Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I, From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up!
'Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound, Terribly arched and aquiline his nose, And overbuilt with most impending brows, 'Twere well could you permit the world to live As the world pleases. What's the world to you?--Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk As sweet as charity from human breasts.
I think, articulate, I laugh and weep, And exercise all functions of a man.
How then should I and any man that lives Be strangers to each other? Pierce my vein, Take of the crimson stream meandering there, And catechise it well. Apply your glass, Search it, and prove now if it be not blood Congenial with thine own; and if it be, What edge of subtlety canst thou suppose Keen enough, wise and skilful as thou art, To cut the link of brotherhood, by which One common Maker bound me to the kind?
True; I am no proficient, I confess, In arts like yours. I cannot call the swift And perilous lightnings from the angry clouds, And bid them hide themselves in the earth beneath;I cannot analyse the air, nor catch The parallax of yonder luminous point That seems half quenched in the immense abyss:
Such powers I boast not--neither can I rest A silent witness of the headlong rage, Or heedless folly, by which thousands die, Bone of my bone, and kindred souls to mine.
God never meant that man should scale the heavens By strides of human wisdom. In His works, Though wondrous, He commands us in His Word To seek Him rather where His mercy shines.
The mind indeed, enlightened from above, Views Him in all; ascribes to the grand cause The grand effect; acknowledges with joy His manner, and with rapture tastes His style.
But never yet did philosophic tube, That brings the planets home into the eye Of observation, and discovers, else Not visible, His family of worlds, Discover Him that rules them; such a veil Hangs over mortal eyes, blind from the birth, And dark in things divine. Full often too Our wayward intellect, the more we learn Of nature, overlooks her Author more;From instrumental causes proud to draw Conclusions retrograde, and mad mistake:
But if His Word once teach us, shoot a ray Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal Truths undiscerned but by that holy light, Then all is plain. Philosophy, baptised In the pure fountain of eternal love, Has eyes indeed; and, viewing all she sees As meant to indicate a God to man, Gives HIM His praise, and forfeits not her own.
Learning has borne such fruit in other days On all her branches. Piety has found Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews.
Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage!
Sagacious reader of the works of God, And in His Word sagacious. Such too thine, Milton, whose genius had angelic wings, And fed on manna. And such thine, in whom Our British Themis gloried with just cause, Immortal Hale! for deep discernment praised, And sound integrity not more, than famed For sanctity of manners undefiled.
All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades Like the fair flower dishevelled in the wind;Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream;The man we celebrate must find a tomb, And we that worship him, ignoble graves.
Nothing is proof against the general curse Of vanity, that seizes all below.
The only amaranthine flower on earth Is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.
But what is truth? 'twas Pilate's question put To truth itself, that deigned him no reply.
And wherefore? will not God impart His light To them that ask it?--Freely--'tis His joy, His glory, and His nature to impart.
But to the proud, uncandid, insincere, Or negligent inquirer, not a spark.
What's that which brings contempt upon a book And him that writes it, though the style be neat, The method clear, and argument exact?
That makes a minister in holy things The joy of many, and the dread of more, His name a theme for praise and for reproach?--That, while it gives us worth in God's account, Depreciates and undoes us in our own?
What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy, That learning is too proud to gather up, But which the poor and the despised of all Seek and obtain, and often find unsought?
Tell me, and I will tell thee what is truth.
Oh, friendly to the best pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, Domestic life in rural leisure passed!
Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets, Though many boast thy favours, and affect To understand and choose thee for their own.
But foolish man foregoes his proper bliss, Even as his first progenitor, and quits, Though placed in paradise, for earth has still Some traces of her youthful beauty left, Substantial happiness for transient joy.
Scenes formed for contemplation, and to nurse The growing seeds of wisdom; that suggest, By every pleasing image they present, Reflections such as meliorate the heart, Compose the passions, and exalt the mind;Scenes such as these, 'tis his supreme delight To fill with riot and defile with blood.
Should some contagion, kind to the poor brutes We persecute, annihilate the tribes That draw the sportsman over hill and dale Fearless, and rapt away from all his cares;Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again, Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye;Could pageantry, and dance, and feast, and song Be quelled in all our summer months' retreats;How many self-deluded nymphs and swains, Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves, Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen, And crowd the roads, impatient for the town!
