This too is Truth; where'er his prudent lips
Wait till experience diligent and slow
Has authorised their sentence, this is Truth; 80
A second, higher kind: the parent this
Of Science; or the lofty power herself,
Science herself, on whom the wants and cares
Of social life depend; the substitute
Of God's own wisdom in this toilsome world;
The providence of man. Yet oft in vain,
To earn her aid, with fix'd and anxious eye
He looks on Nature's and on Fortune's course:
Too much in vain. His duller visual ray
The stillness and the persevering acts 90
Of Nature oft elude; and Fortune oft
With step fantastic from her wonted walk
Turns into mazes dim; his sight is foil'd;
And the crude sentence of his faltering tongue
Is but opinion's verdict, half believed,
And prone to change. Here thou, who feel'st thine ear
Congenial to my lyre's profounder tone,
Pause, and be watchful. Hitherto the stores,
Which feed thy mind and exercise her powers,
Partake the relish of their native soil, 100
Their parent earth. But know, a nobler dower
Her Sire at birth decreed her; purer gifts
From his own treasure; forms which never deign'd
In eyes or ears to dwell, within the sense
Of earthly organs; but sublime were placed
In his essential reason, leading there
That vast ideal host which all his works
Through endless ages never will reveal.
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