Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Parnassian Spring.

On the Honorable Emanuel Swedenborg's Universal Theology,

In this choice work the curious eye may find
The noblest system to reform mankind,
Old truths confirm'd, that skeptics have deny'd,
By most perverted, and which some deride.
Here, truths divine in heavenly visions grow
From the vast influx on our world below,
Here like the blaze of our material Sun,
Enlighten'd reason proves, that God is One ;-
As that, concenter'd in itself, a sphere,
Illumes all nature with its radiance here,
Bids tow'rd itself all trees and plants aspire,
Awakes the winds, impells the seeds of fire,
And still subservient to the almighty plan,
Warms into life the changeful race of man,
So, like that sun, in heaven's bright realms we trace
One power of Love, that fills unbounded space,
Existing always by no borrow'd aid,
Before all worlds, eternal, and not made ; -
To that indebted, stars and comets burn,
Owe their first movement, and to that return :
Prime source of wisdom. all contriving mind.
First spring of reason, that this globe deign'd,
Parent of our sphere, whose unwearied hand
Upholds the fabric that his wisdom plann'd.
And, its due course assign'd to every sphere,
Revolves the season, and sustains the year ;
Pure light of Truth ! where'er thy rays come
Thou art the substance of the power divine !
Nought else on earth that full resemblance bears,
No sun, that lights us through our circling years,
No stars, that through yon' heavenly mansions stray,
No moon, that glads us with her evening ray,
No seas, that o'er their gloomy mansions flow,
No forms beyond us, and no shapes below.
Then light, ah, slight not this instructive page
For the low follies of a thoughtless age,
Here, to the truth by reason's aid aspire,
Here the gay visions of the blest admire ;
Behold that heaven, in these neglected lines,
In whose vast space perpetual day light shines,
Where streams of joy through plains of pleasure run,
And night is banish'd from so bright a sun.
Plung'd in that gulph, whose dark unfathom'd wave
All tongues and nations to destruction drove,-
Here, man no more disgrac'd by death appears,
Lost in dull slumbers through a waste of years-
No empty dream, or still more empty shade ;-
Remains the substance. but the form decay'd ;
Sees what he saw, knows what before was known,
The same ideas, but more perfect grown.
Where parted souls with kindred spirits meet,
Rapt to the bloom of beauty, all complete,
In that celestial, vast, unbounded sphere,
Nought there exists but has its image here !
All there is Mind !--that intellectual flame,
From whose vast depth Platonic visions came,
In which creation ended and began--
Flows to this abject world, and beams on man.