Well spent in such a strife, may earn indeed, And for a time enfure, to his lov'd land The fweets of liberty and equal laws; But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize, And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed In confirmation of the nobleft claim Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, * See Hume. He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are flaves 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 fight, Calls the delightful scen'ry all his own. His are the mountains, and the vallies his, And the refplendent 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 fmiling say-" My father made them all!" Are they not his by a peculiar right, And by an emphasis of int'reft his, Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy, } That plann'd, and built, and still upholds, a world So cloth'd with beauty for rebellious man? No nook so narrow but he spreads them there With ease, and is at large. Th' oppreffor holds His body bound; but knows not what a range (His fpirit 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 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 refts content 1 1 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 fuch, And fuch 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 facred wisdom taught To read his wonders, in whose thought the world, Fair as it is, existed ere it was. Not for its own fake merely, but for his The foul that fees him, or receives fublim'd 1 |