"What lets but one may enter?"—Shakespeare.
[4.] the Bridge. The heads of traitors were displayed on London Bridge. "How inferior is this passage," says Dr. Dodd, "to Milton's animated description of the wild ceremonies of Moloch, which Dryden, however, seems to have here had in mind." See "Ode on the Nativity," stanza xxiii.
[5.] The simile in this stanza was doubtless intended to be very effective.
[6.] key. Quay. A bank, or ledge.
[7.] Simois. See Homer's "Iliad," Bk. XXI.
[8.] gross. Bulk.
REASON AND RELIGION.
[FROM "RELIGIO LAICI.">[
Dim as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers,
Is Reason to the soul: and as on high,
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here; so Reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear,
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere;
So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight;
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
Some few whose light shone brighter, have been led
From cause to cause, to nature's secret head;
And found that one first principle must be,
But what, or who, that Universal He;
Whether some soul incompassing this ball,
Unmade, unmov'd, yet making, moving all,
Or various atoms' interfering dance
Leap'd into form, the noble work of chance,
Or this great All was from eternity—
Not even the Stagirite himself could see,
And Epicurus guess'd as well as he;
As blindly groped they for a future state,
As rashly judged of providence and fate.
In this wild maze their vain endeavors end:
How can the less the greater comprehend?
Or finite Reason reach Infinity?
For what could fathom God were more than He.
