Page:The Pleasures of Imagination - Akenside (1744).djvu/62

48 That lay from everlasting in the store Of his divine conceptions. Nor content, By one exertion of creating pow'r, His goodness to reveal; thro' every age, Thro' every moment up the tract of time, His parent-hand with ever-new increase Of happiness and virtue has adorn'd The vast harmonious frame: his parent-hand, From the mute shell-fish gasping on the shore, To men, to angels, to cœlestial minds, For ever leads the generations on To higher scenes of being; while supply'd From day to day by his inlivening breath, Inferior orders in succession rise To fill the void below. As flame ascends, As bodies to their proper center move, As the poiz'd ocean to th' attracting moon Obedient swells, and every headlong stream Devolves its winding waters to the main; So all things which have life aspire to , The sun of being, boundless, unimpair'd,  Cen-