Genre:

Poetry

Subjects:

Scientific Practitioners, Unbelief, Astronomy, Biblical Authority, Rationalism, Piety

    While the honest labourer rests, the 'waking sage' continues to study under Plato's bust. At length he gets up and paces the room, musing on the fruitlessness of his manifold studies, which include studying nature 'in her various forms, / Adorn'd with beauty, or convulsed with storms', and surveying the skies with 'astronomic tube'. (141) He feels an 'aching void' within his breast, and turns to his dusty Bible. He cries out: 'I've wander'd far / From thee, O Lord, to follow reason's star', and commits himself to divine service. (142)