He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,

And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain
That hellish foes, confed'rate for his harm,

Can wind around him, but he casts it off
With as much ease as Samson his green wyths.
He looks abroad into the varied field

Of nature, and, though poor perhaps compar'd
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scen'ry all his own.

His are the mountains, and the vallies his,
And the resplendent rivers. His t' enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,

But who, with filial confidence inspir'd,

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 int'rest 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

1

That plann'd, and built, and still upholds, a world So cloth'd 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 your's 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 ev'ry state;
And no condition of this changeful life,
So manifold in cares, whose ev'ry 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. Th' 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 would'st 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
And eyes intent upon the scanty herb

the mountain-top, with faces

It yields them; or, recumbent on its brow,
Ruminate heedless of the scene outspread

prone

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.

Unconcern'd who form'd

The paradise he sees, he finds it such,

And such well-pleas'd to find it, asks no more.

Not so the mind that has been touch'd from heav'n, 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 acknowledg'd sov'reign, finds at once
Its only just proprietor in Him.

The soul that sees him, or receives sublim'd
New faculties, or learns at least t' employ
More worthily the pow'rs she own'd before,
Discerns in all things, what with stupid gaze
Of ignorance, till then she overlook'd-
A ray of heav'nly 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 heav'n, 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 heav'n rang, when ev'ry 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 our's; transgressors from the womb, "And hasting to a grave, yet doom'd to rise, "And to possess a brighter heav'n than your's?