Classic Poem

Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends.
Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass.
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme:
The mole's dim curtain and the lynx's beam;
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green;
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles thro' the vernal wood;
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread and lives along the line;
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How instinct varies in the grov'lling swine,
Compared, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that, and reason, what a nice barrier,
Forever sep'rate, yet forever near!
Remembrance and reflection how allied,
What thin partitions sense from thought divide;
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all subdued by thee alone--
Is not thy reason all these pow'rs in one?
See thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth
All matter quick and bursting into birth:
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Nature's ethereal, human, angel, man;
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach--from Infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing.