Dim as the borrowed 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 upward 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 Leaped into form, the noble work of chance; Or this great All was from eternity,-- } Not even the Stagyrite himself could see,} And Epicurus guessed 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 concerned the good of human kind; For happiness was never to be found, But vanished from them like enchanted ground.[29] One thought content the good to be enjoyed; This every little accident destroyed: 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. The Deist thinks he stands on firmer ground; Cries [Greek: eureka]! the mighty secret's found: God is that spring of good, supreme and best, We made to serve, and in that service blest; If so, some rules of worship must be given, Distributed alike to all by heaven; Else God were partial, and to some denied The means his justice should for all provide. This general worship is to praise and pray; One part to borrow blessings, one to pay; And when frail nature slides into offence, The sacrifice for crimes is penitence. Yet since the effects of providence, we find, Are variously dispensed to human kind; That vice triumphs, and virtue suffers here, A brand that sovereign justice cannot bear; Our reason prompts us to a future state, The last appeal from fortune and from fate, Where God's all righteous ways will be declared; The bad meet punishment, the good reward. Thus man by his own strength to heaven would soar,