With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind,
And add two thirds of the remaining half,
And find the total of their hopes and fears Dreams, empty dreams. The million flit as gay As if created only like the fly, That spreads his motley wings in th' eye of noon, To fport their feafon, and be seen no more. The reft are sober dreamers, grave and wife, And pregnant with discov'ries new and rare. Some write a narrative of wars, and feats Of heroes little known; and call the rant An history: describe the man, of whom His own coevals took but little note; And paint his person, character, and views, As they had known him from his mother's womb. They disentangle from the puzzled skein, In which obfcurity has wrapp'd them up, The threads of politic and shrewd design, That ran through all his purposes, and charge His mind with meanings that he never had,
Or, having, kept conceal'd. Some drill and bore The folid earth, and from the strata there
Extract a register, by which we learn,
That he who made it, and reveal'd its date
To Mofes, was mistaken in its age.
Some, more acute, and more industrious still, Contrive creation; travel nature up
To the sharp peak of her fublimeft height, And tell us whence the stars; why some are fix'd, And planetary some; what gave them first Rotation, from what fountain flow'd their light. Great conteft follows, and much learned duft Involves the combatants; each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp, In playing tricks with nature, giving laws To distant worlds, and trifling in their own. Is 't not a pity now, that tickling rheums Should ever tease the lungs and blear the fight Of oracles like these? Great pity too,
That, having wielded th' elements, and built A thousand fystems, each in his own way, They should go out in fume, and be forgot? Ah! what is life thus fpent? and what are they But frantic who thus fpend it? all for fmoke- Eternity for bubbles, proves at last A fenfeless bargain. When I fee fuch games Play'd by the creatures of a pow'r who swears That he will judge the earth, and call the fool To a sharp reck'ning that has liv'd in vain; And when I weigh this feeming wisdom well, And prove it in th' infallible refult So hollow and fo falfe-I feel my heart Diffolve in pity, and account the learn'd, If this be learning, most of all deceiv'd. Great crimes alarm the confcience, but it sleeps While thoughtful man is plausibly amus'd. 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 fage erudite, profound, Terribly arch'd and aquiline his nofe, 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 breafts. 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 meand'ring there, And catechise it well; apply thy glass, Search it, and prove now if it be not blood Congenial with thine own: and, if it be, What edge of fubtlety canst thou suppose Keen enough, wife 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 confefs,
In arts like your's. I cannot call the swift
And perilous lightnings from the angry clouds, And bid them hide themselves in earth beneath; I cannot analyse the air, nor catch
The parallax of yonder luminous point,
That feems half quench'd in the immense abyss: Such pow'rs I boast not-neither can I rest A filent witness of the headlong rage Or heedless folly by which thousands die, Bone of my bone, and kindred fouls to mine.
God never meant that man should fcale the heav'ns By strides of human wisdom. In his works, Though wond'rous, he commands us in his word To feek him rather, where his mercy shines. The mind indeed, enlighten'd from above, Views him in all; ascribes to the grand cause
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