In which ten thousand images remain,
Without confusion, and their rank maintain,
In rich and poor, the halt, the blind and lame.
As human kind can by an act direct,
Perceive and know, then reason and reflect.
So the self-moving spring has pow'r to choose,.
These methods to reject, and those to use;
She can design and persecute an end,
Exert her vigor, or her act suspend.
Free from the insults of all foreign pow'r,
She does her godlike liberty secure ;
Her right and high prerogative maintains,
Impatient of the yoke, and scorns coercive chains;
She can her airy train of forms disband,
And make new levies, at her own command;
O'er her ideas, sov'reign she presides,
At pleasure these unites, and those divides;
The ready phantoms at her nod advance,
And form the busy intellectual dance :
While her fair scenes, to vary or supply,
She singles out fit images that lie
In mem❜ry's records, all which faithful hold,
Objects immense, in secret marks enroll'd;
The slumb'ring forms at her command awake,
And now return, and now their cells forsake;
On active fancy's crowded theatre,
As she directs, they rise or disappear....
By her superior pow'r, the reas'ning soul,
Can each reluctant appetite control;
Can ev'ry passion rule, and ev'ry sense,
Change nature's course, and with her laws dispense
Our breathing to prevent, she can arrest,
Th' extension, or contraction of the breast.
When pain'd with hunger, we can food refuse,
And wholesome nourishment, or famine choose:
Can the wild beast, his instinct disobey,
And from his jaws release his captive prey?
Or hungry herds, on verdant pastures lie,
Mindless to eat and resolute to die?
With heat expiring, can the panting hart,
Patient of thirst, from the cool stream depart
Can brutes at will imprison'd breath detain,
Torment prefer to ease, and life disdain ?
And can they, like the guilty tyrant, say,
All sad and sullen hate the golden day ;
From this 'tis evident, the will is free,
Unforc'd, and unnecessitated we;
Ourselves determine, and our freedom prove,
When this we fly and to that object move ;
Had not the mind a pow'r, to will and choose,
One object to embrace, and one refuse :
Could she not act, or not her act suspend,
As it obstructed, or advanc'd her end;
Virtue and vice were names without a cause,
This would not hate deserve, or that applause........
Justice in vain has high tribunals rear'd,
Whom can her sentence punish, who reward.
If impious children should their father kill,
Can they be wicked, when they cannot will.
When only causes foreign and unseen,
Strike with resistless force the springs within;
Are vapors guilty, which the vintage blast;
Are storms proscrib'd, which lay the forest waste?
Why lies the wretch then, tortur'd on the wheel,
If forc'd to treason, or compell❜d to steal?
Why does the warrior by auspicious fate,
With laurels crown'd and clad in robes of state;
In triumph ride amidst the gazing throng,
Deaf with plaudits, and with the poet's song.
If the victorious but the brute machine,
Did only wreaths inevitably win,
And no wise choice, or vigilance had shewn,
Mov'd by a fatal impulse, not his own :
This spurious sentiment is base, unjust,
Arraigns high heav'n, for mankind's guilt and lust
As much we're forc'd, when by an atom's sway,
Control'd, as when a monarch we obey,
And by whatever cause constrain'd to act,
We merit no reward, no guilt contract.
Our mind of rulers feels a conscious awe,
Reveres their justice, and regards their law....
She rectitude and deviation knows,
That vice from one, from one that virtue flows;
Of those she feels unlike effects within,
From virtue pleasure, and remorse from sin ;
Hopes of a just reward, by that are fed,
By this of wrath vindictive sacred dread.
The mind which thus can rules of duty learn,
Can right from wrong, and good from ill discern;
Which the sharp stroke of justice to prevent,
Can shame express, can grieve, reflect, repent.
From fate or chance her rise can never draw,
Those causes know not virtue, vice, or law!
She can a life succeeding this, conceive,
Of bless, or woe, and endless state believe;
Dreading the just and universal doom,
And aw'd by fears of punishment to come;
By hopes excited, of a glorious crown,
And certain pleasures in a world unknown....
She can the fond desires of sense restrain,
Renounce delight, and choose distress and pain;
Can rush on danger, can destruction face,
Joyful relinquish life, and death embrace,
Thro' love divine, and thro' all conqu’ring grace;
She to afflicted virtue can adhere,
And chains and want, to prosp'rous guilt prefer ;
Her charming songs, the syren sings in vain,
She can the tuneful hypocrite disdain;
Fix'd and unchang'd, this faithless world behold,
Deaf to its threats, and to its favors cold.
We have a glimpse of the creation shown,
As we'd compare a candle to the sun.
Now view religion, with celestial charıns,
The greatest blessing from our Maker's arms;
From her bright eyes, what heav'nly rays are spread,
While dawning glory plays around her head :
Without this heav'n born principle within,
Men are beneath the brutes, and slaves to sin;
Like them we grovel, and like them enjoy,
But brutal pleasures, and unhallow'd joy,
And God declares, without converting love,
We never, never, can sing hymns above.
That men might first be qualified to rise,
And fill their golden thrones above the skies;
From heav'n Messiah came, to point the way,
T' repent, believe, hope, love and then obey,
Alas! a train of mischiefs oft proceeds,
From hypocritic rites, and penal creeds.
Shall heav'n's profoundest blessing then, forego
Her worth, because professors prove her foe:
Shall hypocrites and demagogues destroy,
Religion, liberty, and sacred joy?
Then we may necessary food forego,
When we behold the glutton and the drunkard's woe. Hail! light divine! by thee we bless the cause, Who form'd the world and rules it by his laws,
His Independent Being, we adore,
Extol his goodness, and revere his pow'r ;
Our wond'ring minds his high perfections view,
The lofty contemplation we pursue,
'Till ravish'd we the great idea find,
Shining in bright impressions on our mind;
Tho' brutes with great sagacity are bless'd,
None but mankind are with this pearl possess'd;
And yet, alas! how many men forgo,
Their high prerogatives and sink in woe,
Slaves to their passions and their ghostly foe.
Inspir'd by thee, guest of celestial race,
Divine religion, sanctifying grace,
With gen'rous love we human kind embrace;
We bless the orphan, and the widow bless,
And for the stranger spread the couch of rest;
The pris'ner visit, bound in galling chains,
The naked clothe, and soothe the sick man's pains,
While down our cheeks the tender sorrows flow,
We feel our brother's grief, our brother's woe;
Feel sympathetic love for all our race,
And circle mankind in one kind embrace;
Our greatest grief is to see human woe,
Nor can relieve, nor stop the tears that flow.
We provocations unprovok'd receive,
Patient of wrong, and easy to forgive!
"We do to others as we'd be done by,”
Nor harbor envy, nor declare a lie ;
We pray for those who curse us, and our foe
We love and pity, and relieve his woe;
Protect th' oppress'd, and plead the poor
Pursue the holy path that justice draws.
Thy lustre, blest effulgence can dispel,
The clouds of error, and the gloom of hell,
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