They feel twelve hours that shade, for twelve that
burn, [flame And praise the neighb'ring sun, whose constant Enlightens them with seasons still the same? And may not those, whose distant lot is cast North beyond Tartary's extended waste; Where through the plains of one continual day, Six shining months pursue their even way, And six succeeding urge their dusky flight, Obscur❜d in vapours, and o'erwhelm'd in night: May not, I ask, the natives of these climes (As annals may inform succeeding times) To our quotidian change of heaven prefer Their own vicissitude, and equal share Of day and night, disparted through the year? May they not scorn our sun's repeated race, To narrow bounds prescrib'd, and little space, Hastening from morn, and headlong driven from
Half of our daily toil yet scarcely done?
May they not justly to our climes upbraid
Shortness of night, and penury of shade;
That, e'er our wearied limbs are justly blest
With wholesome sleep, and necessary rest,
Another sun demands return of care,
The remnant toil of yesterday to bear?
Whilst, when the solar beams salute the sight,
Bold and secure in half a year of light,
Uninterrupted voyages they take
To the remotest wood, and farthest lake;
Manage the fishing, and pursue the course
With more extended nerves, and more continu'd
And when declining day forsakes their sky; [force?
When gathering clouds speak gloomy winter nigh;
With plenty for the coming season blest,
Six solid months (an age) they live, releas'd
From all the labour, process, clamour, woe,
Which our sad scenes of daily action know :
They light the shining lamp, prepare the feast,
And with full mirth receive the welcome guest;
Or tell their tender loves (the only care
Which now they suffer) to the listening fair,
And rais'd in pleasure, or repos'd in ease
(Grateful alternates of substantial peace)
They bless the long nocturnal influence shed
On the crown'd goblet, and the genial bed.
In foreign isles which our discoverers find,
Far from this length of continent disjoin'd,
The rugged bears, or spotted lynx's brood
Frighten the valleys, and infest the wood;
The hungry crocodile, and hissing snake
Lurk in the troubled stream and fenny brake:
And man, untaught and ravenous as the beast,
Does valley, wood, and brake, and stream infest.
Deriv'd these men and animals their birth
From trunk of oak, or pregnant womb of earth?
Whence then the old belief that all began
In Eden's shade, and one created man?
Or, grant, this progeny was wafted o'er
By coasting boats from next adjacent shore;
Would those, from whom we will suppose they
Slaughter to harmless lands, and poison bring? Would they on board or bears, or lynxes take, Feed the she-adder, and the brooding snake? Or could they think the new discover'd isle Pleas'd to receive a pregnant crocodile ?
And, since the savage lineage we must trace From Noah sav'd, and his distinguish'd race; How should their fathers happen to forget
The arts which Noah taught, the rules he set,
To sow the glebe, to plant the generous vine,
And load with grateful flames the holy shrine?
While the great sire's unhappy sons are found,
Unpress'd their vintage, and untill'd their ground,
Straggling o'er dale and hill in quest of food,
And rude of arts, of virtue, and of God.
How shall we next o'er earth and seas pursue
The varied forms of every thing we view;
That all is chang'd, though all is still the same,
Fluid the parts, yet durable the frame?
Of those materials which have been confess'd
The pristine springs, and parents of the rest,
Each becomes other. Water stopp'd gives birth
To grass and plants, and thickens in the earth:
Diffus'd, it rises in a higher sphere,
Dilates its drops, and softens into air :
Those finer parts of air again aspire,
Move into warmth, and brighten into fire:
That fire once more by thicker air o'ercome,
And downward forc'd, in earth's capacious womb
Alters its particles; is fire no more;
But lies resplendent dust, and shining ore:
Or, running through the mighty mother's veins,
Changes its shape; puts off its old remains;
With watery parts its lessen'd force divides;
Flows into waves, and rises into tides.
Disparted streams shall from their channels fly,
And deep surcharg'd by sandy mountains lie,
Obscurely sepulchred. By beating rain,
And furious wind, down to the distant plain
The hill, that hides his head above the skies,
Shall fall the plain by slow degrees shall rise
Higher than erst had stood the summit hill:
For time must nature's great behests fulfil.
Thus, by a length of years, and change of fate,
All things are light and heavy, small or great:
Thus Jordan's waves shall future clouds appear,
And Egypt's Pyramids refine to air.
Thus later age shall ask for Pison's flood,
And travellers inquire, where Babel stood.
Now where we see these changes often fall, Sedate we pass them by as natural : Where to our eye more rarely they appear, The pompous name of prodigy they bear: Let active thought these close meanders trace; Let human wit their dubious boundaries place. Are all things miracle; or nothing such? And prove we not too little, or too much? For that a branch cut off, a wither'd rod Should at a word pronounc'd revive and bud,
Is this more strange, than that the mountain's brow,
Stripp'd by December's frost, and white with snow,
Should push in spring, ten thousand thousand buds,
And boast returning leaves, and blooming woods?
That each successive night from opening heaven
The food of angels should to man be given;
Is this more strange, than that with common bread
Our fainting bodies every day are fed?
Than that each grain and seed consum❜d in earth,
Raises its store, and multiplies its birth;
And from the handful which the tiller sows,
The labour'd fields rejoice, and future harvest flows?
Then, from whate'er we can to sense produce
Common and plain, or wondrous and abstruse,
From nature's constant or eccentric laws,
The thoughtful soul this general influence 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,
By what our ear has heard, or eyes may see
Say then is all in heaps of water lost,
Beyond the islands, and the mid-land coast?
Or has that God who gave the world its birth,
Sever'd those waters by some other earth,
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