Original - Duke Divinity School

And thro’ the Waves, a living Island, roves; …
Where’er he turns the hoary Deeps divide,
He breathes a Tempest, and he spouts a Tide.
Thus, Lord, the Wonders of Earth, Sea, and Air,
Thy boundless Wisdom, and thy Pow’r declare;
Thou high in Might, in Majesty serene, 164
See’st and mov’st all, thy self unmov’d, unseen:
Should Men and Angels join in Songs to raise
A grateful Tribute equal to thy Praise,
Yet far thy Glory would their Praise outshine,
Tho’ Men and Angels in the Song should join;
For tho’ this Earth with Skill divine is wrought,
Tho’ wondrous far beyond the Reach of Thought, 165
Yet in the spacious Regions of the Skies
New Scenes unfold, and Worlds on Worlds arise,
There other Orbs, round other Suns advance,
In aether float, and run their mystic Dance;
And yet the Pow’r of thy Almighty Hand,
Can build another World from every Sand. 166
Pope’s and Swift’s Miscellany 167
To Mr John Moore, Author of the celebrated Worm-Powder 168
How much, Egregious Moore, are We
Deceived by Shows and Forms?
Whate’er we think, whate’er we see,
All Humankind are Worms.
Man, is a very Worm by Birth,
Proud Reptile, weak and vain,
A while he crawls upon the Earth,
Then shrinks to Earth again.
164 In MSP and AM Wesley restores Broome: “Thou high in Glory, and in Might serene.”
165 Broome: “Above the Guess of Man, or Angel’s Thought.” Change stays in MSP and AM.
166Note that Wesley omits here, in MSP, and in AM Broome’s closing: “And tho’ vain Man arraign thy high
Decree, / All, all is just! what is, that ought to be.”
167 nd
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) & Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, 2
edition, 3 vols (last two bound together but numbered separately) (Dublin: S. Fairbrother, 1728). Wesley records
reading this collection in his Oxford Diary (20–30 May 1729).
168 [John Gay?], “To the Ingenious Mr. Moore, Author of the Celebrated Worm-Powder,” Pope & Swift,
Miscellanies, 3:73–74.
98