ing worm! who questions thus of Him
That lives in all, and moves in every limb,
Must with himself in very strangeness dwell,
Has never heard the voice of Conscience tell
Of right and wrong, and speak in louder tone
Than tropick thunder of that Holy One,
Whose pure, eternal, justice shall requite
The deed of wrong, and justify the right.

Can such blaspheme and breathe the vital air?
Let mad philosophy their names declare.
Yet some there are, less daring in their aim,
With humbler cunning butcher sense for fame;
Who doubting still, with many a fearful pause,
Th' existence grant of one almighty cause;
But halting there, in bolder tone deny
The life hereafter, when the man shall die,
Nor mark the monstrous folly of their gain--
That God all-wise should fashion _them_ in vain.

'Twere labour lost in this material age,
When school boys trample on the Inspir'd Page,
When coblers prove by syllogistick pun
The soal they mend, and that of man are one;
'Twere waste of time to check the Muses' speed,
For all the _whys_ and _wherefores_ of their creed;
To show how prov'd the juices are the same
That feed the body, and the mental frame.

But who, half sceptic, half afraid of wrong,
Shall walk our streets, and mark the passing throng;
The brawny oaf in mould herculean cast,
The pigmy statesman trembling in his blast,
The cumb'rous citizen of portly paunch,
Unwont to soar beyond the smoaking haunch;
The meagre bard behind the moving tun,
His shadow seeming lengthen'd by the sun;
Who forms scarce visible shall thus descry,
Like flitting clouds athwart the mental sky;
From giant bodies then bare gleams of mind,
Like mountain watch-lights blinking to the wind;
Nor blush to find his unperverted eye
Flash on his heart, and give his tongue the lie.

'Tis passing strange! yet, born as if to show
Man to himself his most malignant foe,
There are (so desperate is the madness grown)
Who'd rather live a _lie_ than live unknown;
Whose very tongues, with force of holy writ,
Their doctrines damn with self-recoiling wit.

Behold yon dwarf, of visage pale and wan;
A sketch of life, a remnant of a man!
Whose livid lips, as now he moulds a grin,
Like charnel doors disclose the waste within;
Whose stiffen'd joints within their sockets grind,
Like gibbets creaking to the passing wind;
Whose shrivell'd skin with much adhesion clings
His bones around in hard compacted rings,
If veins there were, no blood beneath could force,