1 Blush, atheists, blush, your airy schemes,
Your chance, and atoms, are but dreams:
Science in vain you proudly boast,
In error’s endless mazes lost.

2 Nature survey, the mighty whole
From north to southern distant pole:
Heav’n, earth and seas, and worlds of light
For ages hid from human sight.

3 Say then, could chance this fabric rear
So great, so good, so wondrous fair?
Could chance the heav’nly bodies move,
And in strict order bid them rove?

4 Does chance the various seasons rule,
The blooming spring, the autumn cool?
Bid summer’s heat enrich the year
And winter pinch with frosts severe?

5 Sways chance the empire of the main?
Can chance its proudest waves restrain?
Command the senseless tides to flow?
Of teach the ebb its hour to know?

6 What is all nature but design?
Her works, but skill and power divine?
The God we see in every form,
From the archangel to the worm.

7 The wondrous scale of beings view,
Their nice gradations close pursue;
Deny then, skeptic, if you can
A proper place assigned for man.

8 Man, know thyself, thy rank well know,
And pay the mighty debt you owe;
The God adore, who did inspire
Your frame with an immortal fire.

9 Man, view thy soul, nor let it be
A slave when God would have it free;
Nor be it said that brutes obey,
Whilst man rejects his maker’s sway.