Our reason's guide, by whose assisting light

We trace the moral bounds of wrong and right;

Our guide through nature, from the sterile clay,

To the bright orbs of yon celestial way!

'Tis thine, the great, the golden chain to trace,

Which runs through all, connecting race with race;

Save where those puzzling, stubborn links remain,

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Which thy inferior light pursues in vain:—

How vice and virtue in the soul contend;