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Manage the fishing, and pursue the course

With more extended nerves, and more continu'd force.
And when declining day for fakes their sky;
When gath'ring clouds speak gloomy winter nigh;
With plenty for the coming feafon blest,
Six folid months (an age) they live, releas'd
From all the labour, procefs, clamour, woe,
Which our fad scenes of daily action know:
They light the fhining lamp, prepare the feaft,
And with full mirth receive the welcome gueft:
Or tell their tender loves (the only care
Which now they fuffer) to the lift'ning fair;
And rais'd in pleasure, or repos'd in case
(Grateful alternates of fubftantial peace)
They blefs the long nocturnal influence shed:
On the crown'd goblet, and the genial bed.

In foreign ifles which our discov❜rers find,
Far from this length of continent disjoin'd,
The rugged bear's, or spotted lynx's brood,
Frighten ihe vallies, and infeft the wood:
The hungry crocodile, and hiffing Snake
Lurk in the troubled ftream and fenny brake:
And man untaught, and rav'nous as the beaft,
Does valley, wood, and brake, and ftream infeft.
Deriv'd these men and animals their birth
From trunk of oak, and pregnant womb of earth?
Whence then the old belief that all began
In Eden's fhade, and one created man ?
Or grant, this progeny was wafted o'er

By coafting boats from next adjacent fhore:

Would those, from whom we will fuppofe they fpring, Slaughter to harmless lands, and poison bring?

Would they on board or bears, or lynxes take,
Feed the fhe-adder, and the brooding Snake?
Or could they think the new discover'd ifle
Pleas'd to receive a pregnant crocodile ?

And fince the favage lineage we must trace
From Noah fav'd, and his diftinguifh'd race;
How should their fathers happen to forget
The arts which Noah taught, the rules he fet,.
To fow the glebe, to plant the generous vine,
And load with grateful flames the holy fhrine?"
While the great fire's unhappy fons are found,
Unprefs'd their vintage, and untill'd their ground.
Struggling o'er dale and hill in quest of food,
And rude of arts, of virtue, and of God.

How fhall we next o'er earth and feas pursue
The varied forms of every thing we view;
That all is chang'd, though all is ftill the fame,
Fluid the parts, yet durable the frame?
Of thofe materials, which have been confeft
The priftine fprings, and parents of the reft,
Each becomes other. Water ftop'd gives birth
To grafs and plants, and thickens into earth:
Diffus'd it rifes in a higher fphere;

Dilates its drops, and foftens 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 woma
Alters its particles; is fire no more;

But lies refplendent duft, and fhining ore;
Or running through the mighty mother's veins,
Changes its fhape; puts off its old remains;

With warry parts its leffen'd force divides;
Flows into waves, and rifes into tides.

Difparted streams shall from their channels fly,
And deep furcharg'd by fandy mountains lie,
Obfcurely fepulchred. By beating rain,
And furious wind down to the diftant plain
The hill, that hides his head above the kies,
Shall fall the plain by flow degrees fhall rife
Higher than erft had flood the fummit-hill:.
For time muft nature's great behests fulfil.

Thus by a length of years, and change of fate, All things are light or heavy, small or great: Thus Jordan's waves fhall future clouds appear; And Egypt's pyramids refine to air.

Thus later age shall ask for Pison's flood:
And travellers enquire, where Babel ftood.
Now where we fee thofe 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 clofe meanders trace:
Let human wit their dubious bound'ries place.
Are all things miracle; or nothing fuch?
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,
Strip'd by December's frost, and white with fnow,
Shou'd push, in spring, ten thousand blooming buds;
And boast returning leaves, and blooming woods?
That each fucceffive night from opening heav'n
The food of angels fhould to man be giv'n;

Is this more ftrange, than that with common bread
Our fainting bodies every day are fed ;

Than that each grain and feed confum'd in earth,
Raises its ftore, and multiplies its birth;
And from the handful which the tiller fows,
The labour'd fields rejoice, and future harvest flows?
Then from whate'er we can to fenfe produce
Common and plain, or wond'rous and abstrufe,
From nature's conftant or eccentric laws,

The thoughtful foul this gen'ral influence draws,
That an effect must presuppose a caufe.
And while he does her upward flight fuftain,
Touching each link of the continu'd chain,
At length fhe is oblig'd and forc'd to fee.
A firft, a fource, a life, a Deity;
What has for ever been, and must for ever be.

This great existence thus by reason found,
Bleft by all pow'r, with all perfection crown'd:
How can we bind or limit his decree,

By what our ear has heard, or eye may fee ?-
Say then is all in heaps of water loft,
Beyond the islands, and the mid-land coaft?
Or has that God, who gave our world its birth,
Sever'd those waters by some other earth,
Countries by future plow-fhares to be torn,
And cities rais'd by nations yet unborn!
Ere the progreffive course of restless age
Performs three thoufand times its annual ftage;
May not our power and learning be fuppreft;
And arts and empire learn to travel weft?

Where, by the ftrength of this Idea charm'd,
Lighten'd with glory, and with rapture warm'd,

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Afcends my foul? what fees fhe white and great
Amidft fubjected feas? an Ifle the feat

Of pow'r and plenty; her imperial throne,
For juftice and for mercy fought and known:
Virtues fublime, great attributes of Heav'n,
From thence to this diftinguish'd nation giv'n:
Yet farther weft the western Ifle extends
Her happy fame; her armed fleet she fends
To climates folded yet from human eye;
And lands, which we imagine wave and fky,
From pole to pole fhe hears her acts refound,
And rules an empire by no ocean bound;
Knows her fhips anchor'd, and her fails unfurl'd
In other Indies, and a fecond world.

Long fhall Britannia (that must be her name)
Be first in conqueft, and prefide in fame:
Long fhall her favour'd monarchy engage
The teeth of envy, and the force of age:
Rever'd and happy the shall long remain,
Of human things leaft changeable, leaft vain.
Yet all must with the gen'ral doom comply;
And this great glorious pow'r, tho' laft, muft 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 fpread,

Now ftreak'd, and glowing with the morning red;
Anon at noon in flaming yellow bright,

And chufing fable for the peaceful night.

Ask reafon now, whence light and fhade were giv'n,

And whence this great variety of heav'n:

Reafon our guide, what can fhe more reply,

Than that the fun illuminates the sky;

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