ere a rude, uncolour'd chaos still.
Objects are but th' occasion; ours th' exploit;
Ours is the cloth,[30] the pencil, and the paint, 432
Which nature's admirable picture draws;
And beautifies creation's ample dome.
Like Milton's Eve, when gazing on the lake,
Man makes the matchless image man admires.
Say then, shall man, his thoughts all sent abroad,
Superior wonders in himself forgot,
His admiration waste on objects round,
When Heaven makes him the soul of all he sees? 440
Absurd! not rare! so great, so mean, is man.
What wealth in senses such as these! What wealth
In Fancy, fired to form a fairer scene
Than Sense surveys! In memory's firm record,
Which, should it perish, could this world recall
From the dark shadows of o'erwhelming years!
In colours fresh, originally bright,
Preserve its portrait, and report its fate!
What wealth in Intellect, that sovereign power!
Which Sense and Fancy summons to the bar; 450
Interrogates, approves, or reprehends;
And from the mass those underlings import,
From their materials sifted, and refined,
And in Truth's balance accurately weigh'd,
Forms art, and science, government, and law;
The solid basis, and the beauteous frame, 456
The vitals, and the grace of civil life!
And manners (sad exception!) set aside,
Strikes out, with master hand, a copy fair
Of His idea, whose indulgent thought
Long, long, ere chaos teem'd, plann'd human bliss.
What wealth in souls that soar, dive, range around,
Disdaining limit, or from place, or time; 463
And hear at once, in thought extensive, hear
Th' Almighty fiat, and the trumpet's sound!
Bold, on creation's outside walk, and view
What was, and is, and more than e'er shall be;
Commanding, with omnipotence of thought,
Creations new in fancy's field to rise!
Souls, that can grasp whate'er th' Almighty made, 470
And wander wild through things impossible!
What wealth, in faculties of endless growth,
In quenchless passions violent to crave,
In liberty to choose, in power to reach,
And in duration (how thy riches rise!)
Duration to perpetuate--boundless bliss!
Ask you, what power resides in feeble man
That bliss to gain? Is Virtue's, then, unknown?
Virtue, our present peace, our future prize.
Man's unprecarious, n