Hail Mystick Art! which Men, like Angels, taught,
To speak to Eyes, and paint unbody’d Thought!
Though Deaf, and Dumb; blest Skill, reliev’d by Thee,
We make one Sense perform the Task of Three.
We see, we hear, we touch the Head and Heart,
And take, or give, what each but yields in part.
With the hard Laws of Distance we dispence,
And, without Sound, apart, commune in Sense;
View, though confin’d; nay, rule this Earthly Ball,
And travel o’er the wide expanded all.
Dead Letters, thus with Living Notions fraught,
Prove to the Soul the Telescopes of Thought;
To Mortal Life a deathless Witness give;
And bid all Deeds and Titles last, and live
In scanty Life, eternity we taste;
View the First Ages, and inform the Last.
Arts, Hist’ry, Laws, we purchase with a Look,
And keep, like Fate, all Nature in a book.