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That there's a God from Nature's voice is clear,
And yet what errors to this truth adhere?
How have the fears and follies of mankind
Now multiply'd their Gods, and now fubjoin'd
To each the frailties of the human mind ?
Nay fuperftition spread at length fo wide,
Beafts, birds, and onions too were deify'd.

Th' Athenian fage revolving in his mind
This weakness, blindnefs, madness of mankind,
Foretold, that in maturer days, tho' late,
When time should ripen the decrees of Fate,
Some God would light us, like the rifing day,
Thro' error's maze, and chase these clouds away.
Long fince has Time fulfill'd this great decree,
And brought us aid from this divinity.

Well worth our fearch discoveries may be made
By Nature, void of the celeftial aid :

Let's try what her conjectures then can reach,
Nor fcorn plain Reason, when the deigns to teach.
That mind and body often fympathize

Is plain; fuch is this union Nature ties :
But then as often too they disagree,
Which proves the foul's fuperior progeny.
Sometimes the body in full ftrength we find.
Whilst various ails debilitate the mind;
At others, whilst the mind its force retains,
The body finks with fickness and with pains:

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Now

Now did one common fate their beings end,.
Alike they'd ficken, and alike they'd mend.
But fure experience, on the flightest view,
Shews us, that the reverse of this is true;
For when the body oft expiring lies,

Its limbs quite fenfelefs, and half clos'd its eyes,
The mind new force, and eloquence acquires,
And with prophetic voice the dying lips inspires.
Of like materials were they both compos'd,
How comes it, that the mind, when sleep has clos'd
Each avenue of fenfe, expatiates wide

Her liberty reftor'd, her bonds unty'd?

And like fome bird who from its prifon flies,
Claps her exulting wings, and mounts the skies.
Grant that corporeal is the human mind,
It must have parts in infinitum join'd;
And each of these must will, perceive, defign,
And draw confus'dly in a different line;
Which then can claim dominion o'er the reft,
Or ftamp the ruling paffion in the breast?

Perhaps the mind is form'd by various arts
Of modelling, and figuring these parts;
Juft as if circles wiser were than fquares ;
But furely common fenfe aloud declares
That fite, and figure are as foreign quite
From mental pow'rs, as colours black or white.
Allow that motion is the cause of thought,

With what strange pow'rs must motion then be fraught ?

Reason, fense, science, muft derive their fource
From the wheel's rapid whirl, or pully's force;
Tops whip'd by school-boys fages must commence,
Their hoops, like them, be cudgel'd into sense,
And boiling pots o'erflow with eloquence.
Whence can this very motion take its birth?
Not fure from matter, from dull clods of earth;
But from a living fpirit lodg'd within,
Which governs all the bodily machine:
Just as th' Almighty Univerfal Soul
Informs, directs, and animates the whole.

Ceafe then to wonder how th' immortal mind
Can live, when from the body quite disjoin'd;
But rather wonder, if the e'er cou'd die,
So fram'd, fo fashion'd for eternity;
Self-mov'd, not form'd of parts together ty'd,
Which time can diffipate, and force divide;
For beings of this make can never die,

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Whose pow'rs within themselves, and their own effence lie.
If to conceive how any thing can be
From shape abftracted and locality
Is hard; what think you of the Deity?
His Being not the least relation bears,
As far as to the human mind appears,

To shape, or fize, fimilitude or place,
Cloath'd in no form, and bounded by no fpace.
Such then is God, a Spirit pure refin'd

From all material drofs, and fuch the human mind.

For

For in what part of effence can we fee
More certain marks of Immortality

Ev'n from this dark confinement with delight
She looks abroad, and prunes herself for flight;
Like an unwilling inmate longs to roam

From this dull earth, and seek her native home.
Go then forgetful of its toil and ftrife,

Pursue the joys of this fallacious life;
Like fome poor fly, who lives but for a day,
Sip the fresh dews, and in the funthine play,
And into nothing then diffolve away.

Are these our great purfuits, is this to live?
These all the hopes this much-lov'd world can give!
How much more worthy envy is their fate,
Who fearch for truth in a fuperior state?
Not groping step by step, as we pursue,
And following reason's much entangled clue,
But with one great, and inftantaneous view.
But how can fenfe remain, perhaps you'll fay,
Corporeal organs if we take away!

Since it from them proceeds, and with them must decay.
Why not? or why may not the foul receive

New organs, fince ev'n art can these retrieve?.

The filver trumpet aids th' obftructed ear,
And optic glaffes the dim eye can clear;
Thefe in mankind new faculties create,

And lift him far above his native ftate;

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Call

Call down revolving planets from the sky,
Earth's fecret treasures open to his eye,
The whole minute creation make his own,
With all the wonders of a world unknown.

How cou'd the mind, did fhe alone depend
On fenfe, the errors of those fenfes mend?
Yet oft, we fee those senses fhe corrects,
And oft their information quite rejects.
In diftances of things, their fhapes and size,
Our reafon judges better than our eyes.
Declares not this the foul's preheminence
Superior to, and quite diftinct from sense?
For fure 'tis likely, that, fince now fo high
Clogg'd and unfledg'd the dares her wings to try,
Loos'd, and mature, fhe fhall her strength display,
And foar at length to Truth's refulgent ray.

Inquire you how thefe pow'rs we shall attain, 'Tis not for us to know; our search is vain : Can any now remember or relate

How he existed in the embryo ftate?
Or one from birth infenfible of day
Conceive ideas of the folar ray ?

That light's deny'd to him, which others fee,
He knows, perhaps you'll fay,

and fo do we.

The mind contemplative finds nothing here On earth, that's worthy of a wish or fear; He, whofe fublime pursuit is God and truth, Burns, like fome abfent and impatient youth,

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