How shall we search Thee in a battle gain'd,
Or a weak argument by force maintained?
In dagger contests, and th' artillery of words,
(For swords are madmen's tongues, and tongues are madmen's swords)
Contrived to tire all patience out,
And not to satisfy the doubt?
II.
But where is ev'n thy Image on our earth?
For of the person much I fear,
Since Heaven will claim its residence as well as birth,
And God himself has said, He shall not find it here.
For this inferiour world is but Heaven's dusky shade,
By dark reverted rays from its reflection made;
Whence the weak shapes wild and imperfect pass,
Like sunbeams shot at too far distance from a glass;
Which all the mimick forms express,
Though in strange uncouth postures, and uncomely dress;
So when Cartesian artists try
To solve appearances of sight
In its reception to the eye,
And catch the living landscape through a scanty light[1],
The figures all inverted shew,
And colours of a faded hue;
Here a pale shape with upward footstep treads,
And men seem walking on their heads;
There whole herds suspended lie
Ready to tumble down into the sky;
Such are the ways ill guided mortals go
To judge of things above by things below.
- ↑ The experiment of the dark chamber, to demonstrate light to be by reception of the object, and not by emission.
