To build our altar, confident and bold,
And say as ftern Elijah faid of old,
The ftrife now stands upon a fair award,
If Is'rael's Lord be God, then ferve the Lord--
If he be filent, faith is all a whim,
Then Baal is the God, and worship him.
Digreffion is fo much in modern ufe,
Thought is fo rare, and fancy fo profufe,
Some never seem fo wide of their intent,
As when returning to the theme they meant;
As mendicants, whofe bufinefs is to roam,
Make ev'ry parifh but their own, their home;
Though fuch continual zigzags in a book,
Such drunken reelings have an aukward look,
And I had rather creep to what is true,
Than rove and ftagger with no mark in view;
Yet to confult a little, feem'd no crime,
The freakish humour of the prefent time.
But now, to gather up what feems difpers'd,
And touch the fubject I defign'd at first,
May prove, though much beside the rules of art,
Beft for the public, and my wifeft part.
And firft, let no man charge me that I mean
To cloath in fables every focial fcene,
And give good company a face fevere,
As if they met around a father's bier;
For tell fome men that pleasure all their bent,
And laughter all their work, is life mispent,
Their wisdom burfts into this fage reply,
Then mirth is fin, and we should always cry.
To find the medium afks fome fhare of wit,
And therefore 'tis a mark fools never hit.
But though life's valley be a vale of tears,
A brighter fcene beyond that vale appears,
Whofe glory with a light that never fades,
Shoots between fcatter'd rocks and op'ning fhades,
And while it fhows the land the foul defires,
The language of the land fhe feeks, inspires.
Thus touch'd, the tongue receives a facred cure
Of all that was abfurd, profane, impure;
Held within modest bounds, the tide of speech
Purfues the course that truth and nature teach;
No longer labours merely to produce
The pomp of found, or tinkle without use:
Where'er it winds, the falutary stream,
Sprightly and fresh, enriches ev'ry theme,
While all the happy man poffefs'd before,
The gift of nature or the claffic ftore,
Is made fubfervient to the grand defign
For which heav'n form'd the faculty divine.
So fhould an ideot, while at large he ftrays,
Find the fweet lyre on which an artift plays,
With rafh and aukward force the chords he shakes,
And grins with wonder at the jar he makes;
But let the wife and well-inftructed hand,
Once take the shell beneath his juft command,
In gentle founds it feems as it complain'd
Of the rude injuries it late fuftain'd;
'Till tun'd at length, to fome immortal fong,
It founds Jehovah's name, and pours his praife along.
Which thousands, once fast chain'd to, quit ne
But which when life at ebb runs weak and low,
All wifh, or feem to wish they could forego;
The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade,
Pants for the refuge of fome rural fhade,
Where all his long anxieties forgot
Amid the charms of a fequefter'd spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er
And add a fimile to what was fweet before,
He may poffefs the joys he thinks he fees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
Improve the remnant of his wafted fpan,
And having liv'd a trifler, die a man.
Thus confcience pleads her cause within the breast,
Though long rebell'd againft, not yet fupprefs'd,
And calls a creature form'd for God alone,
For heav'ns high purposes and not his own,
Calls him away from felfifh ends and aims,
From what debilitates and what inflames,
From cities, humming with a reftless crowd,
Sordid as active, ignorant as loud,
Whofe highest praise is that they live in vain,
The dupes of pleasure, or the slaves of gain,
Where works of man are cluster'd close around,
And works of God are hardly to be found,
To regions where in fpite of fin and woe,
Traces of Eden are still seen below,
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