Why does each animated Star

Love the juft Limits of its proper Sphere?
Why does each confenting Sign

With prudent Harmony combine

In Turns to move, and fubfequent appear,
To gird the Globe, and regulate the Year?
VI.

Man does with dangerous Curiofity

Thefe unfathom'd Wonders try:
With fancy'd Rules and Arbitrary Laws
Matter and Motion he restrains,

And study'd Lines and fictious Circles draws;
Then with imagin'd Sovereignty

Lord of his new Hypothefis he reigns.

He reigns: How long? 'till fome Ufurper rife, And he too, mighty Thoughtful, mighty Wife, Studies new Lines, and other Circles feigns. From this last Toil again what Knowledge flows? Juft as much, perhaps, as shows,

That all his Predeceffors Rules

Were empty Cant, all Jargon of the Schools, That he on t'other's Ruin rears his Throne; [own. And shows hisFriend's Miftake, and thence confirms his

On

VII.

On Earth, in Air, amidst the Seas and Skies,

Mountainous Heaps of Wonders rife

Whose tow'ring Strength will ne'er submit To Reason's Batteries, or the Mines of Wit: Yet ftill enquiring, still mistaking Man, Each Hour repuls'd,each Hour dare onward press, And levelling at God his wandring Guess, (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, Whofe pregnant World did either Ocean fill, Can tell us whence all Beings are, and how they move,

and live.

Thro' either Ocean, foolish Man!

That pregnant Word fent forth again

Might to a Word extend each Atom there;

For every Drop call forth a Sea, a Heav'n for every Star.

VIII.

Let cunning Earth her fruitful Wonders hide,
And only lift thy ftaggering Reafon up

To trembling Cavalry's aftonifh'd Top;

(Pride, Then mock thy Knowledge, and confound thy

Sustaining how Perfection fuffer'd Pain,

Almighty languifh'd, and Eternal dy'd:
How by her Patient Victor Death was flain,

And Earth prophan'd yet blefs'd with Deicide.
Then down with all thy boafted Volumes, down,
Only referve the Sacred One;

Low, reverently low,

Make thy stubborn Knowledge bow;
Weep out thy Reason's, and thy Body's Eyes,
Deject thy felf, that Thou may'ft rife;
To look to Heav'n be blind to all below.

IX.

Then Faith, for Reafon's glimmering Light, thall give

Her Immortal Perspective;

And Grace's Prefence Nature's Lofs retrieve:

Then thy enliven'd Soul fhall fee,

That all the Volumes of Philofophy,

With all their Comments never cou'd invent

So politick an Inftrument,

To reach the Heav'n of Heav'ns, the high Abode, Where Mofes places his Myfterious God,

As

As was that Ladder which old Jacob rear'd,

When Light Divine had human Darkness clear'd, And his enlarg❜d Ideas found the Road,

Which Faith had dictated, and Angels trod.

TO THE

Countess of EXETER

Playing on the Lute.

WHAT

HAT Charms you have, from what high
Race you sprung,

Have been the pleafing Subjects of my Song;
Unskill'd and young, yet fomething still I writ,
Of Ca'ndifh Beauty, join'd to Cecil's Wit.

But when you please to fhow the lab'ring Mufe
What greater Theam your Mufick can produce;
My babling Praises I repeat no more,

But hear, rejoice, ftand filent, and adore.

The Perfians thus, first gazing on the Sun,

Admir'd how high 'twas plac'd, how bright it shone;

But,as his Pow'r was known,their Thoughtswere rais'd, And foon they worship'd, what at first they prais❜d,

Eliza's Glory lives in Spencer's Song,

And Cowley's Verse keeps Fair Orinda young;

That as in Birth, in Beauty

excell,

The Muse might dictate, and the Poet tell;
Your Art no other Art can speak, and You,
To fhew how well you play, muft play anew:
Your Mufick's Pow'r your Mufick must disclose,
For what Light is, 'tis only Light that shows.

Strange Force of Harmony, that thus controuls Our Thoughts, and turns and fanctifies our Souls: While with its utmoft Art your Sex cou'd move

Our Wonder only, or at beft our Love:

You far above Both thefe your God did place,

That your high Pow'r might worldly Thoughts

destroy, [raife, That with your Numbers you our Zeal might And, like himself, communicate your Joy.

When