quote · Legacy record

Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would’st taste His works. Admitted once to his embrace, Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before: Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heart Made pure, shall relish with divine delight Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought. Brutes graze the mountain-top, with faces prone, And eyes intent upon the scanty herb It yields them: or recumbent on its brow Ruminate, heedless of the scene outspread Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away From inland regions to the distant main. Man views it and admires; but rests content With what he views. The landscape has his praise, But not its Author. Unconcerned who framed The Paradise he sees, he finds it such, And such well pleased to find it, asks no more. Not so the mind that has been touched from heaven, And in the schools of sacred wisdom taught To read his wonders, in whose thought the world, Fair as it is, existed ere it was. Not for its own sake merely, but for his Much more who fashioned it, he gives it praise; Praise that from earth resulting as it ought, To earth’s acknowledged Sovereign, finds at once Its only just proprietor in Him.

Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would’st taste His works. Admitted once to his embrace, Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before: Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heart Made pure, shall relish with divine delight Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought. Brutes graze the mountain-top, with faces prone, And eyes intent upon the scanty herb It yields them: or recumbent on its brow Ruminate, heedless of the scene outspread Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away From inland regions to the distant main. Man views it and admires; but rests content With what he views. The landscape has his praise, But not its Author. Unconcerned who framed The Paradise he sees, he finds it such, And such well pleased to find it, asks no more. Not so the mind that has been touched from heaven, And in the schools of sacred wisdom taught To read his wonders, in whose thought the world, Fair as it is, existed ere it was. Not for its own sake merely, but for his Much more who fashioned it, he gives it praise; Praise that from earth resulting as it ought, To earth’s acknowledged Sovereign, finds at once Its only just proprietor in Him.

Approximate author period: c. 1765 AD · early modern