14
Wash'd his soil'd axles in the Indian sea?
Where is that sea? or where, indeed, the world?
The boundless world, by the great Poets sung?
A kingdom? or a province? or a field?
A speck, that the exalted mind can scarce
Discern, amid the wilderness of air!
How pleasant, to consider at his toil
The pale Geographer, with wakeful thought,
The compass in his hand, the open page
Of some great ancient tracer of the hills
And rivers from their source, before him laid,
With careful hand adjusting to each king
His portion of pass'd earth, and marking well
What here to Greece or Artaxerxes 'long'd:
O, this is lunatick, and well deserves
The sounding lash, (cruel expedient,
And ill-abus'd to heighten Nature's woe!)
If the fair picture of this insect world
Were well presented to our purged thought,
And man taught well on what small stage he play'd.
But hold the abuse of passion here has sway;
Where is that sea? or where, indeed, the world?
The boundless world, by the great Poets sung?
A kingdom? or a province? or a field?
A speck, that the exalted mind can scarce
Discern, amid the wilderness of air!
How pleasant, to consider at his toil
The pale Geographer, with wakeful thought,
The compass in his hand, the open page
Of some great ancient tracer of the hills
And rivers from their source, before him laid,
With careful hand adjusting to each king
His portion of pass'd earth, and marking well
What here to Greece or Artaxerxes 'long'd:
O, this is lunatick, and well deserves
The sounding lash, (cruel expedient,
And ill-abus'd to heighten Nature's woe!)
If the fair picture of this insect world
Were well presented to our purged thought,
And man taught well on what small stage he play'd.
But hold the abuse of passion here has sway;
