Ev'n with our nourishment we death receive,
For here our guiltlefs mothers give
Poifon for food when firft we live.
Hence noifome humours* fweat through every pore,
And blot us with an undistinguish'd fore:
Nor, mov'd with beauty, will the dire disease
Forbear on faultlefs forms to feize;
But vindicates the good, the gay,
The wife, the young, its common prey.
Had all, conjoin'd in one, had power to fave,
The Mufes had not wept o'er Blandford's grave.
The spark of pure ætherial light
That actuates this fleeting frame,
Darts through the cloud of flesh a fickly flame,
And feems a glow-worm in a winter-night.
But man would yet look wondrous wife,
And equal chains of thought devife;
Intends his mind on mighty schemes,
Refutes, defines, confirms, declaims;
And diagrams he draws, t' explain
The learn'd chimeras of his brain;
And, with imaginary wisdom proud,
Thinks on the goddess while he clips the cloud.
Through Error's mazy grove, with fruitless toil,
Perplex'd with puzzling doubts we roam ;
Falfe images our fight beguile,
But still we stumble through the gloom,
And science feek, which still deludes the mind.
Yet, more enamour'd with the race,
With difproportion'd speed we urge the chace :
In vain! the various prey no bounds restrain;
Fleeting it only leaves, t' increase our pain,
A cold unfatisfying scent behind.
Yet, gracious God! prefumptuous man
With random gueffes makes pretence
To found thy fearchlefs providence
From which he first began:
Like hooded hawks we blindly tower,
And circumfcribe, with fancy'd laws, thy power.
Thy will the rolling orbs obey,
The moon, prefiding o'er the sea,
Governs the waves with equal fway:
But man perverfe, and lawless still,
Boldly runs counter to thy will;
Thy patient thunder he defies ;
Lays down falfe principles, and moves
By what his vicious choice approves ;
And, when he's vainly wicked, thinks he's wife.
Return, return, too long misled!
With filial fear adore thy God:
Ere the vast deep of heaven was fpread,
Or body first in space abode,
Glories ineffable adorn'd his head.
Unnumber'd feraphs round the burning throne,
Sung to th' incomprehenfible Three-One :
Yet then his clemency did please
With lower forms t' augment his train,
And made thee, wretched creature, Man,
Probationer of happiness.
On the vaft ocean of his wonders here,
We momentary bubbles ride,
Till, crufh'd by the tempeftuous tide,
Sunk in the parent flood we difappear:
We, who fo gawdy on the waters fhone,
Proud, like the fhowery bow, with beauties not our own. IX.
But, at the fignal given, this earth and fea
Shall fet their fleeping vaffals free ;
And the belov'd of God,
The Faithful, and the Juft,
Like Aaron's chofen rod,
Though dry, fhall blossom in the dust :
Then, gladly bounding from their dark reftraints
The skeletons fhall brighten into faints,
And, from mortality refin'd, fhall rife
To meet their Saviour coming in the skies :
Inftructed then by intuition, we
Shall the vain efforts of our wisdom fee;
Shall then impartially confess
Our demonftration was but guefs;
That Knowledge, which from human reafon flows,
Unlofs Religion guide its courfe,
And Faith her fteady mounds oppofe,
Is Ignorance at beft, and often worse.
PART OF THE
FOURTEENTH CHAPTER OF ISAIAH PARAPHRASE D.
OW has th' Almighty Father, feated high
In ambient glories from th' eternal throne
Vouchfaf'd compaffion; and th' afflictive power
Has broke, whofe iron fceptre long had bruis'd
The groaning nations. Now returning Peace,
Dove-ey'd, and rob'd in white, the blissful land
Deigns to re-vifit; whilft beneath her steps
The foil, with civil slaughter oft' manur'd,
Pours forth abundant olives. Their high tops
The cedars wave, exulting o'er thy fall,
Whofe fteel from the tall monarch of the grove
Sever'd the regal honours, and up tore
The fcions blooming in the parent shade.
When vehicled in flame, thou flow didst pass
Prone through the gates of night, the dreary realms
With loud acclaim receiv'd thee.
Tyrants old
(Gigantic forms, with human blood befmear'd)
Rofe from their thrones; for thrones they still poffefs,
Their penance and their guilt: Art thou, they cry,
O emulous of our crimes, here doom'd to reign
Affociate of our woe? Nor com'ft thou girt
With livery'd slaves, or hands of warrior-knights,
Which erft before thee ftood, a flattering crowd,
Obfervant of thy brow; nor hireling quires
Attempering to the harp their warbled airs,
Thy panegyric chaunt; but, hush'd in death,
Like us thou ly'ft unwept; a corfe obfcene
With duft, and preying worms, bare and defpoil'd
Of ill-got pomp. We hail thee our compeer!
How art thou with diminish'd glory fall'n
From thy proud zenith, fwift as meteors glide
Aflope a fummer-eve! Of all the stars
Titled the first and faireft, thou didst hope
To fhare divinity, or haply more,
Elated as fupreme when o'er the North
Thy bloody banners ftream'd, to rightful kings
Portending ruinous downfal; wondrous low,
Opprobrious and detefted art thou thrown,
Difrob'd of all thy fplendors: round thee ftand
The fwarming populace, and with fix'd regard
Eyeing thee pale and breathlefs, fpend their rage
In taunting speech, and jovial ask their friends,
Is this The Mighty, whofe imperious yoke
We bore reluctant, who to defert wilds
And haunts of favages transform'd the marts,
And capital cities raz'd, pronouncing thrall
Or exile on the peerage? How becalm'd
The tyrant lies, whofe noftrils us'd to breathe
Tempefts of wrath, and shook establish'd thrones!
In folemn ftate the bones of pious kings,
Gather'd to their great fires, are safe repos'd
Beneath the weeping vault: but thou, a branch
Blafted and curs'd by heaven, to dogs and fowls
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