ; |
Ere mountains, woods, or streams adorn'd the globe, | Or Wisdom taught the sons of men her lore; | Then lived the Almighty ONE; then, deep retired, In his unfathom'd essence, view'd the forms, | The forms eternal of created things; |
The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp, |
The mountains, woods, and streams, the rolling globe, And Wisdom's mien celestial. I
From the first Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd, | His admiration: | till, in time complete, | What he admired 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 shade alternate; | warmth and cold,】 And clear autumnal skies, and vernal showers, And all the fair variety of things.
But not alike to every mortal eye |
Is this great scene unveil'd. For, since the claims Of social life, to different labours urge The active powers of man, with wise intent | The hand of Nature on peculiar minds | Imprints a different bias, and to each Decrees its province in the common toil. | To some she taught the fabric of the sphere, | The changeful moon, the circuit of the stars, | The golden zones of heaven: 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 virtue | swells the tender veins Of herbs and flowers; or what the beams of morn 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 rosy smiles, they see pourtray'd That uncreated beauty which delights
The Mind Supreme. They also feel her charms, Enamour'd; they partake the eternal joy. |
Say, why was man so eminently raised |
Amid the vast creation? | why ordain'd
Thro' life and death to dart his piercing eye,
With thought beyond the limit of his frame, | But that the Omnipotent might send him forth, | In sight of mortal and immortal powers, | As on a boundless theatre, to run
The great career of justice: | to exalt His generous aim to all diviner deeds; | To chase each partial purpose from his breast; | And thro' the mists of passion and of sense, And thro' the tossing tide of chance and pain, | To hold his course unfaltering, while the voice Of Truth and Virtue, | up the steep ascent Of Nature, calls him to his high reward, | The applauding smile of Heaven? |
In mortal bosom this unquenched hope,
That breathes from day to day sublimer things, | And mocks possession? | Wherefore darts the mind, } With such resistless ardour | to embrace Majestic forms, impatient to be free; | Spurning the gross control of wilful might; | Proud of the strong contention of her toils; | Proud to be daring? Who but rather turns To Heaven's broad fire his unconstrained view, I Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame? | Who that, from Alpine heights, his labouring eye Shoots round the wide 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 scanty rill |
That murmurs at his feet? |
The high-born soul | Disdains to rest her heaven aspiring wing || Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth
And this diurnal scene, | she springs aloft Thro' fields of air; pursues the flying storm; | Rides on the volley'd lightning thro' the heavens; | Or, yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast, |
Sweeps the long tract of day.
Then high she soars The blue profound, and hovering round the sun, | Beholds him pouring the redundant stream Of light; beholds his unrelenting sway | Bend the reluctant planets to absolve
The fated rounds of time. Thence far effused | She darts her swiftness up the long career Of devious comets: | thro' its burning signs Exulting measures the perennial wheel
Of Nature, and looks back on all the stars, | Whose blended light, as with a milky zone, | Invests the orient. I
Now amazed she views The empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold, ! Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode; | And fields of radiance, whose unfading light | Has travell'd the profound six thousand years, | Nor yet arrives in sight of mortal things. E'en on the barriers of the world untired She meditates the eternal depth below, I Till, half recoiling, down the headlong steep She plunges; soon o'erwhelm'd and swallowed up | 1 In that immense of being. I
There her hopes Rest at the fatal 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, |
Power's purple robes, nor Pleasure's flowery lap, | The soul should find enjoyment; | but, from these Turning disdainful to an equal good, |
Thro' all the ascent of things enlarge her view, | Till every bound at length should disappear, | And infinite perfection close the scene.
[A CONVERSATIONAL PLEASANTRY.]
Some wit of old | such wits of old there were, | Whose hints show'd meaning, whose allusions care, | By one brave stroke, to mark all human kind, | Call'd clear blank paper ev'ry infant mind; | Where, still, as opening sense her dictates wrote, | Fair Virtue put a seal, or Vice, a blot. | The thought was happy, pertinent, and true;| Methinks a genius might the plan pursue.
I (can you pardon my presumption ?), | I, No wit, no genius, yet, for once, will try. | Various the paper, various wants produce ; | The wants of fashion | elegance, and use. I Men are as various; and if right I scan, Each sort of paper represents some man. | ¡
Pray note the fop, half powder and half lace; | Nice, as a band-box were his dwelling place; | He's the gilt-paper, which apart you store, | And lock from vulgar hands in the scrutoire." Mechanics, servants, farmers, and so forth, | Are copy-paper, of inferior worth; |
Less priz'd, more useful, | for your desk decreed; | Free to all pens, | and prompt at ev'ry need. |
The wretch, whom avarice bids to pinch and spare, Starve, cheat, and pilfer, to enrich an heir, |
Is coarse brown paper, such as pedlars choose | 1 To wrap up wares, which better men will use. | Take next the miser's contrast, who destroys | Health, fame, and fortune, in a round of joys; |
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