ON EXOD. III. 14.-I AM THAT I AM. AN ODE. WRITTEN IN 1688, AS AN LAERCISE AT ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. AN! foolish man! Scarce know'st thou how thyself began ; Scarce hast thou thought enough to prove thou art; Yet steel'd with studied boldness, thou dar'st try To send thy doubting reason's dazzled eye Through the mysterious gulf of vast immensity. Much thou canst there discern, much thence impart. Vain wretch! suppress thy knowing pride; Mortify thy learned lust! Vain are thy thoughts, while thou thyself art dust. Let Wit her sails, her oars let Wisdom lend; Yet cease to hope thy short-liv'd bark shall ride Still 'tis farther from its end; And, in the bosom of that boundless sea, With daring pride and insolent delight Your doubts resolv'd you boast, your labours crown'd; But is he therefore found? vain searcher! no: That nothing you, the weak definer, know. Say, why should the collected main Why to its caverns should it sometimes creep, In comely discipline, and fair array, Till winds and tides exert their high command? Then prompt and ready to obey, Why do the rising surges spread 21 36 Their op'ning ranks o'er earth's submissive head, Marching through different paths to different lands? Why does the constant sun With measur'd steps his radiant journeys run? To leave earth's other part, and rise in ours? 40 Commanding her with delegated powers Love the just limits of its proper sphere? With prudent harmony combine In turns to move, and subsequent appear, Man does with dangerous curiosity And studied lines and fictious circles draws: Lord of his new hypothesis he reigns. He reigns: how long? till some usurper rise; And he too, mighty thoughtful, mighty wise, 50 Studies new lines, and other circles feigns. From this last toil again what knowledge flows? Were empty cant, all jargon of the schools; That he on t'other's ruin rears his throne; And shows his friend's mistake, and thence confirms his own. On earth, in air, amidst the seas and skies, Whose towering strength will ne'er submit 70 (That feeble engine of his reasoning war, Which guides his doubts, and combats his despair) Laws to his Maker the learn'd wretch can give : Can bound that nature, and prescribe that will, Whose pregnant word did either ocean fill: Can tell us whence all beings are, and how they move and live. Through either ocean, foolish man! That pregnant word sent forth again, 80 Might to a world extend each atom there; For every drop call forth a sea, a heaven for every star. Let cunning Earth her fruitful wonders hide; And only lift thy staggering reason up 90 To trembling Calvary's astonish'd top; Then mock thy knowledge, and confound thy pride, Explaining how Perfection suffer'd pain, Almighty languish'd, and Eternal died: How by her patient victor Death was slain; And earth profan'd, yet bless'd with deicide. Then down with all thy boasted volumes, down ; Only reserve the sacred one: Low, reverently low, Make thy stubborn knowledge bow; Then Faith, for Reason's glimmering light, shall give And Grace's presence Nature's loss retrieve: 101 That all the volumes of philosophy, With all their comments, never could invent To reach the Heaven of Heavens, the high abode, As was that ladder which old Jacob rear'd, 110 TO THE COUNTESS OF EXETER,* PLAYING ON THE LUTE. HAT charms you have, from what high race you sprung, Have been the pleasing subjects of my song: Unskill'd and young, yet something still I writ, Of Ca'ndish beauty join'd to Cecil's wit. But when you please to show the lab'ring Muse What greater theme your music can produce, My babbling praises I repeat no more, * Anne, daughter of William Earl of Devonshire, and sister to the first Duke of Devonshire, widow also to Charles Lord Rich, was married to John Cecil Lord Burleigh, afterwards Earl of Exeter; she attended her lord upon all his travels, and was present when he died, August 29, 1700, at a village called Issy, near Paris, and surviving him till the 18th of June, 1703, the remains of both were deposited at St. Martin's, Stamford, where a magnificent monument, brought among other curious works from Rome, is erected to their memory. |