There marble's various colour'd veins are spread;
Here of bitumen unctuons stores are bred.
What skill on all its surface is bestow'd,
To make the Earth for man a fit abode!
The upper moulds, with active spirits stor'd,
And rich in verdant progeny, afford
The flowery pasture, and the shady wood,
To men their physic, and to beasts their food.
Proceed yet farther, and a prospect take
Of the swift stream, and of the standing lake.
Had not the deep been form'd, that might contain,
All the collected treasures of the main,
The Earth had still o'erwhelm'd with water stood,
To man an uninhabitable flood.

Yet had not part as kindly staid behind,
In the wide cisterns of the lakes confin'd;
Did not the springs and rivers drench the land,
Our globe would grow a wilderness of sand;
The plants and groves, the tame and savage beast,
And man, their lord, would die with drought op-
Now, as you see, the floating element, [prest.
Part loose in streams, part in the ocean pent,
So wisely is dispos'd, as may conduce
To man's delight, or necessary use.

See how the mountains in the midst divide
The noblest regions, that from either side
The streams, which to the hills their currents owe,
May every way along the valley flow,

And verdant wealth on all the soil bestow!
So Atlas, and the mountains of the Moon,
From north to south, in lofty ridges run
Through Afric realms, whence falling waters lave
The interior regions with a winding wave.
They various rivers give to various soil,
Niger to Guinea, and to Egypt Nile.

So from the towering Alps, on different sides,
Dissolving snows descend in numerous tides,
Which in the vale beneath their parties join
To form the Rhone, the Danube, and the Rhine.
So Caucasus, aspiring Taurus so,

And fam'd Imaüs, ever white with snow,
Through Eastern climes their lofty lines extend,
And this and that way ample currents send.
A thousand rivers make their crooked way,
And disembogue their floods into the sea;
Whence should they ne'er by secret roads retire,
And to the hills, from whence they came, aspire;
They by their constant streams would so increase
The watery stores, and raise so high the seas,
That the wide hollow would not long contain
Th' unequal treasures of the swelling main;
Scorning the mounds which now its tide with-
stand,

The sea would pass the shores, and drown the land.
Tell, by what paths, what subterranean ways,
Back to the fountain's head the sea conveys
The refluent rivers, and the land repays?
Tell, what superiour, what controlling cause,
Makes waters, in contempt of Nature's laws,
Climb up, and gain th' aspiring mountain's height,
Swift and forgetful of their native weight?
What happy works, what engines under ground,
What instruments of curious art are found,
Which must with everlasting labour play,
Back to their springs the rivers to convey,
And keep their correspondence with the sea?
Perhaps you'll say, "their streams the rivers
In part, to rain, in part, to melting snow;
And that th' attracted watery vapours rise
From lakes and seas, and fill the lower skies:

[owe,

These, when condens'd, the airy region pours
On the dry Earth in rain, or gentle showers;
Th' insinuating drops sink through the sand,
And pass the porous strainers of the land;
Which fresh supplies of watery riches bring
To every river's head, to each exhausted spring;
The streams are thus, their losses to repair,
Back to their source transmitted to the air;
The waters still their circling course maintain,
Flow down in rivers, and return in rain;
And on the soil with heat immoderate dry'd,
To which the rain's pure treasures are deny'd,
The mountains more sublime in ether rise,
Transfix the clouds, and tower amidst the skies;
The snowy fleeces, which their heads involve,
Still stay in part, and still in part dissolve;
Torrents and loud impetuous cataracts,
Through roads abrupt, and rude unfashion'd tracts,
Roll down the lofty mountain's channell❜d sides,
And to the vale convey their foaming tides;
At length, to make their various currents one,
The congregated floods together run;
These confluent streams make some great river's
By stores still melting and descending fed; [head,
Thus, from th' aspiring mountains of the Moon,
Dissolving treasures rush in torrents down,
Which pass the sun-burnt realms and sandy soil,
And bless th' Egyptian nation with their Nile;
Then whosoe'er his secret rise would know,
Must climb the hills, and trace his head in snow;
And through the Rhine, the Danube, and the
All ample rivers of our milder zone, [Rhone,
While they advance along the flats and plains,
Spread by the showers augmented, and the rains;
Yet these their source and first beginning owe
To stores, that from the Alpine mountains flow;
Hence, when the snows in winter cease to weep,
And undissolv'd their flaky texture keep,
The banks with ease their humble streams contain,
Which swell in summer, and those banks disdain."
Be this account allow'd, say, do not here
Th' impressions of consummate art appear!

In every spacious realm a rising ground,
Observers tell, is in the middle found;
That all the streams, which flow from either side,
May through the valleys unobstructed glide.
What various kingdoms does the Danube lave,
Before the Fuxine sea receives its wave!
How many nations of the sun-burnt soil
Fam'd Niger bless! how many drink the Nile!
Through what vast regions near the rising Sun
Does Indus, Ganges, and Hydaspes, run!
What happy empires, wide Euphrates, teem,
And pregnant grow by thy prolific stream!
How many spacious countries does the Rhine,
In winding banks, and mazes serpentine,
Traverse, before he splits in Belgia's plain,
And, lost in sand, creeps to the German main!
Floods which through Indian realms their course
That Mexico enrich, and wash Peru, [pursue,
With their unwearied streams yet farther pass,
Before they reach the sea, and end their race,
And since the rivers and the floods demand,
For their descent, a prone and sinking land,
Does not this due declivity declare

A wise Director's providential care?

See, how the streams advancing to the main, Through crooked channels, draw their crystal traia While lingering thus they in meanders glide, They scatter verdant life on either side.

The valleys smile, and with their flowery face,
And wealthy births, confess the flood's embrace.
But this great blessing would in part be lost,
Nor would the meads their blooming plenty boast,
Did uncheck'd rivers draw their fluid train
In lines direct, and rapid seek the main."

The sea does next demand our view; and there
No less the marks of perfect skill appear.
When first the atoms to the congress came,
And by their concourse form'd the mighty frame,
What did the liquid to th' assembly call,
To give their aid to form the ponderous ball?
First, tell us, why did any come? next, why
In such a disproportion to the dry?
Why were the moist in number so outdone,
That to a thousand dry, they are but one?
When they united, and together clung,
When undistinguish'd in one heap they hung,
How was the union broke, the knot unty'd ?
What did th' entangled elements divide?
Why did the moist disjoin'd, without respect
To their less weight, the lowest seat elect?
Could they dispense to lie below the land,
With Nature's law, and unrepeal'd command;
Which gives to lighter things the greatest height,
And seats inferior to superior weight?
Did they foresee, unless they lay so low,
The restless flood the land would overflow,
By which the delug'd Earth would useless grow?
What, but a conscious Agent, could provide
The spacious hollow, where the waves reside?
Where, barr'd with rock, and fenc'd with hills,
the deep

Does in its womb the floating treasures keep;
And all the raging regiments restrain
In stated limits, that the swelling main
May not in triumph o'er the frontier ride,
And through the land licentious spread its tide?
What other cause the frame could so contrive,
That, when tempestuous winds the ocean drive,
They cannot break the tie, nor disunite
The waves, which roll connected in their flight?
Their bands, though slack, no dissolution fear,
Th' unsever'd parts the greatest pressure bear,
Though loose, and fit to flow, they still cohere.
This apt, this wise contexture of the sea,
Makes it the ships, driv'n by the winds, obey;
Whence hardy merchants sail from shore to shore,
Bring Indian spices home, and Guinea's ore.
When you with liquid stores have fill'd the
deep,

What does the flood from putrefaction keep?
Should it lie stagnant in its ample seat,

The Sun would through it spread destructive heat.
The wise Contriver, on his end intent,
Careful this fatal errour to prevent,
And keep the waters from corruption free,
Mixt them with salt, and season'd all the sea,
What other cause could this effect produce?
The brackish tincture through the main diffuse?
You, who to solar beams this task assign,
To scald the waves, and turn the tide to brine,
Reflect, that all the fluid stores, which sleep
In the remotest caverns of the deep,
Have of the briny force a greater share
Than those above, that meet the ambient air.
Others, but oh! how much in vain! erect
Mountains of salt, the ocean to infect.
Who, vers'd in Nature, ca scribe the land,
Or fix the place on which those mountains stand?

Why have those rocks so long unwasted stood,
Since, lavish of their stock, they through the flood
Have, ages past, their melting crystal spread,
And with their spoils the liquid regions fed?

Yet more, the wise Contriver did provide,
To keep the sea from stagnating, the tide;
Which now we see advance, and now subside.
If you exclude this great Directing Mind,
Declare what cause of this effect, you find.
You who this globe round its own axis drive,
From that rotation this event derive:
You say,
"the sea, which with unequal pace
Attends the Earth in this its rapid race,
Does with its waves fall backward to the west,
And, thence repell'd, advances to the east:
While this revolving motion does endure,

The deep must reel, and rush from shore to shore:
Thus to the setting, and the rising Sun,
Alternate tides in stated order run."
Th' experiments you bring us, to explain
This notion, are impertinent and vain :
An orb or ball round its own axis whirl,
Will not the motion to a distance hurl,
Whatever dust or sand you on it place,
And drops of water from its convex face?
If this rotation does the seas affect,
The rapid motion rather would eject
The stores the low capacious caves contain,
And from its ample bason cast the main;
Aloft in air would make the ocean fly,
And dash its scatter'd waves against the sky.

If you, to solve th' appearance, have recourse
To the bright Sun's or Moon's impulsive force;
Do you, who call for demonstration, tell
How distant orbs th' obedient flood impel?
This strong mysterious influence explain,
By which, to swell the waves, they press the
main.

But if you choose magnetic power, and say
"Those bodies by attraction move the sea;"
Till with new light you make this secret known,
And tell us how 'tis by attraction done,
You leave the mind in darkness still involv'd,
Nor have you, like philosophers, resolv'd
The doubts, which we to reasoning men refer,
But with a cant of words abuse the ear.

Those who assert the lunar orb presides
O'er humid bolies, and the ocean guides;
Whose waves obsequious ebb, or swelling run,
With the declining or increasing Moon;
With reason seem her empire to maintain,
As mistress of the rivers and the main.
Perhaps her active influences cause
Th' alternate flood, and give the billow laws;
The waters seem her orders to obey,
And ebb and flow, determin'd by her sway.

Grant that the deep this foreign sovereign owns
That, moy'd by her, it this and that way runs.
Say, by what force she makes the ocean swell;
Does she attract the waters, or impel?
How does she rule the rolling waves, and guide,
By fixt and constant laws, the restless tide?
Why does she dart her force to that degree,
As gives so just a motion to the sea,
That it should flow no more, no more retire,
Than Nature's various useful ends require?
A Mind Supreme you therefore must approve,
Whose high command caus'd matter first to more:
Who still preserves its course, and, with respect
To his wise ends, all motions does direct.

He to the silver Moon this province gave,
And fixt her empire o'er the briny wave;
Endued her with such just degrees of power,
As might his aims and wise designs procure,
Might agitate and work the troubled deep,
And rolling waters from corruption keep,
But not impel them o'er their bounds of sand,
Nor force the wasteful deluge o'er the land,

CREATION,

BOOK II.

THE ARGUMENT,

THE introduction. The numerous and important blessings of religion, The existence of a God demonstrated, from the wisdom and design which | appear in the motions of the heavenly orbs; but more particularly in the solar system. I. In the situation of the Sun, and its due distance from the Earth. The fatal consequences of its having been placed otherwise than it is. II. In its diurnal motion, whence the change of day and night | proceeds: then in its annual motion, whence arise the different degrees of heat and cold. The confinement of the Sun between the tropics, not to be accounted for by any philosophical hypothesis. The difficulties of the same, if the Earth moves, and the Sun rests. The spring of the Sun's motion, not to be explained by any irreligious philosophy. The contemplation of the solar light, and the uses made of it for the end proposed. The appearances in the solar systemn ot to be solved, but by asserting a God. The systems of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler, considered. The solar system des ribed, and compared with the fixed stars, which are supposed centres of the like systems. Reflections on that comparison. The hypothesis of Epicurus, in relation to the motion of the Sun. Wisdom and design discovered in the air; in its useful structure, its elasticity, its various meteors; the wind, the rain, the thunder, and lightning. A short contemplation of the vegetable kind.

We grant, a train of mischiefs oft proceeds
From superstitious rites and penal creeds;
But view Religion in her native charms,
Dispersing blessings with indulgent arms;
From her fair eyes what heavenly rays are spread!
What blooming joys smile round her blissful head'
Offspring divine! by thee we bless the Cause,
Who form'd the world, and rules it by his laws;
His independent being we adore,

Extol his goodness, and revere his power;
Our wondering eyes his high perfections view,
The lofty contemplation we pursue,
Till, ravish'd, we the great idea find,
Shining in bright impressions on our mind

Inspir'd by thee, guest of celestial race, With generous love, we human-kind embrace; We provocations unprovok'd receive, Patient of wrong, and easy to forgive; Protect the orphan, plead the widow's cause, Nor deviate from the line unerring Justice draws, Thy lustre, blest effulgence, can dispel The clouds of errour, and the gloom of Hell; Can to the soul impart ethereal light, Give life divine, and intellectual sight. Before our ravish'd eyes thy beams display The opening scenes of bliss, and endless day; By which incited, we with ardour rise, Scorn this inferior ball, and claim the skies.

Tyrants to thee a change of nature owe, Dismiss their tortures, and indulgent grow. Ambitious conquerors, in their mad career, Check'd by thy voice, lay down the sword and

spear.

The boldest champions of impiety,
Scornful of Heaven, subdu'd or won by thee,
Before thy hallow'd altars bend the knee;
Loose wits, made wise, a public good become,
The sons of pride an humble mien assume;
The profligate in morals grows severe,
Defrauders just, and sycophants sincere.

With amorous language, and bewitching smiles,
Attractive airs, and all the lover's wiles,
The fair Egyptian Jacob's son caress'd,
Hung on his neck, and languish'd on his breast;
Courted with freedom now the beauteous slave,
Now flattering sued, and threatening now did rave;
But not the various eloquence of love,
Nor power enrag'd, could his fix'd virtue move.
See, aw'd by Heaven, the blooming Hebrew flics
Her artful tongue, and more persuasive eyes;
And, springing from her disappointed arms,
Prefers a dungeon to forbidden charms.

Stedfast in virtue's and his country's cause,
Th' illustrious founder of the Jewish laws,
Who, taught by Heaven, at genuine greatness
aim'd,

With worthy pride imperial blood disclaim'd;
Th' alluring hopes of Pharaoh's throne resign'd,
And the vain pleasures of a court declin'd;
Pleas'd with obscure recess, to ease the pains
Of Jacob's race, and break their servile chains;
Such generous minds are form'd where blest Re-
ligion reigns.

Ye friends of Epicurus, look around,

All nature view with marks of prudence crown'd: Mind the wise ends, which proper means promote; See how the different parts for different use are

wrought;

Contemplate all this conduct and design,
Then own and praise th' Artificer Divine.

Regard the orb sublime, in ether borne,
Which the blue regions of the skies adorn;
Compar'd with whose extent this low-hung ball,
Shrunk to a point, is despicably small:
Their number, counting those th' unaided eye
Can see, or by invented tubes descry,
With those which in the adverse hemisphere,
Or near each pole, to lands remote appear;
The widest stretch of human thought exceeds,
And in th'attentive mind amazement breeds;
While these so numerous, and so vast of size,
In various ways roll through the trackless skies;
Through crossing roads, perplext and intricate,
Perform their stages, and their rounds repeat;

None by collision from their course are driven,
No shocks, no conflicts, break the peace of Heaven;
No shatter'd globes, no glowing fragments fall,
No worlds o'erturn'd, crush this terrestrial ball;
In beauteous order all the orbs advance,
And in their mazy complicated dance,
Not in one part of all the pathless sky,
Did any ever halt, or step awry.

When twice ten thousand men depriv'd of sight,
To some wide vale direct their footsteps right;
Shall there a various figur'd dance essay,
Move by just steps, and measur'd time obey;
Shall cross each other with unerring feet,
Never mistake their place, and never meet:
Nor shall, in many years, the least decline
From the same ground, and the same winding line:
Then may in various roads the orbs above,
Without a guide, in perfect concord move;
Then beauty, order, and harmonious laws,
May not require a wise Directing Cause.

See how th' indulgent father of the day At such due distance does his beams display, That he his heat may give to sea and land, In just degrees, as all their wants demand! But had he, in th' unmeasurable space Of ether, chosen a remoter place; For instance, pleas'd with that superior seat Where Saturn, or where Jove, their course repeat; Or had he happen'd farther yet to lie, In the more distant quarters of the sky; How sad, how wild, how exquisite a scene Of desolation, had this planet been! A wasteful, cold, untrodden wilderness, The gloomy haunts of Horrour and Distress: Instead of woods, which crown the mountain's head, And the gay honours of the verdant mead; Instead of golden fruits, the garden's pride, By genial show'rs and solar heat supply'd; Icelandian cold, and Hyperborean snows, Eternal frost, with ice that never flows, Unsufferable winter had defac'd

Earth's blooming charms, and made a barren

waste:

No mild indulgent gales would gently bear,
On their soft wings, sweet vapours through the air,
The balmy spoils of plants and fragrant flowers,
Of aromatic groves, and myrtle bowers,
Whose odoriferous exhalations fan

The flame of life, and recreate beast and man;
But storms, ev'n worse than vex Norwegian waves,
That breed in Scythia's hills, or Lapland caves,
Would through this bleak terrestrial desert blow,
Glaze it with ice, or whelm it o'er with show.
Or had the Sun, by like unhappy fate,
Elected to the Earth a nearer seat,
His beams had cleft the hill, the valley dry'd,
Exhal'd the lake, and drain'd the briny tide:
A heat superior far to that which broils
Bornéo, or Sumatra, Indian isles;
Than that which ripens Guinea's golden ore,
Or burns the Lybian hind, or tans the Moor;
Had laid all Nature waste, and turn'd the land
To hills of cinders, and to vales of sand!
No beasts could then have rang'd the leafless wood,
Nor finny nations cut the boiling flood:
Birds had not beat the airy road, the swains
No flocks had tended on the russet plains.
Thus, had the Sun's bright orb been more remote,
The cold had kill'd; and, if more near, the
drought.

Next see, Lucretian sages, see the Sun
His course diurnal and his annual run.
How in his glorious race he moves along,
Gay as a bridegroom, as a giant strong:
How his unvary'd labour he repeats,
Returns at morning, and at eve retreats;
And, by the distribution of his light,

Now gives to man the day, and now the night;
Night, when the drowsy swain and traveller cease
Their daily toil, and soothe their limbs with ease;
When all the weary sons of woe restrain
Their yielding cares with slumber's silken chain,
Solace sad grief, and lull reluctant pain.

And while the Sun, ne'er covetous of rest,
Flies with such rapid speed from east to west,
In tracks oblique he through the zodiac rolls,
Between the northern and the southern poles:
From which revolving progress through the skies,
The needful seasons of the year arise.
And as he now advances, now retreats,
Whence winter colds proceed, and summer heats,
He qualifies and cheers the air by turns,
Which winter freezes, and which summer burns.
Thus his kind rays the two extremes reduce,
And keep a temper fit for Nature's use.
The frost and drought, by this alternate power,
The Earth's prolific energy restore.

The lives of man and beast demand the change;
Hence fowls the air, and fish the ocean, range.
Of heat and cold this just successive reign,
Which does the balance of the year maintain,
The gardener's hope and farmer's patience props,
Gives vernal verdure, and autumnal crops.

Should but the Sun his duty once forget,
Nor from the north, nor from the south, retreat:
Should not the beams revive, and soothe the soil,
Mellow the furrow for the ploughman's toil;
A teeming vigour should they not diffuse,
Ferment the glebe, and genial spirits loose,
Which lay imprison'd in the stiffen'd ground,
Congeal'd with cold, in frosty fetters bound;
Unfruitful Earth her wretched fate would mourn,
No grass would clothe the plains, no fruit the trees
adorn.

But did the lingering orb much longer stay, Unmindful of its course, and crooked way; The Earth, of dews defrauded, would detest The fatal favour of th' effulgent guest; To distant worlds implore him to repair, And free from noxious beams the sultry air; His rays, productive now of wealth and joy, Would then the pasture and the hills annoy, And with too great indulgence would destroy: In vain the labouring hind would till the land, Turn up the glebe, and sow his seed in sand; The meads would crack, in want of binding dews, The channels would th' exhaling river lose : While in their haunts wild beasts expiring lie, The panting herds would on the pasture die. But now the Sun at neither tropic stays A longer time than his alternate rays In such proportion heat and lustre give, As do not ruin Nature, but revive.

When the bright orb, to solace southern seats, Inverts his course, and from the north retreats; As he advances, his indulgent beam

Makes the glad Earth with fresh conceptions

teem;

Pestores their leafy honours to the woods, Flowers to the banks, and freedom to the floods;

Unbinds the turf, exhilarates the plain,

Brings back his labour, and recruits the swain;
Through all the soil a genial ferment spreads,
Regenerates the plants, and new adorns the meads.
The birds on branches perch'd, or on the wing,
At Nature's verdant restoration sing,
And with melodious lay salute the Spring.
The heats of summer benefits produce
Of equal number, and of equal use :

The sprouting births, and beauteous vernal bloom,
By warmer rays to bright perfection come;
Th' austere and ponderous juices they sublime,
Make them ascend the porous soil, and climb
The orange-tree, the citron, and the lime;
Which, drunk in plenty by the thirsty root,
Break forth in painted flowers, and golden fruit:
They explicate the leaves, and ripen food
For the silk-labourers of the mulberry wood;
And the sweet liquor on the cane bestow,
From which prepar'd the luscious sugars flow;
With generous juice enrich the spreading vine,
And in the grape digest the sprightly wine.
The fragrant trees, which grow by Indian floods,
And in Arabia's aromatic woods,

Owe all their spices to the summer's heat,
Their gummy tears, and odoriferous sweat.
Now the bright Sun compacts the precious stone,
Imparting radiant lustre, like his own:
He tinctures rubies with their rosy hue,
And on the sapphire spreads a heavenly blue;
For the proud monarch's dazzling crown prepares
Rich orient pearl, and adamantine stars.

Next Autumn, when the Sun's withdrawing ray
The night enlarges, and contracts the day,
To crown his labour, to the farmer yields
The yellow treasures of his fruitful fields;
Ripens the harvest for the crooked steel
(While bending stalks the rural weapon feel);
The fragrant fruit for the nice palate fits,
And to the press the swelling grape submits.
At length, forsaken by the solar rays,
See, drooping Nature sickens and decays;
While Winter all his snowy stores displays,
In hoary triumph unmolested reigns

O'er barren hills, and bleak untrodden plains; Hardens the glebe, the shady grove deforins, Fetters the floods, and shakes the air with storms. Now active spirits are restrain'd with cold,

And prisons, cramp'd with ice, the genial captives hold.

The meads their flowery pride no longer wear,
And trees extend their naked arms in air;
The frozen furrow, and the fallow field,
Nor to the spade, nor to the harrow, yield.

Yet, in their turn, the snows and frosts produce
Various effects, and of important use.
Th' intemperate heats of summer are controll'd
By winter's rigour, and inclement cold,
Which checks contagious spawn, and noxious

steams,

The fatal otispring of immoderate beams;
Th exhausted air with vital nitre fills,
Infection stops, and deaths in embryo kills;
Constrains the giebe, keeps back the hurtful weed,
And fits the furrow for the vernal seed.
The spirits now, as said, imprison'd stay,
Which else, by warmer san-beams drawn away,
Would roam in air, and dissipated stray.
Thus are the winter frosts to Nature kind,
Frosts, which reduce excessive heats, and bind

Prolific ferments in resistless chains,
Whence parent Earth her fruitfulness maintains
To compass all these happy ends, the Sun,
In winding tracts, does through the zodiac run.
You, who so much are vers'd in causes, tell,
What from the tropics can the Sun repel?
What vigorous arm, what repercussive blow,
Bandies the mighty globe still to and fro,
Yet with such conduct, such unerring art,
He never did the trackless road desert?
Why does he never, in his spiral race,
The tropics or the polar circles pass?
What gulphs, what mounds, what terrours, ean
control

The rushing orb, and make him backward roll?
Why should he halt at either station? why
Not forward run in unobstructive sky?
Can he not pass an astronomic line?
Or does he dread th' imaginary sign?
That he should ne'er advance to either pole,
Nor farther yet in liquid ether roll,
Till he has gain'd some unfrequented place,
Lost to the world in vast unmeasur'd space?
If to the old you the new schools prefer,
And to the fam'd Copernicus adhere;
If you esteem that supposition best,
Which moves the Earth, and leaves the Sun at rest;
With a new veil your ignorance you hide,
Still is the knot as hard to be unty'd ;

You change your scheme, but the old doubts remain,

And still you leave th' inquiring mind in pain.
This problem, as philosophers, resolve.
What makes the globe from west to east revolve?
What is the strong impulsive cause, declare,
Which rolls the ponderous orb so swift in air?
To your vain answer will you have recourse,
And tell us,
"'tis ingenite, active force,
Mobility, or native power to move,"
Words which mean nothing, and can nothing

prove?

That moving power, that force innate, explain,
Or your grave answers are absurd and vain :
We no solution of our question find;
Your words bewilder, not direct, the mind.

If you, this rapid motion to procure,
For the hard task employ magnetic power,
Whether that power you at the centre place,
Or in the middle regions of the mass,
Or else, as some philosophers assert,
You give an equal share to every part,
Have you by this the cause of motion shown?
After explaining, is it not unknown?
Since you pretend, by reason's strictest laws,
Of an effect to manifest the cause;
Nature, of wonders so immense a field,

Can none more strange, none more mysterious, yield.

None that eludes sagacious reason more,
Than this obscure, inexplicable power.
Since you the spring of notion cannot show,
Be just, and faultless ignorance allow;
Say, 'tis obedience to th' Almighty nod,
That 'tis the will, the power, the hand of God.
Philosophers of spreading fame are found,
Who, by th' attraction of the orbs around,
Would move the Farth, and make its course obey
The Sun's and Moon's inevitable sway.
Some from the pressure and impelling force
Of heavenly bodies would derive its course;