II.

But would you meanly thus rely

On power, you know, I muft obey?
Exert a legal tyranny ;

And do an ill, becaufe you may?

Still muft I thee, as atheists heaven, adore;

Not fee thy mercy, and yet dread thy power?
III.

Take heed, my dear: youth flies apace;
As well as Cupid, Time is blind :
Soon must thofe glories of thy face
The fate of vulgar beauty find:

The thousand Loves, that arm thy potent eye,
Muft drop their quivers, flag their wings, and die.
IV.

Then wilt thou figh, when in each frown

A hateful wrinkle more appears;

And putting peevish humours on,
Seems but the fad effect of years:
Kindness itself too weak a charm will prove,
To raise the feeble fires of aged love.

V.

Forc'd compliments, and formal bows,
Will fhew thee just above neglect:
The heat with which thy lover glows,
Will fettle into cold respect :

A talking dull platonic I shall turn :
Learn to be civil, when I cease to burn,

VI. Then

II.

Let wit her fails, her oars let wisdom lend;
The helm let politic experience guide:

Yet cease to hope thy fhort-liv'd bark shall ride
Down spreading fate's unnavigable tide.
What though ftill it farther tend,

Still 'tis farther from its end;

And, in the bofom of that boundless sea,
Still finds its error lengthen with its way.
III.

With daring pride and infolent delight,

Your doubts refolv'd you boaft, your labours crown'd; And, "EYPHKA! your God, forfooth, is found.

Incomprehenfible and infinite.

But is he therefore found? Vain fearcher! no:

Let your imperfect definition show,

That nothing you, the weak definer, know.

IV.

Say, why fhould the collected main

Itfelf within itself contain ?

Why to its caverns should it fometimes creep,
And with delighted filence fleep

On the lov'd bofom of its parent deep?

Why fhould its numerous waters stay

In comely difcipline, and fair array,

Till winds and tides exert their high command!
Then, prompt and ready to obey,

Why do the rifing furges fpread

Their opening ranks o'er earth's fubmiffive head, Marching through different paths to different lands?

V.

Why does the constant fun

With measur'd steps his radiant journies run?
Why does he order the diurnal hours,
To leave earth's other part, and rife in ours?
Why does he wake the correspondent moon,
And fill her willing lamp with liquid light,
Commanding her with delegated powers
To beautify the world, and blefs the night?
Why does each animated star

Love the juft limits of its proper fphere ?
Why does each confenting fign

With prudent harmony combine
In turns to move, and subsequent appear,
To gird the globe, and regulate the year?

VI.

Man does with dangerous curiofity
These unfathom'd wonders try:
With fancied rules and arbitrary laws

Matter and motion he reftrains;

And ftudied lines and fictious circles draws:
Then with imagin'd fovereignty

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 fhows

That all his predeceffor's rules

Were empty cant, all jargon of the schools;

*

C 3

That

That he on t'other's ruin rears his throne;

And fhows his friend's mistake, and thence confirms his

own.

VII.

On earth, in air, amidft the feas and fkies,
Mountainous heaps of wonders rife ;
Whofe towering ftrength will ne'er fubmit
To reafon's batteries, or the mines of wit:
Yet ftill enquiring, still mistaken man,
Each hour repuls'd, each hour dares onward prefs;
And, leveling at God his wandering 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 word did either ocean fill:

Can tell us whence all beings are, and how they move and live.

Through either ocean, foolish man!

That pregnant word fent forth again,

Might to a world extend each atom there;

For every drop call forth a fea, a heaven for every star. VIII.

Let cunning earth her fruitful wonders hide;

And only lift thy staggering reafon up

To trembling Calvary's astonish'd top;

Then mock thy knowledge, and confound thy pride,
Explaining how Perfection fuffer'd pain,
Almighty languifh'd, and Eternal dyed :
How by her patient victor death was flain ;
And earth prophan'd, yet blefs'd, with Deicide.

Then

Then down with all thy boasted volumes, down;
Only referve the Sacred One:

Low, reverently low,

Make thy ftubborn knowledge bow;

Weep out thy Reason's and thy body's eyes;
Deject thyfelf, that thou mayft rife;

To look to Heaven, be blind to all below.

IX.

Then Faith, for Reason's glimmering light, fhall give. Her immortal perfpective;

And Grace's prefence Nature's lofs retrieve :

Then thy enliven'd soul shall fee,

That all the volumes of Philofophy,

With all their comments, never could invent,

So politic an inftrument,

To reach the Heaven of Heavens, the High Abode,.
Where Mofes places his mysterious God,

As was the 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.

H

Confiderations on Part of the 88th PSALM.
A COLLEGE EXERCISE. 1690.

I.

EAVY, O Lord, on me thy judgements lie,
Accurft I am, while God rejects my cry.
O'erwhelm'd in darkness and despair I groan;
And every place is hell; for God is gone.