Is but an instrument, on which the priest May play what tune he pleases. In the deed, The unequivocal, authentic deed,
We find sound argument, we read the heart.' Such reasonings (if that name must needs belong To excuses in which reason has no part)
Serve to compose a spirit well inclined To live on terms of amity with vice, And sin without disturbance. (As often as libidinous discourse Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes Of theological and grave import)
They gain at last his unreserved assent; Till, harden'd his heart's temper in the forge Of lust, and on the anvil of despair,
He slights the strokes of conscience. Nothing moves, Or nothing much, his constancy in ill;
Vain tampering has but foster'd his disease; 'Tis desperate, and he sleeps the sleep of death. Haste now, philosopher, and set him free. Charm the deaf serpent wisely. Make him hear Of rectitude and fitness, moral truth
How lovely, and the moral sense how sure, Consulted and obey'd, to guide his steps Directly to the first and only fair.
Spare not in such a cause. Spend all the powers Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise : Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand, And with poetic trappings grace thy prose, Till it outmantle all the pride of verse.- Ah, tinkling cymbal, and high-sounding brass, Smitten in vain! such music cannot charm The eclipse, that intercepts truth's heavenly beam, And chills and darkens a wide-wandering soul. The still small voice is wanted, He must speak, Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect; Who calls for things that are not, and they come. Grace makes the slave a freeman. 'Tis a change, That turns to ridicule the turgid speech
And stately tone of moralists, who boast,
As if, like him of fabulous renown,
They had indeed ability to smooth
The shag of savage nature, and were each An Orpheus, and omnipotent in song: But transformation of apostate man From fool to wise, from earthly to divine, Is work for Him that made him. He alone, And he by means in philosophic eyes Trivial and worthy of disdain, achieves The wonder humanizing what is brute In the lost kind, extracting from the lips Of asps their venom, overpowering strength By weakness, and hostility by love.
Patriots have toil'd, and in their country's cause Bled nobly; and their deeds, as they deserve, Receive proud recompense. We give in charge Their names to the sweet lyre. The historic muse, Proud of the treasure, marches with it down To latest times; and Sculpture, in her turn, Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass To guard them, and to immortalize her trust: But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid, To those, who, posted at the shrine of Truth, Have fallen in her defence. A patriot's blood, Well spent in such a strife, may earn indeed, And for a time ensure, to his loved land The sweets of liberty and equal laws; But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize, And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed In confirmation of the noblest claim,
Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, To walk with God, to be divinely free, To soar, and to anticipate the skies.
Yet few remember them. They lived unknown, Till Persecution dragg'd them into fame,
And chased them up to Heaven. Their ashes flew -No marble tells us whither. With their names No bard embalms and sanctifies his song:
And history, so warm on meaner themes, Is cold on this. She execrates indeed
The tyranny, that doom'd them to the fire, But gives the glorious sufferers little praise.
He is the freeman, whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves besides. There's not a chain, That hellish foes, confederate for his harm, Can wind around him, but he casts it off With as much ease as Samson his green withes. He looks abroad into the varied field
Of nature, and though poor perhaps, compared With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, Calls the delightful scenery all his own. His are the mountains, and the valleys his, And the resplendent rivers: his to enjoy With a propriety that none can feel, But who, with filial confidence inspired, Can lift to Heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say- My Father made them all!" Are they not his by a peculiar right,
And by an emphasis of interest his,
Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy, Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love, That plann'd, and built, and still upholds, a world So clothed with beauty for rebellious man? Yes-ye may fill your garners, ye that reap The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good In senseless riot; but ye will not find In feast, or in the chase, in song or dance, A liberty like his, who, unimpeach'd Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong, Appropriates nature as his Father's work, And has a richer use of yours than you. He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth Of no mean city; plann'd or ere the hills Were built, the fountains open'd, or the sea, With all his roaring multitude of waves. His freedom is the same in every state; And no condition of this changeful life,
So manifold in cares, whose every day Brings its own evil with it, makes it less: For he has wings, that neither sickness, pain, Nor penury, can cripple or confine.
No nook so narrow but he spreads them there With ease, and is at large. The oppressor holds His body bound, but knows not what a range His spirit takes unconscious of a chain; And that to bind him is a vain attempt, Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells. Acquaint thyself with God, if thou wouldst taste His works. Admitted once to his embrace, Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before: Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heart Made pure shall relish, with divine delight Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought. Brutes graze the mountain top, with faces prone, And eyes intent upon the scanty herb
It yields them; or, recumbent on its brow, Ruminate heedless of the scene outspread Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away From inland regions to the distant main. Man views it, and admires; but rests content With what he views. The landscape has his praise, But not its Author. Uneoncern'd who form'd
The Paradise he sees, he finds it such,
And, such well pleased to find it, asks no more. Not so the mind that has been touch'd from Heaven, And in the school of sacred wisdom taught To read his wonders, in whose thought the World, Fair as it is, existed ere it was.
Not for its own sake merely, but for his
Much more, who fashion'd it, he gives it praise; Praise that from Earth resulting, as it ought, To Earth's acknowledged Sovereign, finds at once Its only just proprietor in Him.
The soul that sees him, or receives sublimed New faculties, or learns at least to employ More worthily the powers she own'd before, Discerns in all things what, with stupid gaze
Of ignorance, till then she overlook'd, A ray of heavenly light, gilding all forms Terrestrial in the vast and the minute; The unambiguous footsteps of the God, Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing, And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds. Much conversant with Heaven, she often holds With those fair ministers of light to man, That fill the skies nightly, with silent pomp, Sweet conference. Inquires what strains were they With which Heaven rang, when every star, in haste To gratulate the new-created Earth,
Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of God Shouted for joy. Tell me, ye shining hosts, That navigate a sea that knows no storms, Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud, If from your elevation, whence ye view. Distinctly scenes invisible to man,
And systems, of whose birth no tidings yet Have reach'd this nether world, ye spy a race Favour'd as ours; transgressors from the womb, And hasting to a grave, yet doom'd to rise, And to possess a brighter heaven than yours? As one, who, long detain'd on foreign shores, Pants to return, and when he sees afar
His country's weather-bleach'd and batter'd rocks From the green wave emerging, darts an eye Radiant with joy towards the happy land; So I with animated hopes behold,
And many an aching wish, your beamy fires, That show like beacons in the blue abyss, Ordain'd to guide the embodied spirit home From toilsome life to never-ending rest. Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desires, That give assurance of their own success, And that, infused from Heaven, must thither tend." So reads he nature, whom the lamp of truth Illuminates. Thy lamp, mysterious Word! Which whoso sees no longer wanders lost, With intellects bemazed in endless doubt,
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