Mistaken men, too piously severe!
Thro' craft misleading, or misled by fear;
How little they God's counsels comprehend,
Our universal parent, guardian, friend!
Who, forming by degrees to bliss mankind,
This globe our sportive nursery assign'd,
Where for awhile his fond paternal care
Feasts us with ev'ry joy our state can bear:
Each sense, touch, taste, and smell dispense delight,
Musick our hearing, beauty charms our sight;
Trees, herbs, and flow'rs to us their spoils resign,
Its pearl the rock presents, its gold the mine;
Beasts, fowl, and fish their daily tribute give
Of food and cloaths, and die that we may live:
Seasons but change, new pleasures to produce,
And elements contend to serve our use:
Love's gentle shafts, ambition's tow'ring wings,
The pomps of senates, churches, courts, and kings,
All that our rev'rence, joy, or hope create,
Are the gay play-things of this infant state.
Scarcely an ill to human life belongs,
But what our follies cause, or mutual wrongs;
Or if some stripes from Providence we feel,
He strikes with pity, and but wounds to heal;
Kindly perhaps sometimes afflicts us here,
To guide her views to a sublimer sphere,
In more exalted joys to fix our taste,
And wean us from delights that cannot last.
Our present good the easy task is made,
To earn superior bliss, when this shall fade;
For, soon as e'er these moral pleasures cloy,
His hand shall lead us to sublimer joy;
Snatch us from all our little sorrows here,
Calm every grief, and dry each childish tear;
Waft us to regions of eternal peace,
Where bliss and virtue grow with like increase;
From strength to strength our souls for ever guide,
Thro' wond'rous scenes of being yet untry'd,
Where in each stage we shall more perfect grow,
And new perfections, new delights bestow.