תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

From essences unseen, celestial names,
Enlightening spirits, ministerial flames,

Angels, dominions, potentates, and thrones,
All that in each degree the name of creature owns;
Lift we our reason to that sovereign Cause,

Who bless'd the whole with life, and bounded it with laws;

Who forth from nothing call'd this comely frame,
His will and act, his word and work the same;
To whom a thousand years are but a day;
Who bade the Light her genial beams display,
And set the Moon, and taught the Sun his way;
Who waking Time, his creature, from the source
Primeval, order'd his predestined course;
Himself, as in the hollow of his hand,
Holding, obedient to his high command,
The deep abyss, the long-continued store,
Where months, and days, and hours, and minutes
pour

Their floating parts, and thenceforth are no more
This Alpha and Omega, First and Last,
Who, like the potter, in a mould hast cast
The world's great frame, commanding it to be
Such as the eyes of sense and reason see,
Yet if he wills may change or spoil the whole,
May take yon beauteous, mystic, starry roll,
And burn it like an useless parchment scroll;
May from its basis in one moment pour
This melted earth-

Like liquid metal, and like burning ore;

Who, sole in power, at the beginning said,

"Let sea, and air, and earth, and heaven, be made!"

-And when he shall ordain

And it was so-.

In other sort, has but to speak again,

And they shall be no more: of this great theme,
This glorious, hallow'd, everlasting Name,
This GOD, I would discourse.'-

The learned elders sat appall'd, amazed,
And each with mutual look on other gazed;
Nor speech they meditate, nor answer frame ;
Too plain, alas! their silence spake their shame;
Till one, in whom an outward mien appear'd,
And turn superior to the vulgar herd,

Began: That human learning's furthest reach
Was but to note the doctrines I could teach;
That mine to speak, and theirs was to obey,
For I in knowledge more than power did sway,
And the astonish'd world in me beheld
Moses eclipsed, and Jesse's son excell❜d.'
Humble a second bow'd, and took the word,
Foresaw my name by future age adored:
' O live (said he) thou wisest of the wise;
As none has equall'd, none shall ever rise
Excelling thee.'-

Parent of wicked, bane of honest deeds,
Pernicious Flattery! thy malignant seeds
In an ill hour, and by a fatal hand,
Sadly diffused o'er Virtue's gleby land,
With rising pride amidst the corn appear,
And choke the hopes and harvest of the year.
And now the whole perplex'd ignoble crowd,
Mute to my questions, in my praises loud,
Echo'd the word: whence things arose, or how
They thus exist, the aptest nothing know:
What yet is not, but is ordain'd to be,
All veil of doubt apart, the dullest see.
My prophets and my sophists finish'd here
Their civil efforts of the verbal war:

Not so my rabbins and logicians yield;
Retiring, still they combat: from the field
Of open arms unwilling they depart,
And sculk behind the subterfuge of art.
To speak one thing mix'd dialects they join,
Divide the simple, and the plain define;
Fix fancied laws, and form imagined rules,
Terms of their art, and jargon of their schools,
Ill-grounded maxims, by false gloss enlarged,
And captious science against reason charged.'

Soon their crude notions with each other fought; The adverse sect denied what this had taught; And he at length the amplest triumph gain'd, Who contradicted what the last maintain'd.

O wretched impotence of human mind! We, erring, still excuse for error find, And darkling grope, not knowing we are blind. Vain man! since first the blushing sire essay'd His folly with connected leaves to shade, How does the crime of thy resembling race, With like attempt, that pristine error trace! Too plain thy nakedness of soul espied, Why dost thou strive the conscious shame to hide, By masks of eloquence and veils of pride?

With outward smiles their flattery I received, Own'd my sick mind by their discourse relieved; But bent, and inward to myself, again Perplex'd, these matters I revolved in vain. My search still tired, my labour still renew'd, At length I ignorance and knowledge view'd Impartial; both in equal balance laid, [weigh❜d. Light flew the knowing scale, the doubtful heavy Forced by reflective reason, I confess

That human science is uncertain guess.

Alas! we grasp at clouds, and beat the air,
Vexing that spirit we intend to clear.

Can thought beyond the bounds of matter climb?
Or who shall tell me what is space or time?
In vain we lift up our presumptuous eyes
To what our Maker to their ken denies :
The searcher follows fast, the object faster flies.
The little which imperfectly we find,
Seduces only the bewilder'd mind

To fruitless search of something yet behind.
Various discussions tear our heated brain:
Opinions often turn; still doubts remain ;
And who indulges thought increases pain.
How narrow limits were to wisdom given!
Earth she surveys; she thence would measure
Heaven:

Through mists obscure, now wings her tedious way,
Now wanders, dazzled with too bright a day,
And from the summit of a pathless coast
Sees infinite, and in that sight is lost.

Remember that the cursed desire to know,
Offspring of Adam, was thy source of woe;
Why wilt thou, then, renew the vain pursuit,
And rashly catch at the forbidden fruit?
With empty labour and eluded strife
Seeking, by knowledge, to attain to life;
For ever from that fatal tree debarr'd,
Which flaming swords and angry cherubs guard.

PLEASURE.

BOOK II.

Texts chiefly alluded to in this Book.

I SAID in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure.' Eccles. chap. ii. ver. 1.

I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards. Ver. 4.

I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits. Ver. 5.

I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees. Ver. 6.

Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. Ver. 11.

:

I gat me men-singers, and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. Ver. 8.

I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, (yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom) and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they

« הקודםהמשך »