See how she smiles! press forward; learn to use
The intercession of the kindly Muse
To make her be propitious. But beware,
That in her favour thou escape the snare,
The worship, which the vain adorer pays.
She never him propitiously surveys,
Who insolently seeking wealth or fame,
Burns impure incense on her altar’s flame.
Dost thou not see how many turn aside
From her of learning void, but full of pride?
Alas for him, who seeking truth, for aid
Embraces only a delusive shade!
In self conceit who venturing to confide,
Nor virtue gain’d, nor reason for his guide,
Leaves the right path, precipitate to stray
Where error’s glittering phantoms lead the way!
Can then the wise hope happiness to feel
In the chimæras sought with so much zeal?
Ah, no! they all are vanities and cheats!
See him, whom anxious still the morning greets,
Measuring the heavens, and of the stars that fly
The shining orbits! With a sleepless eye,
Hasty the night he reckons, and complains
Of the day’s light his labour that detains;
Again admires night’s wonders, but reflects
Ne’er on the hand that fashion’d and directs.
Beyond the moons of Uranus he bends
His gaze; beyond the Ship, the Bear, ascends:
But after all this, nothing more feels he:
He measures, calculates, but does not see
The heavens obeying their great Author’s will,
Whirling around all silent; robbing still
The hours from life, ungratefully so gone,
Till one to undeceive him soon draws on.
Another, careless of the stars, descries
The humble dust, to scan and analyse.
His microscope he grasps, and sets, and falls
On some poor atom; and a triumph calls,
If should the fool the magic instrument
Of life or motion slightest sign present,
Its form to notice, in the glass to pore,
What his deluded fancy saw before;
Yields to the cheat, and gives to matter base
The power, forgot the Lord of all to trace.
Thus raves the ingrate.
Another the meanwhile
To scrutinize pretends, in learning’s style,
The innate essence of the soul sublime.
How he dissects it, regulates in time!
As if it were a subtile fluid, known
To him its action, functions, strength and tone;
But his own weakness shows in this alone.
’Twas given to man to view the heavens on high,
But not in them the mysteries of the sky;
Yet boldly dares his reason penetrate
The darksome chaos, o’er it to dilate.
With staggering step, thus scorning heavenly light,
In error’s paths he wanders, lost in night.
Confused, but not made wise, he pores about,
Betwixt opinion wavering and doubt.
Seeking for light, and shadows doom’d to feel,
He ponders, studies, labours to unseal
The secret, and at length finds his advance;
The more he learns, how great his ignorance.
Of matter, form, or motion, or the soul,
Or moments that away incessant roll,
Or the unfathomable sea of space,
Without a sky, without a shore to trace,
Nothing he reaches, nothing comprehends,
Nor finds its origin, nor where it tends;
But only sinking, all absorb’d may see
In the abysses of eternity.
Perhaps, thence stepping more disorder’d yet,
He rushes his presumptuous flight to set
Ev’n to the throne of God! with his dim eyes
The Great Inscrutable to scrutinize;
Sounding the gulf immense, that circles round
The Deity, he ventures o’er its bound.
What can he gain in such a pathless course
But endless doubts, his ignorance the source?
He seeks, proposes, argues, thinking vain.
The ignorance that knew to raise, must fain
Be able to resolve them. Hast thou seen
Attempts that e’er have more audacious been?
What! shall an atom such as he excel
To comprehend the Incomprehensible?
Without more light
