Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/250

From all professions careless Airy flies,
"For all professions can't be good," he cries;
And here a fault, and there another views,
And lives unfix'd for want of heart to choose;
So men, who know what some loose girls have done,
For fear of marrying such, will marry none.
The charms of all obsequious Courtly strike;
On each he dotes, on each attends alike;
And thinks, as different countries deck the dame,
The dresses altering, and the sex the same:
So fares Religion, chang'd in outward show,
But, 'tis Religion still where'er we go:
This blindness springs from an excess of light,
And men embrace the wrong to choose the right.
But thou of force must one Religion own,
And only one, and that the right alone;
To find that right one, ask thy reverend sire,
Let his of him, and him of his inquire;
Though Truth and Falsehood seem as twins allied,
There's eldership on Truth's delightful side;
Her seek with heed—who seeks the soundest first,
Is not of no Religion, nor the worst.
T' adore, or scorn an image, or protest,
May all be bad; doubt wisely for the best,
'Twere wrong to sleep, or headlong run astray;
It is not wandering, to inquire the way.

On a large mountain, at the basis wide,
Steep to the top, and craggy at the side,
Sits sacred Truth enthron'd; and he who means