Classic Poem

THUS Nature's frame, and Nature's GOD we sing,
And trace even Life to its Eternal S PRING —
The Eternal S PRING ! whence streaming bounty flows;
The Eternal L IGHT ! whence every radiance glows;
The Eternal H EIGHT of indetermin'd space!
The Eternal D EPTH of Condescending Grace!
S UPREME ! and M IDST ! and P RINCIPLE ! and E ND !
The Eternal F ATHER ! and the Eternal Friend !
The Eternal L OVE ! WHO bounds in every breast;
The Eternal B LISS ! whence every creature's blest —
While man, even man, the lavish goodness shares,
The wretch offends, and yet His G OODNESS spares;
Still to the wayward wight indulgent turns,
And kindly courts him to the peace he spurns;
Emits the beam of intellectual light —
Bright is the beam, and wilful is the night —
While Nature amply spreads the illustrious scene,
And renders all pretext of error vain:
Unfolded wide her obvious pages lie,
To win attention from the wandering eye;
Full to convince us, to instruct us sage,
Strict to reform, and beauteous to engage.

Like Nature's law no eloquence persuades,
The mute harangue our every sense invades;
The apparent precepts of the Eternal W ILL ,
His every work, and every object fill;
Round with our eyes His revelation wheels,
Our every touch his demonstration feels.
And, O S UPREME ! whene'er we cease to know
T HEE , the SOLE S OURCE , whence sense, and science flow!
Then must all faculty, all knowledge fail,
And more than monster o'er the man prevail.

Not thus H E gave our optic's vital glance,
Amid omniscient art, to search for chance,
Blind to the charms of Nature's beauteous frame;
Nor made our organ vocal, to blaspheme:
Not thus H E will'd the creatures of his nod,
And made the mortal, to unmake his GOD ;
Breathed on the globe, and brooded o'er the wave,
And bid the wide obsequious world conceive:
Spoke into being, myriads, myriads rise,
And with young transport gaze the novel skies;
Glance from the surge, beneath the surface scud,
Or cleave enormous the reluctant flood;
Or rowl vermicular their wanton maze,
And the bright path with wild meanders glaze;
Frisk in the vale, or o'er the mountains bound,
Or in huge gambols shake the trembling ground;
Swarm in the beam; or spread the plumy sail —
The plume creates, and then directs the gale:
While active gaiety, and aspect bright,
In each expressive, sums up all delight.

But whose unmeasured prose, memorial long!
Or volubility of numerous song,
Can Nature's infinite productions range,
Or with her ever varying species change?
Not the famed bard, in whose surviving page,
Troy still shall stand, and fierce Pelides rage;
Not this the Mantuan's rival muse could hope;
Nor thou, sole object of my envy, — Pope!

Then let the shoals of latent nations sleep,
Safe in the medium of their native deep;
Haply our line may draw those scenes to light.

Mean while, earth's minim populace inspect,
With just propriety of beauties deck'd;
Consummate each, adapted to its state,
And highly in the lowest sphere complete.
Sublime the theme, and claims the attentive ear,
Well worth the song, since worth T HE A LMIGHTY'S care;
Since even the smallest from the G REAT O NE springs,
Great and conspicuous in minutest things!

The reptile first, how exquisitely form'd,
With vital streams thro' every organ warm'd!
External round the spiral muscle winds,
And folding close the interior texture binds;
Secure of limbs or needless wing he steers,
And all one locomotive act appears:
His rings with one elastic membrane bound,
The prior circlet moves the obsequious round;
The next, and next, its due obedience owes,
And with successive undulation flows.
The mediate glands, with unctuous juice replete,
Their stores of lubricating guile secrete;
Still opportune, with prompt emission flow,
And slipping frustrate the deluded foe;
When the stiff clod their little augers bore,
And all the worm insinuates thro' the pore.

Slow moving next, with grave majestic pace,
Tenacious Snails their silent progress trace;
Thro' foreign fields secure from exile roam,
And sojourn safe beneath their native home.
Their domes self-wreathed, each architect attend,
With mansions lodge them, and with mail defend:
But chief, when each his wintery portal forms,
And mocks secluded from incumbent storms;
Till gates, unbarring with the vernal ray,
Give all the secret hermitage to day;
Then peeps the sage from his unfolding doors,
And cautious heaven's ambiguous brow explores: