Well spent in fuch a ftrife, may earn indeed,

And for a time enfure, to his lov'd land

The fweets of liberty and equal laws;

But martyrs ftruggle 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,

To walk with God, to be divinely free,
To foar, and to anticipate the skies!

Yet few remember them. They liv'd unknown
Till perfecution dragg'd them into fame,

And chas'd them up to heav'n. Their afhes flew
-No marble tells us whither. With their names

No bard embalms and fanctifies his fong:
And history, fo warm on meaner themes,
Is cold on this. She execrates indeed

The tyranny that doom'd them to the fire,
But gives the glorious fuff'rers little praise*.

* See Hume.

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,

And all are flaves befide.

There's not a chain

That hellish foes, confed'rate for his harm,

Can wind around him, but he cafts it off
With as much ease as Samfon his green wyths.
He looks abroad into the varied field

Of Nature, and, though poor perhaps compar'd
With those whose manfions glitter in his fight,
Calls the delightful fcen'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 unprefumptuous eye,

And smiling fay-" My father made them all!"

Are they not his by a peculiar right,

And by an emphasis of int'rest his,

Whofe eye they fill with tears of holy joy,

Whose heart with praife, and whofe exalted mind

With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love

That plann'd, and built, and still upholds, a world
So cloth'd with beauty for rebellious man?
Yes-ye may fill your garners, ye that reap
The loaded foil, and ye may wafte much good
In fenfelefs riot; but ye will not find,
In feaft or in the chafe, in song or dance,
A liberty like his, who, unimpeach'd
Of ufurpation, and to no man's wrong,
Appropriates nature as his father's work,
And has a richer use of your's than you.
He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth
Of no mean city; plann'd or ere the hills
Were built, the fountains open'd, or the fea
With all his roaring multitude of waves.

His freedom is the fame in ev'ry state;
And no condition of this changeful life,

So manifold in cares, whofe ev'ry day

Brings its own evil with it, makes it lefs:

For he has wings that neither fickness, pain,

(Nor penury, can cripple or confine,

No nook fo narrow but he fpreads 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 waft blind before:
Thine eye fhall be inftructed; and thine heart,
Made pure, fhall 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 fcanty herb

It yields them; or, recumbent on its brow,
Ruminate heedlefs of the fcene outspread

Beneath, beyond, and ftretching far away
From inland regions to the diftant main.

Man views it, and admires; but refts content

With what he views. The landscape has his praise,

But not its author.

Unconcern'd who form'd

The paradife he fees, he finds it fuch,

And fuch well-pleas'd to find it, afks no more.

Not fo the mind that has been touch'd from heav'n, And in the school of facred wifdom taught

To read his wonders, in whofe thought the world,
Fair as it is, exifted ere it was.

Not for its own fake merely, but for his
Much more who fashion'd it, he gives it praise;
Praise that, from earth refulting, as it ought,

To earth's acknowledg'd fov'reign, finds at once
Its only juft proprietor in Him.

The foul that fees him, or receives fublim'd
New faculties, or learns at least t' employ
More worthily the pow'rs fhe own'd before,
Difcerns in all things what, with ftupid gaze
Of ignorance, till then fhe overlook'd—
A ray of heav'nly light, gilding all forms
Terreftrial in the vast and the minute;