" That round thy axis spins thy cumbrous frame;
" That cheers thee with the still returning beam;
" That whirls thy wondrous motions, one in three,
" Where time, and place, still varying, still agree. "
O MNISCIENCE here no lower mean admits;
One slip had maim'd ten thousand thousand hits,
Where to one point unnumber'd causes tend,
Concurring to effect one destined end,
Which once attain'd pours forth ten thousand more;
A blessed sea, that never knows a shore!
" Ye Learn'd! who wisely can deny your God ,
" And banish O MNIPRESENCE with a nod;
" In shrewd contempt, at final causes sneer;
" In wilful deafness shut the tortuous ear,
" Nor think it suited to the sounds ye hear;
" Who, in your wisdoms, negatively spy,
" How vain's the texture of the useless eye;
" While fondly thus prime reasoners you'd commence,
" By literally exploding common sense,
" And plead for one concession (only due)
" That nature must have err'd — in forming you —
" Approach, ye Sages, to your parent earth,
" Much wiser than the clods on whom she lavish'd birth! "
With deepest art, her skilful plan she lays;
With equal scale, the least advantage weighs;
How apt, for time, place, circumstance, and use,
She culls all means, that to all ends conduce!
Nice to a point, each benefit selects;
As prudent, every mischief she rejects;
In due proportions, time, and motion, metes,
Advances to a hair, and to a hair retreats:
Constant to Good, for that alone she veers,
And with the varying beam her offspring chears;
Cools all beneath her equinoctial line,
And gives the day throughout the world to shine;
The nitre from the frozen pole unseals,
And to the tropic speeds the pregnant gales;
Here, leaves the exhausted fallow to recruit;
Here, plumps and burnishes the ripening fruit;
Superfluous hence withdraws the sultry beam,
Here drinks anew the vivifying flame;
Returns, still faithful to the labouring steer —
Wide waves the harvest of the golden year;
Trades universal on from pole to pole,
Inspires, revives, and cultivates the whole;
Frugal, where lack, supplies with what redounds,
And here bestows what noxious there abounds;
This with the gift, and that with giving, blest,
Alike, throughout, of every wish possest.
Wrapt in her airy car, the matron glides,
And o'er the firmament ascending rides;
The subtile mass its copious mantle spreads,
Its mantle wove of elemental threads;
The elastick flue of fluctuating air,
Transfused invisible, enfolds the sphere;
With poinance delicate pervades the whole,
Its ear, eye, breath, and animating soul;
Active, serene, comprest, rare, cool'd, or warm'd,
For life, health, comfort, pleasure, business, form'd;
Useful around, throughout, above, beneath!
By this, the quadrupeds, the reptiles breath;
This gives the bloom of vegetative life;
Corrects the seeds of elemental strife;
Broods o'er the eggs, in airy caverns laid,
Warm'd in the down of their etherial bed;
Gives motion to the swimmers of the flood;
Gives musick to the warblers of the wood;
Rebounds in echo from the doubling vale,
And wafts to heaven the undulating gale:
Here hush'd, translucid smiles the gentle calm;
And here impearld, sheds meek the showery balm;
Salubrious here, a lively rapture claims,
And winnows pure the pestilential steams;
Here buoys the bird high on the chrystal wave,
Whose level plumes the azure concave shave;
Here sits voluptuous in the swelling sail,
The vessel dancing to the sprightly gale!
Its varied power to various uses tends,
And qualities occult atchieve contrarious ends;
With generative warmth fomenting breed,
Or alimental with nutrition feed;
In opposition reconciled to good,
Alike the menstruum, as sustaining food:
Or here restorative, destructive here;
Here nature's cradle, here her funeral bier;
With keen dispatch on all corruption preys,
And grateful, from our aching sense conveys;
Returns the bane into its native earth,
And there revives it to a second birth,
Renew'd and brighten'd like the minted ore,
To shoot again to life, more gorgeous than before!
" That cheers thee with the still returning beam;
" That whirls thy wondrous motions, one in three,
" Where time, and place, still varying, still agree. "
O MNISCIENCE here no lower mean admits;
One slip had maim'd ten thousand thousand hits,
Where to one point unnumber'd causes tend,
Concurring to effect one destined end,
Which once attain'd pours forth ten thousand more;
A blessed sea, that never knows a shore!
" Ye Learn'd! who wisely can deny your God ,
" And banish O MNIPRESENCE with a nod;
" In shrewd contempt, at final causes sneer;
" In wilful deafness shut the tortuous ear,
" Nor think it suited to the sounds ye hear;
" Who, in your wisdoms, negatively spy,
" How vain's the texture of the useless eye;
" While fondly thus prime reasoners you'd commence,
" By literally exploding common sense,
" And plead for one concession (only due)
" That nature must have err'd — in forming you —
" Approach, ye Sages, to your parent earth,
" Much wiser than the clods on whom she lavish'd birth! "
With deepest art, her skilful plan she lays;
With equal scale, the least advantage weighs;
How apt, for time, place, circumstance, and use,
She culls all means, that to all ends conduce!
Nice to a point, each benefit selects;
As prudent, every mischief she rejects;
In due proportions, time, and motion, metes,
Advances to a hair, and to a hair retreats:
Constant to Good, for that alone she veers,
And with the varying beam her offspring chears;
Cools all beneath her equinoctial line,
And gives the day throughout the world to shine;
The nitre from the frozen pole unseals,
And to the tropic speeds the pregnant gales;
Here, leaves the exhausted fallow to recruit;
Here, plumps and burnishes the ripening fruit;
Superfluous hence withdraws the sultry beam,
Here drinks anew the vivifying flame;
Returns, still faithful to the labouring steer —
Wide waves the harvest of the golden year;
Trades universal on from pole to pole,
Inspires, revives, and cultivates the whole;
Frugal, where lack, supplies with what redounds,
And here bestows what noxious there abounds;
This with the gift, and that with giving, blest,
Alike, throughout, of every wish possest.
Wrapt in her airy car, the matron glides,
And o'er the firmament ascending rides;
The subtile mass its copious mantle spreads,
Its mantle wove of elemental threads;
The elastick flue of fluctuating air,
Transfused invisible, enfolds the sphere;
With poinance delicate pervades the whole,
Its ear, eye, breath, and animating soul;
Active, serene, comprest, rare, cool'd, or warm'd,
For life, health, comfort, pleasure, business, form'd;
Useful around, throughout, above, beneath!
By this, the quadrupeds, the reptiles breath;
This gives the bloom of vegetative life;
Corrects the seeds of elemental strife;
Broods o'er the eggs, in airy caverns laid,
Warm'd in the down of their etherial bed;
Gives motion to the swimmers of the flood;
Gives musick to the warblers of the wood;
Rebounds in echo from the doubling vale,
And wafts to heaven the undulating gale:
Here hush'd, translucid smiles the gentle calm;
And here impearld, sheds meek the showery balm;
Salubrious here, a lively rapture claims,
And winnows pure the pestilential steams;
Here buoys the bird high on the chrystal wave,
Whose level plumes the azure concave shave;
Here sits voluptuous in the swelling sail,
The vessel dancing to the sprightly gale!
Its varied power to various uses tends,
And qualities occult atchieve contrarious ends;
With generative warmth fomenting breed,
Or alimental with nutrition feed;
In opposition reconciled to good,
Alike the menstruum, as sustaining food:
Or here restorative, destructive here;
Here nature's cradle, here her funeral bier;
With keen dispatch on all corruption preys,
And grateful, from our aching sense conveys;
Returns the bane into its native earth,
And there revives it to a second birth,
Renew'd and brighten'd like the minted ore,
To shoot again to life, more gorgeous than before!