In senseless riot; but ye will not find
In feast or in the chase, in song or dance,
A liberty like his, who, unimpeached
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; planned or ere the hills
Were built, the fountains opened, 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;
The regenerate Man discerns God in all things.
And that to bind him is a vain attempt
Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells.
Acquaint thyself with God, if thou wouldest 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. Unconcerned who formed
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 touched from heaven,
His relish of the Works of God.
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 his own sake merely, but for his
Much more, who fashioned 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 owned before,
Discerns in all things what, with stupid gaze
Of ignorance, till then she overlooked,
A ray of heavenly light, 'gilding all forms
Terrestial in the vast and the minute;
The umambiguous 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,
He pants to know more of God.
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 reached this nether world, ye spy a race
"Favoured as our's; transgressors from the womb,
"And hasting to a grave, yet doomed to rise,
"And to possess a brighter heaven than your's?
"As one, who long detained on foreign shores,
"Pants to return, and when he sees afar
"His county's weather-bleach'd and batter'd rocks "From the green wave emerging, darts an eye "Radiant with joy towards the happy land;
And is animated with the hope of eternal Happiness.
"So I with animated hopes behold,
"And many an aching wish, your beamy fires,
"That show like beacons in the blue abyss,
"Ordained 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,
But runs the road of wisdom. Thou hast built
With means, that were not till by thee employed,
Worlds, that had never been hadst thou in strength
Been less, or less benevolent than strong.
They are thy witnesses, who speak thy power
And goodness infinite, but speak in ears,
That hear not, or receive not their report.
In vain thy creatures testify of thee,
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