At the same time the poetry hardly rises to the height which the theme might have justified. There is little to captivate or astonish, but perpetual admiration attends upon the masterly conduct of the argument, and the ease with which dry and difficult propositions melt and glide in harmonious verse. The execution is singularly equable; but perhaps hardly maintains the elevation of the fine exordium: 'Dim as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars To lonely, weary, wandering travellers, Is reason to the soul: and as, on high, Those rolling fires discover but the sky, Not light us here; so reason's glimmering ray } Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way, } But guide us upwards to a better day. } And as those nightly tapers disappear, When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere; So pale grows reason at religion's sight, So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light. Some few, whose lamp shone brighter, have been led From cause to cause, to nature's sacred head, And found that one First Principle must be: But what, or who, that universal He; Whether some soul, encompassing this ball, Unmade, unmoved; yet making, moving all; Or various atoms' interfering dance Leap'd into form, the noble work of chance; Or this great All was from eternity.-- } Not even the Stagyrite himself could see, } And Epicurus guess'd as well as he. } As blindly groped they for a future state, As rashly judged of providence and fate; But least of all could their endeavours find What most concern'd the good of human kind; For happiness was never to be found, But vanish'd from them like enchanted ground. One thought content the good to be enjoy'd; This very little accident destroy'd: The wiser madmen did for virtue toil, A thorny, or, at best, a barren soil: In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep; } But found their line too short, the well too deep, } And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep. } Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll, Without a centre where to fix the soul: In this wild maze their vain endeavours end:-- How can the less the greater comprehend? Or finite reason reach infinity? For what could fathom God were more than he.'