O, still through life's pernicious snares,
And wasting toils, and pining cares,
Smooth the rough road, my griefs beguile,
And make even pain and anguish smile.
And when I tread through death's dread gloom,
While Nature trembles o'er the tomb, .
Bid radiant beams of mercy rise,
And soften my expiring sighs.
ODE TO DIVINE WISDOM.
IMMENSE, all-animating Mind!
Whose ever active vigour reigns
Through space and nature's wide domains,
By time and matter unconfined;
Ere yet the planets hung self-poised in air,
Or stars emblazed the flaming sphere,
Thou reignest alone, self-known, self-bless'd,
Beholding in thy boundless breast
The forms and fair ideas rise
Of future earths and future skies.
There worlds to come in liquid ether roll'd;
There future suns array'd in gold,
O'er planetary realms ordain'd to sway,
Dispensed to nations yet unborn the day;
There the red comet through the desert space
Urged wildly regular his blazing race.
Thou sawest successive systems rise and die,
And in harmonious order lie
Whatever was, or is, or e'er shall be,
All the great scenes of dread eternity.
Thou gavest the' omnific word—the new-born light
Burst from the bosom of primeval night;
O'er wondering Chaos glow'd the golden ray,
And choirs celestial hail'd the rising day;
Obsequious planets circled round their sun,
Their motions various, but their centre one.
Striking on Nature's sympathetic strings
From Thee, mysterious Power, from Thee
Flow all the' unnumber'd modes of harmony,
And Form unfolds, and beauteous Order springs.
Angels with joy thy ruling word obey,
And all but Man is subject to thy sway!
He from his orbit wanders lawless still,
And owns no lords but his eccentric will.
When mortals, urged by driving passions on,
In chase of pleasure to their ruin run,
Thou callest aloud' beware!'
And feelest a mother's care,
Yearning when on the high cliff's hanging brow Her child she sees unguarded stray,
And dare the brink in wanton play,
While pointed rocks arise, and billows beat below.
In vain from thy parental voice they fly
Where folly, trick'd in antic foppery,
Shakes her shrill bells with idiot face,
And thicken round the simpering queen,
As bees, when summon'd by the sounding brass,
In dusky swarms are seen.
See kings and crowds advance,
And mitred priests, and statesmen sage, Green childhood run, and creep decrepit age, To form her gay fantastic dance;
Join'd hand in hand, with frolic wild,
And Laughter, Folly's darling child.
The reverend sire, in bridal pomp array'd,
Leads on with quivering hand the youthful maid,
While amorous roses on his wrinkles bloom;
Totters awhile the giddy circle round
In hobbling measure to the frantic sound,
Then trips into the tomb.
Now Fancy waves in air her magic wand;
A thousand phantoms rise at her command,
Gilded by false Opinion's glaring ray.
In visionary beauty gay,
See Glory her red standard rear
High flaming o'er her trophied car!
Ambition here her waxen pinion plies,
And in idea cleaves the clouds and skies;
On daring wing sublime she soars to fame,
Soon-soon to fall and give some sea a name.
There Pleasure lolling on her roseate bed,
Arabian odours breathing round her head,
Darts through the thrilling soul her wanton fire,
And melts e'en rigid Virtue to desire.
The glittering visions stop the rising soul,
And bend her from the skies, her destined goal;
Eager she gives the shining shadows chase,
Which tempt and cheat by turns her fond embrace.
How vast the human soul,
Whose heaven-descended energy aspires
Beyond the bounds of this sublunar pole,
Beyond the solar road, and empyrean fires!
Yet this sublime, immense, immortal power,
When soaring at heaven's loftiest tower,
Down, down, a little glittering clay
Can draw from its ethereal way,
Or one soft flattering lust
Pollute its noblest glories in the dust.
Ah, man! what jarring parents form'd thy birth? Thou child of Heaven and Earth!
Nature so mix'd, what reason shall define!
Half brutal, half divine!
Thus fabled demigods renown'd of yore,
Whom mortal beauties to immortals bore,
By deeds of glorious fame
Proved the high source from whence their virtues
While in their frailties still appear'd to view
The features of the mortal mother too.
Reason, that beam of Heaven, by Heaven assign'd To raise the fruits of virtue in the mind, Received by wretched man's perverted will, Shines to no use-or only shines to ill.
Gilds but the muddy lake, or barren clay,
Or only warms the richer soil to breed
The plant of poison, and the worthless weed,
Or in the covert of the prickly brake
Inflames with fiercer rage the deadly snake.
The Passions sway-the tyrants of the soul,
Deaf to advice, disdainful of control,
Break every tie, and leap o'er every bound,
And with blind ardour rage, and madden round.
Hence the rough tempest, hence the waves of woe
That whelm the world below,
Extort the poor man's plaint, the widow's cry,
And draw from Misery the incessant sigh.
The lust of lucre and the lust of power
Still prowl, like wolves, to plunder and devour,
Or demons rushing from the' infernal cell,
To make this beauteous world another hell.
While man thus devious strays
In Folly's dance, or Fancy's fairy maze;
While, in the raging seas of Passion toss'd,
His nobler powers are lost;
O! to thy sacred seat,
Celestial Wisdom! lead my wandering feet,
And to my view unveil the beams that shine
Around thy sun-bright shrine.
"Tis thine to form the God;
The nectar thine, and thine the' ambrosial food Which keep the' Ethereals deathless and divine.
"Tis thine the tender infant mind to mould,
And spread her opening powers,
Like vernal suns, that nurse the new blown flowers,
And in full glow their blushing bloom unfold.
'Tis thine her intellectual growth to feed
With sacred truth and sentiment refined,
To prompt the noble ends that Heaven design'd,
The godlike purpose, and the generous deed.
When growing, ripening on, she feels at length
Her full-fledged pinions and immortal strength,
By thee her rapid plumes are poised for flight,
Then to the source of beauty, bliss, and light
She lifts aloft her eagle eye,
And soars and brightens to divinity.
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