sight
    In its reception to the eye,
And catch the living landscape through a scanty light,
    The figures all inverted show,
    And colours of a faded hue;
  Here a pale shape with upward footstep treads,
    And men seem walking on their heads;
    There whole herds suspended lie,
  Ready to tumble down into the sky;
  Such are the ways ill-guided mortals go
  To judge of things above by things below.
Disjointing shapes as in the fairy land of dreams,
  Or images that sink in streams;
  No wonder, then, we talk amiss
  Of truth, and what, or where it is;
  Say, Muse, for thou, if any, know'st,
Since the bright essence fled, where haunts the reverend ghost?

III

If all that our weak knowledge titles virtue, be
(High Truth) the best resemblance of exalted Thee,
    If a mind fix'd to combat fate
With those two powerful swords, submission and humility,
    Sounds truly good, or truly great;
Ill may I live, if the good Sancroft, in his holy rest,
    In the divinity of retreat,
  Be not the brightest pattern earth can show
    Of heaven-born Truth below;
  But foolish man still judges what is best
    In his own balance, false and light,
    Following opinion, dark and blind,
    That vagrant leader of the mind,
Till honesty and conscience are clear out of sight.

IV

And some, to be large ciphers in a state,
Pleased with an empty swelling to be counted great,
Make their minds travel o'er infinity of space,
  Rapt through the wide expanse of thought,
  And oft in contradiction's vortex caught,
To keep that worthless clod, the body, in one place;
Errors like this did old astronomers misguide,
Led blindly on by gross philosophy and pride,
    Who, like hard masters, taught the sun
    Through many a heedless sphere to run,
Many an eccentric and unthrifty motion make,
  And thousand incoherent journeys take,
    Whilst all th'advantage by it got,
    Was but to light earth's inconsiderable spot.
The herd beneath, who see the weathercock of state
  Hung loosely on the church's pinnacle,
Believe it firm, because perhaps the day is mild and still;
But when they find it turn with the first blast of fate,
    By gazing upward giddy grow,
    And think the church itself does so;
  Thus fools, for being strong and num'rous known,
  Suppose the truth, like all the world, their own;
And holy Sancroft's motion quite irregular appears,
    Because 'tis opposite to theirs.

V

In vain then would the Muse the multitude advise,
  Whose peevish knowledge thus perversely lies
    In gath'ring follies from the wise;
  Rather put on thy anger and thy spite,
    And some kind power for once dispense
  Through the dark mass, the dawn of so much sense,
To make them understand, and feel me when I write;
  The muse and I no more revenge desire,
Each line shall stab, shall blast, like daggers and like fire;
  Ah, Britain, land of angels! which of all thy sins,
    (Say, hapless isle, although
    It is a bloody list we know,)
Has given thee up a dwelling-place to fiends?
    Sin and the plague ever abound
In governments too easy, and too fruitful ground;
     Evils which a too gentle king,
     Too flourishing a spring,
     And too warm summers bring:
   Our British soil is over rank, and breeds
   Among the noblest flowers a thousand pois'nous weeds,
   And every stinking weed so lofty grows,
   As if 'twould overshade the Royal Rose;
   The Royal Rose, the glory of our morn,
      But, ah! too much without a thorn.

VI

Forgive (original mildness) this ill-govern'd zeal,
'Tis all the angry slighted Muse can do
     In the pollution of these days;
  No province now is left her but to rail,
  And poetry has lost the art to praise,
     Alas, the occasions are so few:
     None e'er but you,
     And your Almighty Master, knew
  With heavenly peace of mind to bear
(Free from our tyrant passions, anger, scorn, or fear)
The giddy turns of popular rage,
And all the contradictions of a poison'd age;
  The Son of God pronounced by the same breath
    Which straight pronounced his death;
  And though I should but ill be understood,
  In wholly equalling our sin and theirs,
  And measuring by the scanty thread of wit
  What we call holy, and great, and just, and good,
(Methods in talk whereof our pride and ignorance make use,)
  And which our wild ambition foolishly compares
    With endless and with infinite;
  Yet pardon, native Albion, when I say,
Among thy stubborn sons there haunts that spirit of the Jews,
  That those forsaken wretches who to-day
    Revile his great ambassador,
  Seem to discover what they would have done
  (Were his humanity on earth once more)
To his undoubted Master, Heaven's Almighty Son.

VII

But zeal is weak and ignorant, though wondrous proud,
  Though very turbulent and very loud;
    The crazy composition shows,
Like that fantastic medley in the idol's toes,
  Made up of iron mixt with clay,
  This crumbles into dust,
  That moulders into rust,
  Or melts by the first shower away.
Nothing is fix'd that mortals see or know,
Unless, perhaps, some stars above be so;
    And those, alas, do show,
  Like all transcendent excellence below;
    In both, false mediums cheat our sight,
And far exalted objects lessen by their height:
    Thus primitive Sancroft moves too high
    To be observed by vulgar eye,
    And rolls the silent year
    On his own secret regular sphere,
And sheds, though all unseen, his sacred influence here.

VIII

Kind star, still may'st thou shed thy sacred influence here,
  Or from thy private peaceful orb appear;
  For, sure, we want some guide from Heaven, to show
  The way which every wand'ring fool below
    Pretends so perfectly to know;
  And which, for aught I see, and much I fear,
     The world has wholly miss'd;
  I mean the way which leads to Christ:
Mistaken idiots! see how giddily they run,
  Led blindly on by avarice and pride,
    What mighty numbers follow them;
    Each fond of erring with his guide:
  Some whom ambition drives, seek Heaven's high Son
  In Caesar's court, or in Jerusalem:
    Others, ignorantly wise,
Among proud doctors and disputing Pharisees:
What could the sages gain but unbelieving scorn;
  Their faith was so uncourtly, when they said
That Heaven's high Son was in a village born;
    That the world's Saviour had been
    In a vile manger laid,
    And foster'd in a wretched inn?

IX

Necessity, thou tyrant conscience of the great,
Say, why the church is still led blindfold by the state;
  Why should the first be ruin'd and