The Complaint,

or Night Thoughts

on Life, Time, Friendship,

Death, and Immortality:

In Nine Nights

______________________________________________________________________________

The Consolation.

Night IX.

Containing, among other things,

1.—A moral survey of the nocturnal heavens.

2.—A night address to the deity.

Humbly inscribed to his Grace the Duke of Newcastle,

One of His Majestys Principal Secretaries of State.

—Fatis contraria fata rependens.. —Virg.

As when a traveller, a long day pass'd

In painful search of what he cannot find,

At night's approach, content with the next cot,

There ruminates awhile his labour lost;

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Then cheers his heart with what his fate affords,

And chants his sonnet to deceive the time,

Till the due season calls him to repose:

Thus I, long travell'd in the ways of men,

And dancing, with the rest, the giddy maze

10

Where Disappointment smiles at Hope's career;

Warn'd by the languor of Life's evening ray,

At length have housed me in an humble shed;

Where, future wandering banish'd from my thought,

And waiting patient the sweet hour of rest,

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I chase the moments with a serious song.

Song soothes our pains; and age has pains to soothe.

When age, care, crime, and friends embraced at heart

Torn from my bleeding breast, and Death's dark shade,

Which hovers o'er me, quench the' ethereal fire,

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Canst thou, O Night! indulge one labour more?

One labour more indulge! then sleep, my strain!

Till, haply, waked by Raphael's golden lyre,

Where night, death, age, care, crime, and sorrow cease;

To bear a part in everlasting lays,

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Though far, far higher set,—in aim, I trust,

Symphonious to this humble prelude here.

Has not the Muse asserted pleasures pure,

Like those above, exploding other joys?

Weigh what was urged, Lorenzo, fairly weigh;

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And tell me, hast thou cause to triumph still?

I think thou wilt forbear a boast so bold.

But if, beneath the favour of mistake,

Thy smile's sincere, not more sincere can be

Lorenzo's smile than my compassion for him.

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The sick in body call for aid: the sick

In mind are covetous of more disease;

And when at worst, they dream themselves quite well.

To know ourselves diseased, is half our cure.

When Nature's blush by custom is wiped off,

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And Conscience, deaden'd by repeated strokes,

Has into manners naturalized our crimes;

The curse of curses is, our curse to love;

To triumph in the blackness of our guilt,

(As Indians glory in the deepest jet,)

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And throw aside our senses with our peace.

But, grant no guilt, no shame, no least alloy;

Grant joy and glory, quite unsullied, shone;

Yet still it ill deserves Lorenzo's heart.

No joy, no glory, glitters in thy sight,

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But, through the thin partition of an hour,

I see its sables wove by Destiny;

And that in sorrow buried; this in shame;

While howling Furies ring the doleful knell;

And Conscience, now so soft thou scarce canst hear

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Her whisper, echoes her eternal peal.

Where the prime actors of the last Year's scene?

Their port so proud, their buskin, and their plume!

How many sleep who kept the world awake

With lustre and with noise! Has Death proclaim'd

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A truce, and hung his sated lance on high?

'T is brandish'd still, nor shall the present Year

Be more tenacious of her human leaf,

Or spread of feeble life a thinner fall.

But needless monuments to wake the thought;

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Life's gayest scenes speak man's mortality;

Though in a style more florid, full as plain

As mausoleums, pyramids, and tombs:

What are our noblest ornaments, but Deaths

Turn'd flatterers of life, in paint, or marble,

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The well-stain'd canvass, or the featured stone?

Our fathers grace, or rather haunt, the scene.

Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead.

“Profess'd Diversions! cannot these escape?”

Far from it: these present us with a shroud;

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And talk of Death, like garlands o'er a grave.

As some bold plunderer for buried wealth,

We ransack tombs for pastime; from the dust

Call up the sleeping hero; bid him tread

The scene for our amusement. How like gods

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We sit; and, wrapp'd in immortality,

Shed generous tears on wretches born to die;

Their fate deploring, to forget our own!

What, all the pomps and triumphs of our lives,

But legacies in blossom? Our lean soil,

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Luxuriant grown, and rank in vanities,

From friends interr'd beneath, a rich manure!

Like other worms, we banquet on the dead;

Like other worms, shall we crawl on, nor know

Our present frailties, or approaching fate?

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Lorenzo! such the glories of the world!

What is the world itself? thy world?—A grave.

Where is the dust that has not been alive?

The spade, the plough, disturb our ancestors;

From human mould we reap our daily bread.

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The globe around Earth's hollow surface shakes,

And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons.

O'er devastation we blind revels keep;

Whole buried towns support the dancer's heel.

The moist of human frame the sun exhales;

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Winds scatter, through the mighty void, the dry;

Earth repossesses part of what she gave,

And the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire;

Each element partakes our scatter'd spoils;

As Nature, wide, our ruins spread: man's death

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Inhabits all things but the thought of man!

Nor man alone; his breathing bust expires,

His tomb is mortal; empires die. Where now

The Roman? Greek? They stalk, an empty name!

Yet few regard them in this useful light;

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Though half our learning is their epitaph.

When down thy vale, unlock'd by midnight thought,

That loves to wander in thy sunless realms,

O Death! I stretch my view; what visions rise!

What triumphs, toils imperial, arts Divine,

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In wither'd laurels, glide before my sight!

What lengths of far-famed ages, billow'd high

With human agitation, roll along

In unsubstantial images of air!

The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,

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Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause,

With penitential aspect, as they pass,

All point at earth, and hiss at human pride,

The wisdom of the wise, and prancings of the great.

But, O Lorenzo, far the rest above,

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Of ghastly nature and enormous size,

One form assaults my sight, and chills my blood,

And shakes my frame. Of one departed world

I see the mighty shadow: oozy wreath

And dismal sea-weed crown her! O'er her urn,

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Reclined, she weeps her desolated realms,

And bloated sons; and, weeping, prophesies

Another's dissolution, soon, in flames:

But, like Cassandra, prophesies in vain;

In vain, to many; not, I trust, to thee.

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For, know'st thou not, or art thou loath to know,

The great decree, the counsel of the Skies?

Deluge and Conflagration, dreadful powers!

Prime ministers of Vengeance! Chain'd in caves

Distinct, apart, the giant Furies roar;

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Apart, or, such their horrid rage for ruin,

In mutual conflict would they rise, and wage

Eternal war, till one was quite devour'd.

But not for this ordain'd their boundless rage

When Heaven's inferior instruments of wrath,

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War, Famine, Pestilence, are found too weak

To scourge a world for her enormous crimes,

These are let loose, alternate; down they rush,

Swift and tempestuous, from the' eternal throne,

With irresistible commission arm'd,

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The world, in vain corrected, to destroy,

And ease Creation of the shocking scene.

Seest thou, Lorenzo, what depends on man?

The fate of Nature; as for man her birth.

Earth's actors change Earth's transitory scenes,

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And make Creation groan with human guilt.

How must it groan, in a new deluge whelm'd,

But not of waters! At the destined hour,

By the loud trumpet summon'd to the charge,

See, all the formidable sons of Fire,

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Eruptions, Earthquakes, Comets, Lightnings, play

Their various engines; all at once disgorge

Their blazing magazines; and take by storm

This poor terrestrial citadel of man.

Amazing period! when each mountain-height

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Out-burns Vesuvius; rocks eternal pour

Their melted mass, as rivers once they pour'd;

Stars rush; and final Ruin fiercely drives

Her ploughshare o'er Creation!—while aloft

More than astonishment, if more can be!

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Far other firmament than e'er was seen,

Than e'er was thought by man! Far other stars!

Stars animate, that govern these of fire.

Far other Sun!—A Sun, O how unlike

The Babe at Bethlehem! How unlike the Man

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That groan'd on Calvary! Yet He it is;

That Man of sorrows! O how changed! What pomp!

In grandeur terrible, all heaven descends!

And gods, ambitious, triumph in His train.

A swift archangel, with his golden wing,

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As blots and clouds, that darken and disgrace

The scene Divine, sweeps stars and suns aside.

And now, all dross removed, Heaven's own pure day,

Full on the confines of our ether, flames:

While (dreadful contrast!) far (how far!) beneath,

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Hell, bursting, belches forth her blazing seas,

And storms sulphureous; her voracious jaws

Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey.

Lorenzo, welcome to this scene; the last

In Nature's course, the first in Wisdom's thought.

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This strikes, if aught can strike thee; this awakes

The most supine; this snatches man from death.

Rouse, rouse, Lorenzo, then, and follow me,

Where Truth, the most momentous man can hear,

Loud calls my soul, and Ardour wings her flight.

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I find my inspiration in my theme;

The grandeur of my subject is my Muse.

At midnight, (when mankind is wrapp'd in peace,

And worldly Fancy feeds on golden dreams,)

To give more dread to man's most dreadful hour,

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At midnight, 't is presumed, this pomp will burst

From tenfold darkness; sudden as the spark

From smitten steel; from nitrous grain, the blaze.

Man, starting from his couch, shall sleep no more;

The day is broke which never more shall close!

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Above, around, beneath, amazement all!

Terror and glory join'd in their extremes!

Our GOD in grandeur, and our world on fire!

All Nature struggling in the pangs of death!

Dost thou not hear her? Dost thou not deplore

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Her strong convulsions, and her final groan?

Where are we now? Ah me! the ground is gone

On which we stood! Lorenzo, while thou mayst,

Provide more firm support, or sink for ever!

“Where? How? From whence?” Vain hope! it is too late!

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Where, where, for shelter, shall the guilty fly,

When consternation turns the good man pale?

Great day! for which all other days were made;

For which earth rose from chaos, man from earth;

And an eternity, the date of gods,

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Descended on poor earth-created man!

Great day of dread, decision, and despair!

At thought of thee each sublunary wish

Lets go its eager grasp, and drops the world;

And catches at each reed of hope in heaven.

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At thought of thee!—And art thou absent then?

Lorenzo, no; 't is here!—it is begun:—

Already is begun the Grand Assize,

In thee, in all; deputed Conscience scales

The dread tribunal, and forestalls our doom;

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Forestalls; and, by forestalling, proves it sure.

Why on himself should man void judgment pass?

Is idle Nature laughing at her sons?

Who Conscience sent, her sentence will support,

And GOD above assert that God in man.

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Thrice happy they that enter now the court

Heaven opens in their bosoms: but, how rare,

Ah me! that magnanimity, how rare!

What hero like the man who stands himself;

Who dares to meet his naked heart alone;

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Who hears, intrepid, the full charge it brings,

Resolved to silence future murmurs there?

The coward flies; and, flying, is undone.

(Art thou a coward? No!) The coward flies;

Thinks, but thinks slightly; asks, but fears to know;

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Asks, “What is truth?” with Pilate; and retires;

Dissolves the court, and mingles with the throng;

Asylum sad from reason, hope, and heaven!

Shall all but man look out, with ardent eye,

For that great day which was ordain'd for man?

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O day of consummation! mark supreme

(If men are wise) of human thought! nor least,

Or in the sight of angels or their KING!

Angels, whose radiant circles, height o'er height,

Order o'er order, rising, blaze o'er blaze,

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As in a theatre, surround this scene,

Intent on man, and anxious for his fate:

Angels look out for thee; for thee, their LORD,

To vindicate His glory; and for thee

Creation universal calls aloud,

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To disinvolve the moral world, and give

To Nature's renovation brighter charms.

Shall man alone, whose fate, whose final fate,

Hangs on that hour, exclude it from his thought?

I think of nothing else; I see, I feel it!

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All Nature, like an earthquake, trembling round!

All deities, like summer's swarms, on wing!

All basking in the full meridian blaze!

I see the Judge enthroned, the flaming guard,

The volume open'd, open'd every heart!

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A sunbeam pointing out each secret thought!

No patron, intercessor none! now past

The sweet, the clement, mediatorial hour!

For guilt no plea! to pain, no pause, no bound!

Inexorable all, and all extreme!

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Nor man alone; the foe of God and man,

From his dark den, blaspheming, drags his chain,

And rears his brasen front, with thunder scarr'd;

Receives his sentence, and begins his hell.

All vengeance past, now, seems abundant grace:

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Like meteors in a stormy sky, how roll

His baleful eyes! He curses whom he dreads;

And deems it the first moment of his fall.

'T is present to my thought!—And yet where is it?

Angels can't tell me; angels cannot guess

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The period; from created beings lock'd

In darkness. But the process and the place

Are less obscure: for these may man inquire.

Say, thou Great Close of human hopes and fears,

Great Key of hearts, Great Finisher of fates,

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Great End, and Great Beginning! Say, where art thou?

Art thou in time, or in eternity?

Nor in eternity, nor time, I find thee.

These, as two monarchs, on their borders meet,

(Monarchs of all elapsed, or unarrived!)

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As in debate, how best their powers allied

May swell the grandeur, or discharge the wrath,

Of HIM whom both their monarchies obey.

Time—this vast fabric for him built (and doom'd

With him to fall) now bursting o'er his head;

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His lamp, the sun, extinguish'd—from beneath

The frown of hideous darkness calls his sons

From their long slumber; from Earth's heaving womb,

To second birth. Contemporary throng!

Roused at one call, upstarting from one bed,

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Press'd in one crowd, appall'd with one amaze,

He turns them o'er, Eternity, to thee.

Then (as a king deposed disdains to live)

He falls on his own scythe; nor falls alone;

His greatest foe falls with him; Time, and he

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Who murder'd all Time's offspring, Death, expire.

TIME was! ETERNITY now reigns alone!

Awful Eternity, offended queen!

And her resentment to mankind how just!

With kind intent soliciting access,

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How often has she knock'd at human hearts!

Rich to repay their hospitality,

How often call'd, and with the voice of God!

Yet bore repulse, excluded as a cheat,

A dream! while foulest foes found welcome there!

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A dream, a cheat, now, all things but her smile.

For, lo! her twice ten thousand gates, thrown wide

As thrice from Indus to the frozen pole—

With banners streaming as the comet's blaze,

And clarions louder than the deep in storms,

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Sonorous as immortal breath can blow—

Pour forth their myriads, potentates, and powers,

Of light, of darkness; in a middle field,

Wide as Creation, populous as wide!

A neutral region! there to mark the' event

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Of that great drama, whose preceding scenes

Detain'd them close spectators, through a length

Of ages, ripening to this grand result;

Ages, as yet unnumber'd but by God;

Who now, pronouncing sentence, vindicates

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The rights of Virtue, and His own renown.

ETERNITY, the various sentence past,

Assigns the sever'd throng distinct abodes,

Sulphureous or ambrosial. What ensues?

The deed predominant, the deed of deeds!

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Which makes a hell of hell, a heaven of heaven!

The goddess, with determined aspect, turns

Her adamantine key's enormous size

Through Destiny's inextricable wards,

Deep driving every bolt on both their fates.

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Then, from the crystal battlements of heaven,

Down, down she hurls it through the dark profound,

Ten thousand thousand fathom; there to rust,

And ne'er unlock her resolution more.

The deep resounds; and Hell, through all her glooms,

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Returns, in groans, the melancholy roar.

O how unlike the chorus of the Skies!

O how unlike those shouts of joy, that shake

The whole ethereal! How the concave rings!

Nor strange, when deities their voice exalt;

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And louder far than when Creation rose,

To see Creation's godlike aim and end

So well accomplish'd, so divinely closed!

To see the mighty Dramatist's last act

(As meet) in glory rising o'er the rest!

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No fancied God, a GOD indeed, descends,

To solve all knots; to strike the moral home;

To throw full day on darkest scenes of time;

To clear, commend, exalt, and crown the whole.

Hence, in one peal of loud, eternal praise,

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The charm'd spectators thunder their applause;

And the vast void, beyond, applause resounds.

What then am I?—

Amidst applauding worlds,

And worlds celestial, is there found on earth

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A peevish, dissonant, rebellious string,

Which jars in the grand chorus, and complains?

Censure on thee, Lorenzo, I suspend,

And turn it on myself; how greatly due!

All, all is right, by God ordain'd or done;

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And who but God resumed the friends He gave?

And have I been complaining then so long?

Complaining of His favours,—Pain and Death?

Who, without Pain's advice, would e'er be good?

Who, without Death, but would be good in vain?

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Pain is to save from pain; all punishment,

To make for peace; and Death, to save from death;

And second death, to guard immortal life;

To rouse the careless, the presumptuous awe,

And turn the tide of souls another way;

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By the same tenderness Divine ordain'd,

That planted Eden, and high-bloom'd for man

A fairer Eden, endless, in the skies.

Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene;

Resumes them, to prepare us for the next.

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All evils natural are moral goods:

All discipline, indulgence, on the whole.

None are unhappy: all have cause to smile

But such as to themselves that cause deny.

Our faults are at the bottom of our pains;

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Error, in act or judgment, is the source

Of endless sighs: we sin, or we mistake;

And Nature tax, when false Opinion stings.

Let impious Grief be banish'd, Joy indulged;

But chiefly then, when Grief puts in her claim.

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Joy from the joyous frequently betrays,

Oft lives in vanity, and dies in woe.

Joy, amidst ills, corroborates, exalts;

'T is joy and conquest; joy and virtue too.

A noble fortitude in ills delights

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Heaven, earth, ourselves; 't is duty, glory, peace.

Affliction is the good man's shining scene!

Prosperity conceals his brightest ray;

As Night to stars, Woe lustre gives to man.

Heroes in battle, pilots in the storm,

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And Virtue in calamities, admire.

The crown of manhood is a winter-joy;

An evergreen that stands the northern blast,

And blossoms in the rigour of our fate.

'T is a prime part of happiness to know

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How much unhappiness must prove our lot;

A part which few possess! I'll pay life's tax

Without one rebel murmur from this hour,

Nor think it misery to be a man;

Who thinks it is, shall never be a god:

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Some ills we wish for, when we wish to live.

What spoke proud Passion? “Wish my being lost!”  *)

Presumptuous, blasphemous, absurd, and false!

The triumph of my soul is—that I am;

And therefore that I may be—What? Lorenzo!

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Look inward, and look deep, and deeper still;

Unfathomably deep our treasure runs

In golden veins through all eternity!

Ages, and ages, and succeeding still

New ages, where this phantom of an hour,

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Which courts, each night, dull slumber, for repair,

Shall wake, and wonder, and exult, and praise,

And fly through infinite, and all unlock;

And, (if deserved,) by Heaven's redundant love

Made half adorable itself, adore;

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And find in adoration endless joy!

Where thou, not master of a moment here,

Frail as the flower, and fleeting as the gale,

Mayst boast a whole eternity, enrich'd

With all a kind Omnipotence can pour.

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Since Adam fell, no mortal, uninspired,

Has ever yet conceived, or ever shall,

How kind is GOD, how great (if good) is Man.

No man too largely from Heaven's love can hope,

If what is hoped he labours to secure.

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Ills?—There are none! All-Gracious! none from Thee;

From man full many! Numerous is the race

Of blackest ills, and those immortal too,

Begot by Madness on fair Liberty;

Heaven's daughter, hell-debauch'd! Her hand alone

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Unlocks destruction to the sons of men,

Fast barr'd by Thine; high-wall'd with adamant,

Guarded with terrors reaching to this world,

And cover'd with the thunders of Thy law;

Whose threats are mercies, whose injunctions guides,

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Assisting, not restraining, Reason's choice;

Whose sanctions, unavoidable results

From Nature's course, indulgently reveal'd;

If unreveal'd, more dangerous, nor less sure.

Thus, an indulgent father warns his sons,

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“Do this; fly that;”—nor always tells the cause;

Pleased to reward, as duty to his will,

A conduct needful to their own repose.

Great GOD of wonders! (if, Thy love survey'd,

Aught else the name of wonderful retains,)

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What rocks are these, on which to build our trust?

Thy ways admit no blemish; none I find;

Or this alone—that “none is to be found.”

Not one, to soften Censure's hardy crime;

Not one, to palliate peevish Griefs Complaint,

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Who, like a demon, murmuring, from the dust,

Dares into judgment call her Judge.—Supreme!

For all I bless Thee; most, for the severe;

Her death **)—my own at hand—the fiery gulf,

That flaming bound of wrath omnipotent!

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It thunders;—but it thunders to preserve;

It strengthens what it strikes; its wholesome dread

Averts the dreaded pain; its hideous groans

Join Heaven's sweet Hallelujahs in Thy praise,

Great Source of good alone! How kind in all!

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In vengeance kind! Pain, Death, Gehenna, SAVE.

Thus, in thy world material, Mighty Mind!

Not that alone which solaces and shines,

The rough and gloomy challenges our praise.

The winter is as needful as the spring;

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The thunder, as the sun; a stagnate mass

Of vapours breeds a pestilential air:

Nor more propitious the Favonian breeze

To Nature's health, than purifying storms.

The dread volcano ministers to good;

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Its smother'd flames might undermine the world.

Loud .flitnas fulminate in love to man;

Comets good omens are, when duly scann'd;

And, in their use, eclipses learn to shine.

Man is responsible for ills received!

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Those we call wretched are a chosen band,

Compell'd to refuge in the right, for peace.

Amid my list of blessings infinite,

Stand this the foremost—that “my heart has bled.”

'T is Heaven's last effort of good-will to man;

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When pain can't bless, Heaven quits us in despair.

Who fails to grieve, when just occasion calls,

Or grieves too much, deserves not to be bless'd;

Inhuman, or effeminate, his heart:

Reason absolves the grief which Reason ends.

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May Heaven ne'er trust my friend with happiness,

Till it has taught him how to bear it well,

By previous pain; and made it safe to smile!

Such smiles are mine, and such may they remain;

Nor hazard their extinction, from excess.

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My change of heart a change of style demands;

The Consolation cancels the Complaint,

And makes a convert of my guilty song.

As when, o'erlabour'd, and inclined to breathe,

A panting traveller some rising ground,

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Some small ascent, has gain'd; he turns him round,

And measures with his eye the various vale,

The fields, woods, meads, and rivers he has pass'd;

And, satiate of his journey, thinks of home,

Endear'd by distance, nor affects more toil:

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Thus I, though small indeed is that ascent

The Muse has gain'd, review the paths she trod,

Various, extensive, beaten but by few;

And, conscious of her prudence in repose,

Pause; and with pleasure meditate an end,

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Though still remote; so fruitful is my theme.

Through many a field of moral and Divine,

The Muse has stray'd; and much of sorrow seen

In human ways; and much of false and vain;

Which none, who travel this bad road, can miss.

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O'er friends deceased full heartily she wept;

Of love Divine the wonders she display'd;

Proved man immortal; show'd the source of joy;

The grand tribunal raised; assign'd the bounds

Of human grief: in few, to close the whole,

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The moral Muse has shadow'd out a sketch,

Though not in form, nor with a Raphael-stroke,

Of most our weakness needs believe or do,

In this our land of travel, and of hope,

For peace on earth, or prospect of the skies.

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What then remains?—Much! much! a mighty debt

To be discharged: these thoughts, O Night! are thine;

From thee they came, like lovers' secret sighs,

While others slept. So Cynthia, (poets feign,)

In shadows veil'd, soft sliding from her sphere,

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Her shepherd cheer'd; of her enamour'd less

Than I of thee.—And art thou still unsung,

Beneath whose brow, and by whose aid, I sing?

Immortal Silence!—Where shall I begin?

Where end? or how steal music from the spheres

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To soothe their goddess?

O majestic Night!

Nature's great ancestor! Day's elder-born,

And fated to survive the transient sun!

By mortals and immortals seen with awe!

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A starry crown thy raven brow adorns;

An azure zone, thy waist; clouds, in Heaven's loom

Wrought through varieties of shape and shade,

In ample folds of drapery Divine,

Thy flowing mantle form, and, heaven throughout,

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Voluminously pour thy pompous train.

Thy gloomy grandeurs (Nature's most august,

Inspiring aspect!) claim a grateful verse;

And, like a sable curtain starr'd with gold,

Drawn o'er my labours pass'd, shall close the scene.

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And what, O man! so worthy to be sung?

What more prepares us for the songs of heaven?

Creation of archangels is the theme!

What, to be sung, so needful? What so well

Celestial joys prepares us to sustain?

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The soul of man, HIS face design'd to see

Who gave these wonders to be seen by man,

Has here a previous scene of objects great

On which to dwell; to stretch to that expanse

Of thought, to rise to that exalted height

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Of admiration, to contract that awe,

And give her whole capacities that strength,

Which best may qualify for final joy.

The more our spirits are enlarged on earth,

The deeper draught shall they receive of heaven.

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Heaven's KING! whose face unveil'd consummates bliss;

Redundant bliss! which fills that mighty void

The whole creation leaves in human hearts!

THOU, who didst touch the lip of Jesse's son,

Rapt in sweet contemplation of these fires,

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And set his harp in concert with the spheres!

While of Thy works material the supreme

I dare attempt, assist my daring song.

Loose me from earth's enclosure, from the sun's

Contracted circle set my heart at large;

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Eliminate my spirit, give it range

Through provinces of thought yet unexplored;

Teach me, by this stupendous scaffolding,

Creation's golden steps, to climb to THEE.

Teach me with Art great Nature to control,

595

And spread a lustre o'er the shades of night.

Feel I Thy kind assent? and shall the sun

Be seen at midnight, rising in my song?

Lorenzo! come, and warm thee: thou whose heart,

Whose little heart, is moor'd within a nook

600

Of this obscure terrestrial, anchor weigh.

Another ocean calls, a nobler port;

I am thy pilot, I thy prosperous gale.

Gainful thy voyage through yon azure main;

Main without tempest, pirate, rock, or shore;

605

And whence thou mayst import eternal wealth;

And leave to beggar'd minds the pearl and gold.

Thy travels dost thou boast o'er foreign realms?

Thou stranger to the world! thy tour begin;

Thy tour through Nature's universal orb.

610

Nature delineates her whole chart at large,

On soaring souls, that sail among the spheres;

And man how purblind, if unknown the whole!

Who circles spacious Earth, then travels here,

Shall own he never was from home before!

615

Come, my Prometheus,  ***) from thy pointed rock

Of false ambition if unchain'd, we'll mount;

We'll innocently steal celestial fire,

And kindle our devotion at the stars;

A theft that shall not chain, but set thee free.

620

Above our Atmosphere's intestine wars,

Rain's fountain-head, the magazine of Hail;

Above the northern nests of feather'd Snows,

The brew of Thunders, and the flaming forge

That forms the crooked Lightning; 'bove the caves

625

Where infant Tempests wait their growing wings,

And tune their tender voices to that roar

Which soon, perhaps, shall shake a guilty world;

Above misconstrued omens of the sky,

Far-travell'd Comets' calculated blaze,

630

Elance thy thought, and think of more than man.

Thy soul, till now, contracted, wither'd, shrunk,

Blighted by blasts of Earth's unwholesome air,

Will blossom here; spread all her faculties

To these bright ardours; every power unfold,

635

And rise into sublimities of thought.

Stars teach as well as shine. At Nature's birth,

Thus their commission ran,—“Be kind to man.”

Where art thou, poor benighted traveller!

The stars will light thee, though the moon should fail.

640

Where art thou, more benighted, more astray

In ways immoral? The stars call thee back;

And, if obey'd their counsel, set thee right.

This prospect vast, what is it?—Weigh'd aright,

'T is Nature's system of divinity,

645

And every student of the night inspires.

'T is elder Scripture, writ by GOD'S own hand;

Scripture authentic, uncorrupt by man.

Lorenzo, with my radius (the rich gift

Of thought nocturnal!) I'll point out to thee

650

Its various lessons; some that may surprise

An un-adept in mysteries of Night;

Little, perhaps, expected in her school,

Nor thought to grow on planet, or on star.

Bulls, lions, scorpions, monsters, here we feign:

655

Ourselves more monstrous, not to see what here

Exists indeed—a lecture to mankind!

What read we here?—The' existence of a GOD?

Yes: and of other beings, man above;

Natives of ether, sons of higher climes!

660

And, what may move Lorenzo's wonder more,

Eternity is written in the skies.

And whose eternity? Lorenzo! thine:

Mankind's eternity. Nor Faith alone,

Virtue grows here; here springs the sovereign cure

665

Of almost every vice; but chiefly thine,—

Wrath, pride, ambition, and impure desire.

Lorenzo, thou canst wake at midnight too,

Though not on morals bent: Ambition, Pleasure,

Those tyrants I for thee so lately fought,

670

Afford their harass'd slaves but slender rest.

Thou, to whom midnight is immoral noon;

And the sun's noontide blaze, prime dawn of day;

Not by thy climate, but capricious crime,

Commencing one of our antipodes!

675

In thy nocturnal rove, one moment halt,

'Twixt stage and stage of riot and cabal;

And lift thine eye (if bold an eye to lift,

If bold to meet the face of injured Heaven)

To yonder stars: for other ends they shine,

680

Than to light revellers from shame to shame,

And thus be made accomplices in guilt.

Why from yon arch, that Infinite of space,

With Infinite of lucid orbs replete,

Which set the living firmament on fire,

685

At the first glance, in such an overwhelm

Of Wonderful, on man's astonish'd sight

Rushes Omnipotence?—To curb our pride;

Our reason rouse, and lead it to that Power

Whose love lets down these silver chains of light,

690

To draw up man's ambition to Himself,

And bind our chaste affections to His throne.

Thus the three virtues, least alive on earth,

And welcomed on heaven's coast with most applause,—

An humble, pure, and heavenly-minded heart,—

695

Are here inspired. And canst thou gaze too long?

Nor stands thy wrath deprived of its reproof,

Or un-upbraided by this radiant choir.

The planets of each system represent

Kind neighbours; mutual amity prevails;

700

Sweet interchange of rays, received, return'd;

Enlightening, and enlighten'd! All, at once,

Attracting, and attracted! Patriot-like,

None sins against the welfare of the whole;

But their reciprocal, unselfish aid

705

Affords an emblem of millennial love.

Nothing in Nature, much less conscious being,

Was e'er created solely for itself:

Thus man his sovereign duty learns in this

Material picture of benevolence.

710

And know, of all our supercilious race,

Thou most inflammable, thou wasp of men!

Man's angry heart, inspected, would be found

As rightly set as are the starry spheres;

'T is Nature's structure, broke by stubborn Will,

715

Breeds all that uncelestial discord there.

Wilt thou not feel the bias Nature gave?

Canst thou descend from converse with the Skies,

And seize thy brother's throat? For what? a clod?

An inch of earth? The Planets cry, “Forbear.”

720

They chase our double darkness; Nature's gloom,

And (kinder still!) our intellectual night.

And see, Day's amiable sister sends

Her invitation, in the softest rays

Of mitigated lustre; courts thy sight,

725

Which suffers from her tyrant brother's blaze.

Night grants thee the full freedom of the skies,

Nor rudely reprimands thy lifted eye;

With gain and joy she bribes thee to be wise.

Night opes the noblest scenes, and sheds an awe

730

Which gives those venerable scenes full weight,

And deep reception in the' entender'd heart;

While light peeps through the darkness like a spy,

And Darkness shows its grandeur by the light.

Nor is the profit greater than the joy,

735

If human hearts at glorious objects glow,

And admiration can inspire delight.

What speak I more than I, this moment, feel?

With pleasing stupor first the soul is struck;

(Stupor ordain'd to make her truly wise!)

740

Then into transport starting from her trance,

With love and admiration how she glows!

This gorgeous apparatus, this display,

This ostentation of creative power,

This theatre,—what eye can take it in?

745

By what Divine enchantment was it raised,

For minds of the first magnitude to launch

In endless speculation, and adore?

One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine;

And light us deep into the DEITY;

750

How boundless in magnificence and might!

O what a confluence of ethereal fires,

From urns unnumber'd, down the steep of heaven,

Streams to a point, and centres in my sight!

Nor tarries there; I feel it at my heart.

755

My heart, at once, it humbles and exalts;

Lays it in dust, and calls it to the skies.

Who sees it unexalted, or unawed?

Who sees it, and can stop at what is seen?

Material offspring of Omnipotence!

760

Inanimate, all-animating birth!

Work worthy Him who made it! worthy praise,

All praise, praise more than human! nor denied

Thy praise Divine!—But though man, drown'd in sleep,

Withholds his homage, not alone I wake;

765

Bright legions swarm unseen, and sing, unheard

By mortal ear, the glorious Architect,

In this His universal temple hung

With lustres, with innumerable lights,

That shed religion on the soul; at once,

770

The temple and the preacher! O how loud

It calls Devotion, genuine growth of Night!

Devotion! daughter of Astronomy!

An undevout astronomer is mad.

True, all things speak a GOD; but, in the small,

775

Men trace out Him; in great, He seizes man;

Seizes, and elevates, and raps, and fills

With new inquiries, 'mid associates new.

Tell me, ye stars, ye planets, tell me, all

Ye starr'd and planeted inhabitants! what is it?

780

What are these sons of wonder? Say, proud arch,

(Within whose azure palaces they dwell,)

Built with Divine ambition! in disdain

Of limit built! built in the taste of Heaven!

Vast concave, ample dome! wast thou design'd

785

A meet apartment for the DEITY?—

Not so; that thought alone thy State impairs,

Thy Lofty sinks, and shallows thy Profound,

And straitens thy Diffusive; dwarfs the whole,

And makes an universe an orrery.

790

But when I drop mine eye, and look on man,

Thy right regain'd, thy grandeur is restored,

O Nature! wide flies off the' expanding round.

As when whole magazines at once are fired,

The smitten air is hollow'd by the blow;

795

The vast displosion dissipates the clouds;

Shock'd ether's billows dash the distant skies:

Thus (but far more) the' expanding round flies off,

And leaves a mighty void, a spacious womb,

Might teem with new creation; re-inflamed

800

Thy luminaries triumph, and assume

Divinity themselves. Nor was it strange,

Matter high-wrought to such surprising pomp,

Such godlike glory, stole the style of gods

From ages dark, obtuse, and steep'd in sense;

805

For, sure, to sense they truly are Divine,

And half-absolved idolatry from guilt;

Nay, turn'd it into virtue. Such it was

In those who put forth all they had of man

Unlost, to lift their thought, nor mounted higher;

810

But, weak of wing, on planets perch'd; and thought

What was their Highest, must be their Adored.

But they how weak, who could no higher mount!

And are there then, Lorenzo, those to whom

Unseen and unexistent are the same;

815

And, if incomprehensible is join'd,

Who dare pronounce it madness to believe?

Why has the mighty Builder thrown aside

All measure in His work; stretch'd out His line

So far, and spread amazement o'er the whole?

820

Then, (as He took delight in wide extremes,)

Deep in the bosom of His universe,

Dropp'd down that reasoning mite, that insect, man,

To crawl, and gaze, and wonder, at the scene?—

That man might ne'er presume to plead amazement

825

For disbelief of wonders in Himself.

Shall God be less miraculous than what

His hand has form'd? Shall mysteries descend

From Unmysterious? things more elevate

Be more familiar? uncreated lie

830

More obvious than created, to the grasp

Of human thought? The more of wonderful

Is heard in Him, the more we should assent.

Could we conceive Him, GOD He could not be;

Or He not GOD, or we could not be men.

835

A GOD alone can comprehend a GOD:

Man's distance, how immense! On such a theme,

Know this, Lorenzo, (seem it ne'er so strange,)

Nothing can satisfy but what confounds;

Nothing but what astonishes is true.

840

The scene thou seest attests the truth I sing,

And every star sheds light upon thy Creed.

These stars, this furniture, this cost of Heaven,

If but reported, thou hadst ne'er believed;

But thine eye tells thee the romance is true.

845

The Grand of Nature is the' Almighty's oath,

In Reason's court, to silence Unbelief.

How my mind, opening at this scene, imbibes

The moral emanations of the skies,

While nought, perhaps, Lorenzo less admires!

850

Has the Great Sovereign sent ten thousand worlds

To tell us He resides above them all,

In glory's unapproachable recess?

And dare Earth's bold inhabitants deny

The sumptuous, the magnific embassy

855

A moment's audience? Turn we? nor will hear

From whom they come, or what they would impart

For man's emolument,—sole cause that stoops

Their grandeur to man's eye? Lorenzo, rouse!

Let thought, awaken'd, take the lightning's wing,

860

And glance from east to west, from pole to pole.

Who sees, but is confounded or convinced,

Renounces Reason, or a GOD adores?

Mankind was sent into the world to see:

Sight gives the science needful to their peace;

865

That obvious science asks small learning's aid.

Wouldst thou on metaphysic pinions soar?

Or wound thy patience amid logic thorns?

Or travel history's enormous round?

Nature no such hard task enjoins: she gave

870

A make to man directive of his thought;

A make set upright, pointing to the stars,

As who should say, “Read thy chief lesson there.”

Too late to read this manuscript of heaven,

When, like a parchment scroll, shrunk up by flames,

875

It folds Lorenzo's lesson from his sight!

Lesson how various! Not the God alone,

I see His ministers; I see, diffused

In radiant orders, essences sublime,

Of various offices, of various plume,

880

In heavenly liveries distinctly clad,

Azure, green, purple, pearl, or downy gold,

Or all commix'd; they stand, with wings outspread,

Listening to catch the Master's least command,

And fly through Nature ere the moment ends;

885

Numbers innumerable!—Well-conceived

By Pagan and by Christian! O'er each sphere

Presides an angel, to direct its course,

And feed, or fan, its flames; or to discharge

Other high trusts unknown. For who can see

890

Such pomp of matter, and imagine Mind,

For which alone Inanimate was made,

More sparingly dispensed? that nobler son,

Far liker the great SIRE!—Tis thus the skies

Inform us of superiors numberless,

895

As much in excellence above mankind,

As above earth in magnitude the spheres.

These, as a cloud of witnesses, hang o'er us;

In a throng'd theatre are all our deeds;

Perhaps a thousand demi-gods descend

900

On every beam we see, to walk with men.

Awful reflection! strong restraint from ill!

Yet, here, our virtue finds still stronger aid

From these ethereal glories Sense surveys.

Something, like magic, strikes from this blue vault:

905

With just attention is it view'd? We feel

A sudden succour, unimplored, unthought:

Nature herself does half the work of man.

Seas, rivers, mountains, forests, deserts, rocks,

The promontory's height, the depth profound

910

Of subterranean, excavated grots,

Black-brow'd, and vaulted high, and yawning wide

From Nature's structure, or the scoop of Time;

If ample of dimension, vast of size,

E'en these an aggrandizing impulse give;

915

Of solemn thought enthusiastic heights

E'en these infuse.—But what of Vast in these?

Nothing: or we must own the skies forgot.

Much less in Art.—Vain Art! thou pigmy power!

How dost thou swell, and strut, with human pride,

920

To show thy littleness! What childish toys,

Thy watery columns squirted to the clouds!

Thy basin'd rivers, and imprison'd seas!

Thy mountains moulded into forms of men!

Thy hundred-gated capitals! or those

925

Where three days' travel left us much to ride;

Gazing on miracles by mortals wrought,

Arches triumphal, theatres immense,

Or nodding gardens pendent in mid-air,

Or temples proud to meet their gods half-way!

930

Yet these affect us in no common kind.

What then the force of such superior scenes?

Enter a temple, it will strike an awe:

What awe from this the DEITY has built?

A good man seen, though silent, counsel gives:

935

The touch'd spectator wishes to be wise:

In a bright mirror His own hands have made,

Here we see something like the face of GOD.

Seems it not then enough to say, Lorenzo,

To man abandon'd, “Hast thou seen the skies?”

940

And yet, so thwarted Nature's kind design

By daring man, he makes her sacred awe

(That guard from ill) his shelter, his temptation

To more than common guilt, and quite inverts

Celestial Art's intent. The trembling Stars

945

See Crimes gigantic stalking through the gloom

With front erect, that hide their head by day,

And making night still darker by their deeds.

Slumbering in covert till the shades descend,

Rapine and Murder, link'd, now prowl for prey.

950

The miser earths his treasure; and the thief,

Watching the mole, half-beggars him ere morn.

Now Plots and foul Conspiracies awake;

And, muffling up their horrors from the moon,

Havoc and devastation they prepare,

955

And kingdoms tottering in the field of blood.

Now sons of riot in mid-revel rage.

What shall I do? suppress it? or proclaim?—

Why sleeps the thunder? Now, Lorenzo, now,

His best friend's couch the rank adulterer

960

Ascends secure, and laughs at gods and men.

Preposterous madmen, void of fear or shame,

Lay their crimes bare to these chaste eyes of Heaven;

Yet shrink and shudder at a mortal's sight.

Were moon and stars for villains only made?

965

To guide, yet screen, them with tenebrious light?

No; they were made to fashion the Sublime

Of human hearts, and wiser make the wise.

Those ends were answer'd once, when mortals lived

Of stronger wing, of aquiline ascent

970

In theory sublime. O how unlike

Those vermin of the night,—this moment sung,

Who crawl on earth, and on her venom feed!—

Those ancient sages, human stars! they met

Their brothers of the skies at midnight hour;

975

Their counsel ask'd; and, what they ask'd, obey'd.

The Stagyrite, and Plato, he who drank

The poison'd bowl, and he of Tusculum,

With him of Corduba, (immortal names!)

In these unbounded and elysian walks,

980

An area fit for Gods and godlike men,

They took their nightly round through radiant paths

By seraphs trod; instructed, chiefly, thus

To tread in their bright footsteps here below;

To walk in worth still brighter than the skies.

985

There they contracted their contempt of Earth;

Of hopes eternal kindled there the fire;

There, as in near approach, they glow'd, and grew

(Great visitants!) more intimate with GOD,

More worth to men, more joyous to themselves.

990

Through various virtues, they with ardour ran

The zodiac of their learn'd, illustrious lives.

In Christian hearts, O for a Pagan zeal!

A needful but opprobrious prayer! As much

Our ardour less, as greater is our light.

995

How monstrous this in morals! Scarce more strange

Would this phenomenon in Nature strike,—

A sun that froze her, or a star that warm'd!

What taught these heroes of the moral world?

To these thou givest thy praise, give credit too.

1000

These doctors ne'er were pension'd to deceive thee;

And Pagan tutors are thy taste.—They taught,

That narrow views betray to misery:

That wise it is to comprehend the whole:

That Virtue rose from Nature, ponder'd well,

1005

The single base of Virtue built to heaven:

That GOD and Nature our attention claim:

That Nature is the glass reflecting GOD,

As by the sea reflected is the Sun,

Too glorious to be gazed on in his sphere:

1010

That Mind immortal loves immortal aims:

That boundless Mind affects a boundless space:

That vast surveys, and the Sublime of things,

The soul assimilate, and make her great:

That, therefore, Heaven her glories, as a fund

1015

Of inspiration, thus spreads out to man.

Such are their doctrines; such the Night inspired.

And what more true? What truth of greater weight?

The Soul of man was made to walk the skies;

Delightful outlet of her prison here!

1020

There, disencumber'd from her chains, the ties

Of toys terrestrial, she can rove at large;

There freely can respire, dilate, extend,

In full proportion let loose all her powers,

And, undeluded, grasp at something great.

1025

Nor as a stranger does she wander there;

But, wonderful herself, through wonder strays;

Contemplating their grandeur, finds her own;

Dives deep in their economy Divine,

Sits high in judgment on their various laws,

1030

And, like a master, judges not amiss.

Hence greatly pleased, and justly proud, the Soul

Grows conscious of her birth celestial; breathes

More life, more vigour, in her native air;

And feels herself at home among the stars;

1035

And, feeling, emulates her country's praise.

What call we then the Firmament, Lorenzo?—

As Earth the body, since the Skies sustain

The soul with food, that gives immortal life,

Call it “the noble pasture of the Mind,”

1040

Which there expatiates, strengthens, and exults,

And riots through the luxuries of thought.

Call it “the garden of the DEITY,”

Blossom'd with stars, redundant in the growth

Of fruit ambrosial, moral fruit to man.

1045

Call it “the breast-plate of the true High Priest,”

Ardent with gems oracular, that give,

In points of highest moment, right response;

And ill neglected, if we prize our peace.

Thus have we found a true astrology:

1050

Thus have we found a new and noble sense

In which alone stars govern human fates.

O that the stars (as some have feign'd) let fall

Bloodshed and havoc on embattled realms,

And rescued monarchs from so black a guilt!

1055

Bourbon! this wish how generous in a foe!

Wouldst thou be great, wouldst thou become a god,

And stick thy deathless name among the stars,

For mighty conquests on a needle's point?

Instead of forging chains for foreigners,

1060

Bastile thy tutor. Grandeur all thy aim?

As yet thou know'st not what it is: how great,

How glorious then appears the mind of man,

When in it all the stars and planets roll!

And what it seems it is; great objects make

1065

Great minds, enlarging as their views enlarge;

Those still more godlike, as these more Divine.

And more Divine than these thou canst not see.

Dazzled, o'erpower'd, with the delicious draught

Of miscellaneous splendours, how I reel

1070

From thought to thought, inebriate, without end!

An Eden this, a Paradise unlost!

I meet the DEITY in every view,

And tremble at my nakedness before Him!

O that I could but reach the tree of life!

1075

For here it grows, unguarded from our taste;

No flaming sword denies our entrance here;

Would man but gather, he might live for ever.

Lorenzo, much of moral hast thou seen.

Of curious arts art thou more fond? Then mark

1080

The mathematic glories of the skies,

In number, weight, and measure, all ordain'd.

Lorenzo's boasted builders, Chance and Fate,

Are left to finish his aerial towers:

Wisdom and Choice their well-known characters

1085

Here deep impress; and claim it for their own.

Though splendid all, no splendour void of use;

Use rivals Beauty; Art contends with Power;

No wanton waste amid effuse expense;

The great Economist adjusting all

1090

To prudent pomp, magnificently wise.

How rich the prospect, and for ever new!

And newest to the man that views it most;

For newer still in infinite succeeds.

Then, these aerial racers, O how swift!

1095

How the shaft loiters from the strongest string!

Spirit alone can distance the career.

Orb above orb ascending without end!

Circle in circle, without end, enclosed!

Wheel within wheel; Ezekiel! like to thine!

1100

Like thine, it seems a vision or a dream;

Though seen, we labour to believe it true!

What involution! What extent What swarms

Of worlds, that laugh at Earth! immensely great!

Immensely distant from each other's spheres!

1105

What then the wondrous space through which they roll?

At once it quite ingulfs all human thought;

'T is Comprehension's absolute defeat.

Nor think thou seest a wild disorder here:

Through this illustrious chaos to the sight,

1110

Arrangement neat, and chastest order, reign.

The path prescribed, inviolably kept,

Upbraids the lawless sallies of mankind.

Worlds, ever thwarting, never interfere.

What knots are tied! How soon are they dissolved,

1115

And set the seeming married planets free!

They rove for ever, without error rove;

Confusion unconfused! Nor less admire

This tumult untumultuous! all on wing,

In motion all! yet what profound repose!

1120

What fervid action, yet no noise! as awed

To silence by the presence of their LORD:

Or hush'd, by His command, in love to man,

And bid let fall soft beams on human rest,

Restless themselves. On yon cerulean plain,

1125

In exultation to their GOD, and thine,

They dance, they sing eternal jubilee,

Eternal celebration of His praise.

But, since their song arrives not at our ear,

Their dance perplex'd exhibits to the sight

1130

Fair hieroglyphic of His peerless power.

Mark, how the labyrinthian turns they take,

The circles intricate, and mystic maze,

Weave the grand cipher of Omnipotence;

To gods, how great! how legible to man!

1135

Leaves so much wonder greater wonder still?

Where are the pillars that support the skies?

What more than Atlantean shoulder props

The' incumbent load? What magic, what strange art,

In fluid air these ponderous orbs sustains?

1140

Who would not think them hung in golden chains?

And so they are,—in the high will of Heaven,

Which fixes all; makes adamant of air,

Or air of adamant; makes all of nought,

Or nought of all; if such the dread decree.

1145

Imagine from their deep foundations torn

The most gigantic sons of Earth, the broad

And towering Alps, all toss'd into the sea;

And, light as down, or volatile as air,

Their bulks enormous dancing on the waves,

1150

In time and measure exquisite; while all

The winds, in emulation of the spheres,

Tune their sonorous instruments aloft,

The concert swell, and animate the ball:

Would this appear amazing? What then worlds,

1155

In a far thinner element sustain'd,

And acting the same part, with greater skill,

More rapid movement, and for noblest ends?

More obvious ends to pass, are not these stars

The seats majestic, proud imperial thrones,

1160

On which angelic delegates of Heaven,

At certain periods, as the Sovereign nods,

Discharge high trusts of vengeance or of love;

To clothe, in outward grandeur, grand design,

And acts most solemn still more solemnize?

1165

Ye Citizens of air! what ardent thanks,

What full effusion of the grateful heart,

Is due from man indulged in such a sight!

A sight so noble, and a sight so kind!

It drops new truths at every new survey!

1170

Feels not Lorenzo something stir within,

That sweeps away all period? As these spheres

Measure duration, they no less inspire

The godlike hope of ages without end.

The boundless space, through which these rovers take

1175

Their restless roam, suggests the sister-thought

Of boundless time. Thus by kind Nature's skill,

To man unlabour'd, that important guest,

Eternity, finds entrance at the sight:

And an eternity for man ordain'd,

1180

Or these his destined midnight counsellors,

The stars, had never whisper'd it to man.

Nature informs, but ne'er insults, her sons.

Could she then kindle the most ardent wish

To disappoint it?—That is blasphemy.

1185

Thus of thy Creed a second article,

Momentous as the' existence of a GOD,

Is found (as I conceive) where rarely sought:

And thou mayst read thy soul immortal here.

Here, then, Lorenzo! on these glories dwell;

1190

Nor want the gilt, illuminated roof,

That calls the wretched gay to dark delights.

Assemblies?—This is one divinely bright;

Here, unendanger'd in health, wealth, or fame,

Range through the fairest, and the Sultan scorn.

1195

He, wise as thou, no crescent holds so fair

As that which on his turban awes a world;

And thinks the Moon is proud to copy him.

Look on her, and gain more than worlds can give,—

A mind superior to the charms of power.

1200

Thou muffled in delusions of this life!

Can yonder Moon turn Ocean in his bed,

From side to side, in constant ebb and flow,

And purify from stench his watery realms?

And fails her moral influence? Wants she power

1205

To turn Lorenzo's stubborn tide of thought

From stagnating on earth's infected shore,

And purge from nuisance his corrupted heart?

Fails her attraction when it draws to heaven?

Nay, and to what thou valuest more, earth's joy?

1210

Minds elevate, and panting for Unseen,

And defecate from sense, alone obtain

Full relish of existence undeflower'd,

The life of life, the zest of worldly bliss.

All else on earth amounts—to what? To this:

1215

“Bad to be suffer'd; blessings to be left:”

Earth's richest inventory boasts no more.

Of higher scenes be then the call obey'd.

O let me gaze!—Of gazing there's no end.

O let me think!—Thought too is wilder'd here;

1220

In midway flight Imagination tires;

Yet soon reprunes her wing to soar anew,

Her point unable to forbear or gain;

So great the pleasure, so profound the plan!

A banquet this, where men and angels meet,

1225

Eat the same manna, mingle earth and heaven.

How distant some of these nocturnal suns!

So distant, (says the sage,) 'twere not absurd

To doubt, if beams, set out at Nature's birth,

Are yet arrived at this so foreign world;

1230

Though nothing half so rapid as their flight.

An eye of awe and wonder let me roll,

And roll for ever: who can satiate sight

In such a scene? in such an ocean wide

Of deep astonishment? where depth, height, breadth,

1235

Are lost in their extremes; and where to count

The thick-sown glories in this field of fire,

Perhaps a seraph's computation fails.

Now go, Ambition! boast thy boundless might

In conquest o'er the tenth part of a grain.

1240

And yet Lorenzo calls for miracles,

To give his tottering faith a solid base.

Why call for less than is already thine?

Thou art no novice in theology:

What is a miracle?—'T is a reproach,

1245

'T is an implicit satire, on mankind;

And while it satisfies, it censures too.

To common sense, great Nature's course proclaims

A DEITY: when mankind falls asleep,

A miracle is sent, as an alarm,

1250

To wake the world, and prove Him o'er again,

By recent argument, but not more strong.

Say, which imports more plenitude of power,—

Or Nature's laws to fix, or to repeal?

To make a Sun, or stop his mid career?

1255

To countermand his orders, and send back

The flaming courier to the frighted east,

Warm'd, and astonish'd, at his evening ray?

Or bid the Moon, as with her journey tired,

In Ajalon's soft flowery vale repose?

1260

Great things are these; still greater, to create.

From Adam's bower look down through the whole train

Of miracles;—resistless is their power?

They do not, cannot, more amaze the mind

Than this, call'd unmiraculous, survey,

1265

If duly weigh'd, if rationally seen,

If seen with human eyes. The brute, indeed,

Sees nought but spangles here; the fool, no more.

Sayst thou, “The course of Nature governs all?”

The course of Nature is the art of GOD.

1270

The miracles thou call'st for, this attest;

For say, could Nature Nature's course control?

But, miracles apart, who sees HIM not,

Nature's Controller, Author, Guide, and End?

Who turns his eye on Nature's midnight face

1275

But must inquire—“What hand behind the scene,

What arm almighty, put these wheeling globes

In motion, and wound-up the vast machine?

Who rounded in his palm these spacious orbs?

Who bowl'd them flaming through the dark profound,

1280

Numerous as glittering gems of morning dew,

Or sparks from populous cities in a blaze,

And set the bosom of old Night on fire,

Peopled her desert, and made Horror smile?”

Or, if the military style delights thee,

1285

(For stars have fought their battles, leagued with man,)

“Who marshals this bright host? enrols their names?

Appoints their posts, their marches, and returns,

Punctual, at stated periods? Who disbands

These veteran troops, their final duty done,

1290

If e'er disbanded?” HE, whose potent word,

Like the loud trumpet, levied first their powers

In Night's inglorious empire, where they slept

In beds of darkness, arm'd them with fierce flames,

Arranged and disciplined, and clothed in gold;

1295

And call'd them out of Chaos to the field,

Where now they war with Vice and Unbelief.

O let us join this army! Joining these

Will give us hearts intrepid at that hour

When brighter flames shall cut a darker night;

1300

When these strong demonstrations of a GOD

Shall hide their heads, or tumble from their spheres,

And one eternal curtain cover all!

Struck at that thought, as new-awaked, I lift

A more enlighten'd eye, and read the stars,

1305

To man still more propitious; and their aid

(Though guiltless of idolatry) implore;

Nor longer rob them of their noblest name.

O ye dividers of my time! ye bright

Accomptants of my days, and months, and years,

1310

In your fair calendar distinctly mark'd!

Since that authentic, radiant register,

Though man inspects it not, stands good against him;

Since you, and years, roll on, though man stands still;

Teach me my days to number, and apply

1315

My trembling heart to wisdom; now beyond

All shadow of excuse for fooling on.

Age smooths our path to Prudence; sweeps aside

The snares keen Appetite and Passion spread

To catch stray souls; and woe to that grey head

1320

Whose folly would undo what Age has done!

Aid, then, aid, all ye stars!—Much rather, THOU,

Great ARTIST! Thou, whose finger set aright

This exquisite machine, with all its wheels,

Though intervolved, exact; and pointing out

1325

Life's rapid and irrevocable flight,

With such an index fair as none can miss

Who lifts an eye, nor sleeps till it is closed.

Open mine eye, dread DEITY! to read

The tacit doctrine of Thy works; to see

1330

Things as they are, unalter'd through the glass

Of worldly wishes. Time, Eternity!

('T is these, mis-measured, ruin all mankind:)

Set them before me; let me lay them both

In equal scale, and learn their various weight.

1335

Let Time appear a moment as it is:

And let Eternity's full orb, at once,

Turn on my soul, and strike it into heaven.

When shall I see far more than charms me now?

Gaze on creation's model in Thy breast

1340

Unveil'd, nor wonder at the transcript more?

When this vile foreign dust, which smothers all

That travel Earth's deep vale, shall I shake off?

When shall my Soul her incarnation quit,

And, re-adopted to Thy bless'd embrace,

1345

Obtain her apotheosis in THEE?

Dost think, Lorenzo, this is wandering wide?

No: 't is directly striking at the mark:

To wake thy dead devotion was my point;

And how I bless Night's consecrating shades,

1350

Which to a temple turn an universe,

Fill us with great ideas full of heaven,

And antidote the pestilential earth!

In every storm that either frowns or falls,

What an asylum has the soul in prayer!

1355

And what a fane is this, in which to pray!

And what a GOD must dwell in such a fane!

O what a Genius must inform the skies!

And is Lorenzo's salamander-heart

Cold and untouch'd amid these sacred fires?

1360

O ye nocturnal sparks, ye glowing embers,

On heaven's broad hearth! who burn, or burn no more,

Who blaze, or die, as great JEHOVAH'S breath

Or blows you, or forbears; assist my song;

Pour your whole influence; exorcise his heart,

1365

So long possess'd; and bring him back to man.

And is Lorenzo a demurrer still?

Pride in thy parts provokes thee to contest

Truths which, contested, put thy parts to shame.

Nor shame they more Lorenzo's head than heart;

1370

A faithless heart, how despicably small!

Too strait aught great or generous to receive!

Fill'd with an atom! fill'd and foul'd with self!

And self-mistaken! self, that lasts an hour!

Instincts and passions, of the nobler kind,

1375

Lie suffocated there! or they alone,

Reason apart, would wake high hope; and open,

To ravish'd thought, that intellectual sphere

Where Order, Wisdom, Goodness, Providence,

Their endless miracles of love display,

1380

And promise all the truly great desire.

The mind that would be happy, must be great;

Great in its wishes; great in its surveys.

Extended views a narrow mind extend;

Push out its corrugate, expansive make,

1385

Which, ere long, more than planets shall embrace.

A man of compass makes a man of worth:

Divine contemplate, and become Divine.

As man was made for glory and for bliss,

All littleness is in approach to woe.

1390

Open thy bosom, set thy wishes wide,

And let-in manhood; let-in happiness.

Admit the boundless theatre of thought

From nothing up to GOD; which makes a man.

Take GOD from Nature, nothing great is left;

1395

Man's mind is in a pit, and nothing sees;

Man's heart is in a jakes, and loves the mire.

Emerge from thy profound; erect thine eye;

See thy distress; how close art thou besieged!

Besieged by Nature, the proud sceptic's foe!

1400

Enclosed by these innumerable worlds,

Sparkling conviction on the darkest mind,

As in a golden net of Providence

How art thou caught, sure captive of Belief!

From this thy bless'd captivity what art,

1405

What blasphemy to reason, sets thee free?

This scene is Heaven's indulgent violence:

Canst thou bear up against this tide of glory?

What is earth, bosom'd in these ambient orbs,

But faith in GOD imposed and press'd on man?

1410

Darest thou still litigate thy desperate cause,

Spite of these numerous awful witnesses,

And doubt the deposition of the Skies?

O how laborious is thy way to ruin!

Laborious? 'T is impracticable quite;

1415

To sink beyond a doubt, in this debate,

With all his weight of wisdom, and of will,

And crime flagitious, I defy a fool.

Some wish they did; but no man disbelieves.

GOD is a Spirit; spirit cannot strike

1420

These gross material organs; GOD by man

As much is seen as man a GOD can see,

In these astonishing exploits of power.

What order, beauty, motion, distance, size!

Concertion of design, how exquisite!

1425

How complicate in their Divine police!

Apt means, great ends, consent to general good!—

Each attribute of these material gods,

So long (and that with specious pleas) adored,

A separate conquest gains o'er rebel thought,

1430

And leads in triumph the whole mind of man.

Lorenzo, this may seem harangue to thee;

Such all is apt to seem that thwarts our will.

And dost thou then demand a simple proof

Of this great master-moral of the skies,

1435

Unskill'd, or disinclined, to read it there?

Since 't is the basis, and all drops without it,

Take it, in one compact, unbroken chain.

Such proof insists on an attentive ear;

'T will not make one amid a mob of thoughts,

1440

And, for thy notice, struggle with the world.

Retire; the world shut out; thy thoughts call home;

Imagination's airy wing repress;

Lock up thy senses; let no passion stir;

Wake all to Reason; let her reign alone:

1445

Then, in thy soul's deep silence, and the depth

Of Nature's silence, midnight, thus inquire,

As I have done,—and shall inquire no more.

In Nature's channel thus the questions run:—

“What am I? and from whence?—I nothing know

1450

But that I am; and, since I am, conclude

Something eternal: had there e'er been nought,

Nought still had been: eternal there must be.

But what eternal?—Why not human race?

And Adam's ancestors without an end?—

1455

That's hard to be conceived, since every link

Of that long-chain'd succession is so frail;

Can every part depend, and not the whole?

Yet grant it true: new difficulties rise:

I'm still quite out at sea; nor see the shore.

1460

Whence Earth, and these bright orbs? eternal too?

Grant matter was eternal; still these orbs

Would want some other father;—much design

Is seen in all their motions, all their makes;

Design implies intelligence and art:

1465

That can't be from themselves—or man; that art

Man scarce can comprehend, could man bestow?

And nothing greater, yet allow'd, than man.—

Who motion, foreign to the smallest grain,

Shot through vast masses of enormous weight?

1470

Who bid brute matter's restive lump assume

Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?

Has matter innate motion? Then each atom,

Asserting its indisputable right

To dance, would form a universe of dust.

1475

Has matter none? Then whence these glorious forms

And boundless flights, from shapeless and reposed?

Has matter more than motion? Has it thought,

Judgment, and genius? Is it deeply learn'd

In mathematics? Has it framed such laws,

1480

Which but to guess, a Newton made immortal?—

If so, how each sage atom laughs at me,

Who think a clod inferior to a man!

If art to form, and counsel to conduct,

(And that with greater far than human skill,)

1485

Resides not in each block—a GODHEAD reigns!

Grant, then, invisible, eternal MIND;

That granted, all is solved. But, granting that,

Draw I not o'er me a still darker cloud?

Grant I not that which I can ne'er conceive?

1490

A Being without origin or end!—

Hail, human liberty! There is no GOD.—

Yet why? On either scheme that knot subsists;

Subsist it must, in GOD, or human race:

If in the last, how many knots beside,

1495

Indissoluble all!—Why choose it there,

Where, chosen, still subsist ten thousand more?

Reject it where, that chosen, all the rest,

Dispersed, leave Reason's whole horizon clear?

This is not Reason's dictate; Reason says,

1500

'Close with the side where one grain turns the scale.'

What vast preponderance is here! Can Reason

With louder voice exclaim—'Believe a GOD?'

And Reason heard is the sole mark of man.

What things impossible must man think true

1505

On any other system! And how strange

To disbelieve through mere credulity!”

If in this chain Lorenzo finds no flaw,

Let it for ever bind him to belief.

And where the link in which a flaw he finds?

1510

And if a GOD there is, that GOD how great!

How great that Power, whose providential care

Through these bright orbs' dark centres darts a ray,

Of Nature universal threads the whole,

And hangs Creation, like a precious gem,

1515

Though little, on the footstool of His throne!

That little gem, how large! A weight let fall

From a fix'd star, in ages can it reach

This distant earth? Say, then, Lorenzo, where,

Where ends this mighty building? Where begin

1520

The suburbs of creation? Where the wall

Whose battlements look o'er into the vale

Of non-existence, Nothing's strange abode?

Say, at what point of space JEHOVAH dropp'd

His slacken'd line, and laid His balance by;

1525

Weigh'd worlds, and measured Infinite, no more?

Where rears His terminating pillar high

Its extra-mundane head; and says to gods,

In characters illustrious as the sun?—

I stand, the plan's proud period; I pronounce

1530

The work accomplish'd; the Creation closed:

Resound! resound! ye depths and heights, resound!

1535

Hard are those questions?—Answer harder still.

Is this the sole exploit, the single birth,

The solitary son, of Power Divine?

Or has the' Almighty FATHER, with a breath,

Impregnated the womb of distant space?

1540

Has He not bid, in various provinces,

Brother-creations the dark bowels burst

Of Night primeval; barren now no more?

And He the central Sun, transpiercing all

Those giant-generations, which disport

1545

And dance, as motes, in His meridian ray;

That ray withdrawn, benighted, or absorb'd

In that abyss of horror whence they sprung;

While Chaos triumphs, repossess'd of all

Rival Creation ravish'd from his throne?

1550

Chaos! of Nature both the womb and grave!

Think'st thou my scheme, Lorenzo, spreads too wide?

Is this extravagant?—No; this is just;

Just in conjecture, though 'twere false in fact.

If 't is an error, 't is an error sprung

1555

From noble root, high thought of the MOST HIGH.

But wherefore error? Who can prove it such?—

He that can set Omnipotence a bound.

Can man conceive beyond what God can do?

Nothing but quite impossible is hard.

1560

He summons into being, with like ease,

A whole creation, and a single grain.

Speaks He the word? a thousand worlds are born!

A thousand worlds? There's space for millions more!

And in what space can His great fiat fail?

1565

Condemn me not, cold critic! but indulge

The warm imagination. Why condemn?

Why not indulge such thoughts as swell our hearts

With fuller admiration of that Power

Who gives our hearts with such high thoughts to swell?

1570

Why not indulge in His augmented praise?

Darts not His glory a still brighter ray,

The less is left to Chaos, and the realms

Of hideous Night, where Fancy strays aghast,

And, though most talkative, makes no report?

1575

Still seems my thought enormous? Think again:—

Experience' self shall aid thy lame belief.

Glasses—that revelation to the sight!—

Have they not led us deep in the disclose

Of fine-spun Nature, exquisitely small,

1580

And, though demonstrated, still ill-conceived?

If then, on the reverse, the mind would mount

In magnitude, what mind can mount too far,

To keep the balance, and Creation poise?

Defect alone can err on such a theme.

1585

What is too great, if we the Cause survey?

Stupendous ARCHITECT! Thou, Thou art all!

My soul flies up and down in thoughts of Thee,

And finds herself but at the centre still!

I AM, Thy name! existence, all Thine own!

1590

Creation's nothing; flatter'd much, if styled

“The thin, the fleeting atmosphere of GOD.”

O for the voice—of what? of whom? What voice

Can answer to my wants, in such ascent

As dares to deem one universe too small?

1595

Tell me, Lorenzo! (for now Fancy glows,

Fired in the vortex of Almighty power,)

Is not this home-creation, in the map

Of universal Nature, as a speck,

Like fair Britannia in our little ball;

1600

Exceeding fair, and glorious, for its size,

But, elsewhere, far out-measured, far outshone?

In Fancy (for the fact beyond us lies)

Canst thou not figure it, an isle, almost

Too small for notice, in the vast of being;

1605

Sever'd by mighty seas of unbuilt space

From other realms; from ample continents

Of higher life, where nobler natives dwell;

Less northern, less remote from DEITY,

Glowing beneath the line of the Supreme;

1610

Where souls in excellence make haste, put forth

Luxuriant growths; nor the late autumn wait

Of human worth, but ripen soon to gods?

Yet why drown Fancy in such depths as these?

Return, presumptuous rover, and confess

1615

The bounds of man, nor blame them as too small.

Enjoy we not full scope in what is seen?

Full ample the dominions of the Sun!

Full glorious to behold! How far, how wide,

The matchless monarch, from his flaming throne,

1620

Lavish of lustre, throws his beams about him,

Farther and faster than a thought can fly,

And feeds his planets with eternal fires!

This Heliopolis, by Greater far

Than the proud tyrant of the Nile, was built;

1625

And He alone, who built it, can destroy.

Beyond this city, why strays human thought?

One Wonderful, enough for man to know!

One Infinite, enough for man to range!

One firmament, enough for man to read!

1630

O what voluminous instruction here!

What page of wisdom is denied him? None;

If learning his chief lesson makes him wise.

Nor is instruction here our only gain:

There dwells a noble pathos in the skies,

1635

Which warms our passions, proselytes our hearts.

How eloquently shines the glowing pole!

With what authority it gives its charge,

Remonstrating great truths in style sublime,

Though silent, loud! heard earth around; above

1640

The planets heard; and not unheard in hell:

Hell has her wonder, though too proud to praise.

Is Earth, then, more infernal? Has she those

Who neither praise, Lorenzo, nor admire?

Lorenzo's admiration, pre-engaged,

1645

Ne'er ask'd the moon one question; never held

Least correspondence with a single star;

Ne'er rear'd an altar to the queen of heaven

Walking in brightness; or her train adored.

Their sublunary rivals have long since

1650

Engross'd his whole devotion; stars malign,

Which make their fond astronomer run mad,

Darken his intellect, corrupt his heart;

Cause him to sacrifice his fame and peace

To momentary madness, call'd delight.

1655

Idolater more gross than ever kiss'd

The lifted hand to Luna, or pour'd out

The blood to Jove!—O THOU, to whom belongs

All sacrifice! O Thou great Jove unfeign'd!

Divine Instructor! Thy first volume this

1660

For man's perusal! all in CAPITALS!

In moon and stars (Heaven's golden alphabet!)

Emblazed to seize the sight; who runs may read;

Who reads can understand. 'T is unconfined

To Christian land or Jewry; fairly writ

1665

In language universal to MANKIND:

A language lofty to the learn'd, yet plain

To those that feed the flock, or guide the plough,

Or from its husk strike out the bounding grain:

A language worthy the Great MIND that speaks!

1670

Preface and comment to the sacred page!

Which oft refers its reader to the skies,

As pre-supposing his first lesson there,

And Scripture's self a fragment, that unread.

Stupendous book of wisdom to the wise!

1675

Stupendous book! and open'd, Night, by thee.

By thee much open'd, I confess, O Night!

Yet more I wish; but how shall I prevail?

Say, gentle Night, whose modest, maiden beams

Give us a new creation, and present

1680

The world's great picture soften'd to the sight;

Nay, kinder far, far more indulgent still,

Say, thou, whose mild dominion's silver key

Unlocks our hemisphere, and sets to view

Worlds beyond number, worlds conceal'd by day

1685

Behind the proud and envious star of noon!

Canst thou not draw a deeper scene? and show

The mighty Potentate, to whom belong

These rich regalia pompously display'd

To kindle that high hope? like him of Uz,

1690

I gaze around; I search on every side:—

O for a glimpse of HIM my soul adores!

As the chased hart, amid the desert waste,

Pants for the living stream; for HIM who made her

So pants the thirsty soul, amid the blank

1695

Of sublunary joys. Say, goddess, where?

Where blazes His bright court? Where burns His throne?

Thou know'st, for thou art near Him; by thee, round

His grand pavilion, sacred Fame reports

The sable curtains drawn. If not, can none

1700

Of thy fair daughter-train, so swift of wing,

Who travel far, discover where He dwells?

A star His dwelling pointed out below.

Ye Pleiades, Arcturus, Mazzaroth,

And thou, Orion, of still keener eye!

1705

Say, ye who guide the wilder'd in the waves,

And bring them out of tempest into port!

On which hand must I bend my course to find Him?

These courtiers keep the secret of their KING;

I wake whole nights, in vain, to steal it from them.

1710

I wake; and, waking, climb Night's radiant scale,

From sphere to sphere; the steps by Nature set

For man's ascent, at once to tempt and aid;

To tempt his eye, and aid his towering thought,

Till it arrives at the Great Goal of all.

1715

In ardent Contemplation's rapid car,

From earth, as from my barrier, I set out.

How swift I mount! Diminish'd earth recedes;

I pass the moon; and from her further side

Pierce heaven's blue curtain; strike into Remote;

1720

Where, with his lifted tube, the subtle sage

His artificial airy journey takes,

And to celestial lengthens human sight.

I pause at every planet on my road,

And ask for HIM who gives their orbs to roll,

1725

Their foreheads fair to shine. From Saturn's ring,

In which of earths an army might be lost,

With the bold comet take my bolder flight

Amid those sovereign glories of the skies,

Of independent, native lustre proud!

1730

The souls of systems, and the lords of life,

Through their wide empires!—What behold I now?

A wilderness of wonders burning round,

Where larger suns inhabit higher spheres?

Perhaps the viUas of descending gods!

1735

Nor halt I here; my toil is but begun,

Tis but the threshold of the DEITY,

Or far beneath it I am grovelling still.

Nor is it strange; I built on a mistake:

The grandeur of His works, whence Folly sought

1740

For aid, to Reason sets His glory higher;

Who built thus high for worms, (mere worms to Him,)

O where, Lorenzo, must the Builder dwell?

Pause, then; and, for a moment, here respire—

If human thought can keep its station here.

1745

Where am I? Where is Earth? Nay, where art thou,

O Sun?—Is the Sun turn'd recluse?—And are

His boasted expeditions short to mine?

To mine, how short! On Nature's Alps I stand,

And see a thousand firmaments beneath,

1750

A thousand systems, as a thousand grains!

So much a stranger, and so late arrived,

How can man's curious spirit not inquire,

What are the natives of this world sublime,

Of this so foreign, unterrestrial sphere,

1755

Where mortal, untranslated, never stray'd?

“O ye, as distant from my little home

As swiftest sunbeams in an age can fly!

Far from my native element I roam,

In quest of New and Wonderful to man.

1760

What province this of His immense domain,

Whom all obeys? Or mortals here, or gods?

Ye borderers on the coasts of bliss, what are you?

A colony from heaven? or only raised,

By frequent visit from heaven's neighbouring realms,

1765

To secondary gods, and half Divine?

Whate'er your nature, this is past dispute,—

Far other life you live, far other tongue

You talk, far other thought, perhaps, you think,

Than man. How various are the works of God!

1770

But say, what thought? Is Reason here enthroned,

And absolute? or Sense in arms against her?

Have you two lights? or need you no reveal'd?

Enjoy your happy realms their golden age?

And had your Eden an abstemious Eve?

1775

Our Eve's fair daughters prove their pedigree.

And ask their Adams, “Who would not be wise?'

Or, if your mother fell, are you redeem'd?

And if redeem'd, is your Redeemer scorn'd?

Is this your final residence? If not,

1780

Change you your scene, translated? or by death?

And if by death, what death?—Know you disease?

Or horrid war?—With war, this fatal hour,

Europa groans (so call we a small field,

Where kings run mad). In our world Death deputes

1785

Intemperance to do the work of Age,

And, hanging up the quiver Nature gave him,

As slow of execution, for despatch

Sends forth imperial butchers; bids them slay

Their sheep, (the silly sheep they fleeced before,)

1790

And toss him twice ten thousand at a meal.

Sit all your executioners on thrones?

With you, can rage for plunder make a GOD,

And bloodshed wash out every other stain?—

But you, perhaps, can't bleed: from matter gross

1795

Your spirits clean are delicately clad

In fine-spun ether, privileged to soar,

Unloaded, uninfected: how unlike

The lot of man! How few of human race

By their own mud unmurder'd! How we wage

1800

Self-war eternal!—Is your painful day

Of hardy conflict o'er? or are you still

Raw candidates at school? And have you those

Who disaffect reversions, as with us?—

But what are we? You never heard of man,

1805

Or earth; the Bedlam of the universe!

Where Reason (undiseased with you) runs mad,

And nurses Folly's children as her own;

Fond of the foulest. In the sacred mount

Of holiness, where Reason is pronounced

1810

Infallible; and thunders, like a god;

E'en there, by saints the demons are outdone:

What these think wrong, our saints refine to right;

And kindly teach dull Hell her own black arts:

Satan, instructed, o'er their morals smiles.—

1815

But this how strange to you, who know not man!

Has the least rumour of our race arrived?

Call'd here Elijah, in his flaming car?

Pass'd by you the good Enoch, on his road

To those fair fields, whence Lucifer was hurl'd;

1820

Who brush'd, perhaps, your sphere, in his descent,

Stain'd your pure crystal ether, or let fall

A short eclipse from his portentous shade?

O that the fiend had lodged on some broad orb

Athwart his way, nor reach'd his present home!

1825

Then blacken'd earth with footsteps foul'd in hell,

Nor wash'd in ocean, as from Rome he pass'd

To Britain's isle; too, too conspicuous there!”

But this is all digression. Where is He

That o'er heaven's battlements the felon hurl'd

1830

To groans, and chains, and darkness? Where is He

Who sees Creation's summit in a vale?

He whom, while man is MAN, he can't but seek;

And, if he finds, commences more than man?

O for a telescope His throne to reach!

1835

Tell me, ye learn'd on earth, or bless'd above!

Ye searching, ye Newtonian angels! tell,

Where your great Master's orb? His planets, where?

Those conscious satellites, those morning stars,

First-born of DEITY! from Central Love,

1840

By veneration most profound, thrown off;

By sweet attraction no less strongly drawn;

Awed, and yet raptured; raptured, yet serene;

Past thought illustrious, but with borrow'd beams;

In still approaching circles, still remote,

1845

Revolving round the sun's eternal Sire?

Or sent, in lines direct, on embassies

To nations—in what latitude?—Beyond

Terrestrial thought's horizon.—And on what

High errands sent?—Here human effort ends;

1850

And leaves me still a stranger to His throne.

Full well it might! I quite mistook my road;

Born in an age more curious than devout;

More fond to fix the place of heaven or hell,

Than studious this to shun, or that secure.

1855

'T is not the curious, but the pious, path

That leads me to my point: Lorenzo, know,

Without or star or angel for their guide,

Who worship GOD shall find Him. Humble Love,

And not proud Reason, keeps the door of heaven;

1860

Love finds admission, where proud Science fails.

Man's science is the culture of his heart;

And not to lose his plummet in the depths

Of Nature, or the more profound of GOD:

Either to know, is an attempt that sets

1865

The wisest on a level with the fool.

To fathom Nature (ill-attempted here!)

Past doubt, is deep philosophy above:

Higher degrees in bliss archangels take,

As deeper learn'd; the deepest, learning still.

1870

For, what a thunder of Omnipotence

(So might I dare to speak) is seen in all!

In man, in earth, in more amazing skies!

Teaching this lesson, Pride is loath to learn:—

“Not deeply to discern, not much to know,

1875

Mankind was born to wonder and adore.”

And is there cause for higher wonder still

Than that which struck us from our past surveys?

Yes; and for deeper adoration too.

From my late airy travel unconfined,

1880

Have I learn'd nothing?—Yes, Lorenzo, this:—

Each of these stars is a religious house;

I saw their altars smoke, their incense rise,

And heard Hosannas ring through every sphere,

A seminary fraught with future gods.

1885

Nature all o'er is consecrated ground,

Teeming with growths immortal and Divine.

The great Proprietor's all-bounteous hand

Leaves nothing waste; but sows these fiery fields

With seeds of Reason, which to Virtues rise

1890

Beneath His genial ray; and, if escaped

The pestilential blasts of stubborn Will,

When grown mature, are gather'd for the skies.

And is devotion thought too much on earth,

When beings, so superior, homage boast,

1895

And triumph in prostrations to The Throne?

But wherefore more of planets, or of stars?

Ethereal journeys, and, discover'd there,

Ten thousand worlds, ten thousand ways devout,

All Nature sending incense to The Throne,

1900

Except the bold Lorenzos of our sphere?

Opening the solemn sources of my soul,

Since I have pour'd, like feign'd Eridanus,

My flowing numbers o'er the flaming skies,

Nor see, of fancy or of fact what more

1905

Invites the Muse,—here turn we, and review

Our past nocturnal landscape wide:—then say,

Say then, Lorenzo! with what burst of heart,

The whole, at once, revolving in his thought,

Must man exclaim, adoring, and aghast!—

1910

“O what a Root! O what a branch is here!

O what a Father! what a family!

Worlds, systems, and creations!—and creations,

In one agglomerated cluster, hung,

Great VINE,  ****) on Thee! On Thee the cluster hangs;

1915

The filial cluster, infinitely spread

In glowing globes, with various being fraught;

And drinks (nectareous draught!) immortal life.

Or, shall I say? (for who can say enough?)

A constellation of ten thousand gems,

1920

(And O! of what dimensions, of what weight!)

Set in one signet, flames on the right hand

Of Majesty Divine! The blazing seal

That deeply stamps on all-created mind,

Indelible, His sovereign attributes,

1925

Omnipotence and Love! that passing bound,

And this surpassing that. Nor stop we here

For want of power in GOD, but thought in Man.

E'en this, acknowledged, leaves us still in debt:

If greater aught, that greater all is Thine,

1930

Dread SIRE!—Accept this miniature of Thee;

And pardon an attempt from mortal thought,

In which archangels might have fail'd unblamed.”

How such ideas of the' ALMIGHTY'S power,

And such ideas of the' ALMIGHTY'S plan,

1935

(Ideas not absurd,) distend the thought

Of feeble mortals! nor of them alone!

The fulness of the DEITY breaks forth

In Inconceivables to men and gods.

Think, then, O think, nor ever drop the thought,

1940

How low must man descend, when gods adore!

Have I not, then, accomplish'd my proud boast?

Did I not tell thee, we would mount, Lorenzo,

And “kindle our devotion at the stars?”

And have I fail'd? And did I flatter thee?

1945

And art all adamant? And dost confute

All urged, with one irrefragable smile?

Lorenzo! mirth how miserable here!

Swear by the stars, by HIM who made them, swear,

Thy heart, henceforth, shall be as pure as they!

1950

Then thou, like them, shalt shine; like them, shalt rise

From low to lofty, from obscure to bright,

By due gradation, Nature's sacred law.

The stars, from whence?—Ask Chaos: he can tell.

These bright temptations to idolatry

1955

From darkness and confusion took their birth;

Sons of deformity! From fluid dregs

Tartarean, first they rose to masses rude,

And then to spheres opaque; then dimly shone;

Then brighten'd; then blazed out in perfect day.

1960

Nature delights in progress; in advance

From worse to better: but, when minds ascend,

Progress in part depends upon themselves.

Heaven aids exertion; greater makes the great;

The voluntary little lessens more.

1965

O be a man, and thou shalt be a god,

And half self-made!—Ambition how Divine!

O thou, ambitious of disgrace alone,

Still undevout, unkindled? though high-taught,

School'd by the skies, and pupil of the stars!

1970

Rank coward to the fashionable world,

Art thou ashamed to bend thy knee to Heaven?

Cursed fume of pride, exhaled from deepest hell!

Pride in religion is man's highest praise.

Bent on destruction, and in love with death!

1975

Not all these luminaries, quench'd at once,

Were half so sad as one benighted mind,

Which gropes for happiness, and meets despair.

How, like a widow in her weeds, the Night,

Amid her glimmering tapers, silent sits!

1980

How sorrowful, how desolate, she weeps

Perpetual dews, and saddens Nature's scene!

A scene more sad Sin makes the darken'd soul,

All comfort kills, nor leaves one spark alive.

Though blind of heart, still open is thine eye:

1985

Why such magnificence in all thou seest?

Of matter's grandeur, know, one end is this,

To tell the rational who gazes on it,—

“Though that immensely great, still greater He

Whose breast capacious can embrace and lodge,

1990

Unburden'd, Nature's universal scheme;

Can grasp Creation with a single thought;

Creation grasp; and not exclude its SIRE:”

To tell him farther,—“It behoves him much

To guard the' important, yet depending, fate

1995

Of being brighter than a thousand suns:

One single ray of thought outshines them all.”

And if man hears obedient, soon he'll soar

Superior heights, and on his purple wing,

His purple wing bedropp'd with eyes of gold,

2000

Rising, where thought is now denied to rise,

Look down triumphant on these dazzling spheres.

Why then persist?—No mortal ever lived,

But, dying, he pronounced (when words are true)

The whole that charms thee absolutely vain;

2005

Vain, and far worse!—Think thou with dying men;

O condescend to think as angels think!

O tolerate a chance for happiness!

Our nature such, ill choice insures ill fate;

And hell had been, though there had been no God.

2010

Dost thou not know, my new astronomer,

Earth, turning from the sun, brings night to man?

Man, turning from his God, brings endless night;

Where thou canst read no morals, find no friend,

Amend no manners, and expect no peace.

2015

How deep the darkness! and the groan, how loud!

And far, how far, from lambent are the flames!

Such is Lorenzo's purchase, such his praise!

The proud, the politic Lorenzo's praise!

Though in his ear, and levell'd at his heart,

2020

I've half read o'er the volume of the skies.

For think not thou hast heard all this from me;

My song but echoes what great Nature speaks.

What has she spoken? Thus the goddess spoke,

Thus speaks for ever:—“Place at Nature's head

2025

A Sovereign, which o'er all things rolls His eye,

Extends His wing, promulgates His commands,

But, above all, diffuses endless good;

To whom, for sure redress, the wrong'd may fly,

The vile for mercy, and the pain'd for peace;

2030

By whom the various tenants of these spheres,

Diversified in fortunes, place, and powers,

Raised in enjoyment, as in worth they rise,

Arrive at length (if worthy such approach)

At that bless'd fountain-head from which they stream;

2035

Where conflict past redoubles present joy;

And present joy looks forward on increase;

And that on more; no period! every step

A double boon, a promise and a bliss.”

How easy sits this scheme on human hearts!

2040

It suits their make, it soothes their vast desires;

Passion is pleased, and Reason asks no more:

'T is rational, 't is great!—But what is thine?

It darkens, shocks, excruciates, and confounds!

Leaves us quite naked both of help and hope,

2045

Sinking from bad to worse; few years, the sport

Of Fortune; then, the morsel of Despair.

Say then, Lorenzo, (for thou know'st it well,)

What's vice?—Mere want of compass in our thought.

Religion, what?—The proof of common-sense.

2050

How art thou hooted, where the least prevails!

Is it my fault if these truths call thee “fool?”

And thou shalt never be miscall'd by me.

Can neither shame nor terror stand thy friend?

And art thou still an insect in the mire?

2055

How, like thy guardian angel, have I flown;

Snatch'd thee from earth; escorted thee through all

The' ethereal armies; walk'd thee, like a god,

Through splendours of flast magnitude, arranged

On either hand; clouds thrown beneath thy feet;

2060

Close cruised on the bright paradise of God;

And almost introduced thee to The Throne!

And art thou still carousing, for delight,

Rank poison; flast fermenting to mere froth,

And then subsiding into final gall?

2065

To beings of sublime, immortal make,

How shocking is all joy whose end is sure!

Such joy more shocking still, the more it charms!

And dost thou choose what ends ere well begun,

And infamous as short? And dost thou choose

2070

(Thou, to whose palate glory is so sweet)

To wade into perdition, through contempt,

Not of poor bigots only, but thy own?

For I have peep'd into thy cover'd heart,

And seen it blush beneath a boastful brow;

2075

For, by strong Guilt's most violent assault,

Conscience is but disabled, not destroy'd.

O thou most awful being, and most vain!

Thy will, how frail! how glorious is thy power!

Though dread Eternity has sown her seeds

2080

Of bliss and woe in thy despotic breast;

Though heaven and hell depend upon thy choice,

A butterfly comes 'cross, and both are fled.

Is this the picture of a rational?

This horrid image, shall it be most just?

2085

Lorenzo! no: it cannot, shall not, be,

If there is force in reason; or in sounds

Chanted beneath the glimpses of the moon,

A magic, at this planetary hour,

When slumber locks the general lip, and dreams

2090

Through senseless mazes hunt souls uninspired.

Attend—the sacred mysteries begin—

My solemn night-born adjuration hear.

Hear, and I'll raise thy spirit from the dust,

While the stars gaze on this enchantment new;

2095

Enchantment, not infernal, but Divine!

“By Silence, Death's peculiar attribute;

By Darkness, Guilt's inevitable doom;

By Darkness and by Silence, sisters dread!

That draw the curtain round Night's ebon throne,

2100

And raise ideas solemn as the scene!

By NIGHT, and all of Awful, Night presents

To Thought or Sense! (of Awful much to both

The goddess brings!) By these her trembling fires,

Like Vesta's, ever burning; and, like hers,

2105

Sacred to thoughts immaculate and pure!

By these bright orators, that prove, and praise,

And press thee to revere, the DEITY;

Perhaps, too, aid thee, when revered awhile,

To reach His throne; as stages of the soul,

2110

Through which, at different periods, she shall pass,

Refining gradual, for her final height,

And purging off some dross at every sphere!

By this dark pall thrown o'er the silent world!

By the world's kings, and kingdoms, most renown'd,

2115

From short ambition's zenith set for ever;

Sad presage to vain boasters now in bloom!

By the long list of swift mortality,

From Adam downward to this evening knell,

Which Midnight waves in Fancy's startled eye;

2120

And shocks her with a hundred centuries,

Round Death's black banner throng'd, in human thought!

By thousands, now resigning their last breath,

And calling thee—wert thou so wise to hear!

By tombs o'er tombs arising; human earth

2125

Ejected, to make room for—human earth;

The monarch's terror, and the sexton's trade!

By pompous obsequies, that shun the day,

The torch funereal, and the nodding plume,

Which makes poor man's humiliation proud;

2130

Boast of our ruin, triumph of our dust!

By the damp vault that weeps o'er royal bones;

And the pale lamp that shows the ghastly dead,

More ghastly, through the thick incumbent gloom!

By visits (if there are) from darker scenes,

2135

The gliding spectre, and the groaning grove!

By groans and graves, and miseries that groan

For the grave's shelter! By desponding men,

Senseless to pains of death, from pangs of guilt!

By Guilt's last audit! By yon moon in blood,

2140

The rocking firmament, the falling stars,

And thunder's last discharge, great Nature's knell!

By second Chaos, and eternal Night!”—

Be wise:—Nor let Philander blame my charm;

But own not ill-discharged my double debt,—

2145

Love to the living, duty to the dead.

For know, I'm but executor: he left

This moral legacy! I make it o'er

By his command: Philander hear in me;

And Heaven in both.—If deaf to these, O hear

2150

Florello's tender voice; his weal depends

On thy resolve; it trembles at thy choice:

For his sake—love thyself. Example strikes

All human hearts; a bad example more;

More still a father's; that insures his ruin.

2155

As parent of his being, wouldst thou prove

The' unnatural parent of his miseries,

And make him curse the being which thou gavest?

Is this the blessing of so fond a father?

If careless of Lorenzo, spare, O spare

2160

Florello's father, and Philander's friend!

Florello's father, ruin'd, ruins him;

And from Philander's friend the world expects

A conduct, no dishonour to the dead.

Let passion do what nobler motive should;

2165

Let love, and emulation, rise in aid

To reason; and persuade thee to be—bless'd.

This seems not a request to be denied;

Yet (such the' infatuation of mankind!)

'T is the most hopeless man can make to man.

2170

Shall I, then, rise in argument and warmth,

And urge Philander's posthumous advice,

From topics yet unbroach'd?—

But, O, I faint! my spirits fail! Nor strange!

So long on wing, and in no middle clime;

2175

To which my great Creator's glory call'd,

And calls—but now in vain. Sleep's dewy wand

Has stroked my drooping lids, and promises

My long arrear of rest; the downy god

(Wont to return with our returning peace)

2180

Will pay, ere long, and bless me with repose.

Haste, haste, sweet stranger, from the peasant's cot,

The ship-boy's hammock, or the soldier's straw,

Whence sorrow never chased thee! With thee bring,

Not hideous visions, as of late; but draughts

2185

Delicious of well-tasted, cordial rest;

Man's rich restorative; his balmy bath,

That supples, lubricates, and keeps in play

The various movements of this nice machine,

Which asks such frequent periods of repair.

2190

When tired with vain rotations of the day,

Sleep winds us up for the succeeding dawn;

Fresh we spin on, till sickness clogs our wheels,

Or Death quite breaks the spring, and motion ends.

When will it end with me?

2195

——“Thou only know'st,

Thou, whose broad eye the future and the past

Joins to the present; making one of three

To mortal thought! Thou know'st, and Thou alone,

All-knowing! all-unknown! and yet well-known!

2200

Near, though remote; and, though unfathom'd, felt!

And, though invisible, for ever seen!

And seen in all, the great and the minute!

Each globe above, with its gigantic race,

Each flower, each leaf, with its small people swarm'd,

2205

(Those puny vouchers of Omnipotence!)

To the first thought that asks, 'From whence?' declare

Their common source. Thou Fountain, running o'er

In rivers of communicated joy!

Who gavest us speech for far, far humbler themes!

2210

Say, by what name shall I presume to call

Him I see burning in these countless suns,

As Moses, in the bush? Illustrious Mind!

The whole creation less, far less, to Thee,

Than that to the creation's ample round.

2215

How shall I name Thee?—How my labouring soul

Heaves underneath the thought, too big for birth!

“Great System of perfections! Mighty Cause

Of causes mighty! Cause uncaused! Sole Root

Of Nature, that luxuriant growth of GOD!

2220

First Father of effects, that progeny

Of endless series! where the golden chain's

Last link admits a period, who can tell?

Father of all that is or heard or hears!

Father of all that is or seen or sees!

2225

Father of all that is or shall arise!

Father of this immeasurable mass

Of matter multiform, or dense or rare,

Opaque or lucid, rapid or at rest,

Minute, or passing bound! in each extreme,

2230

Of like amaze and mystery to man.

Father of these bright millions of the night!

Of which the least full Godhead had proclaim'd,

And thrown the gazer on his knee.—Or, say,

Is appellation higher still Thy choice?

2235

Father of matter's temporary lords!

Father of spirits, nobler offspring! sparks

Of high paternal glory; rich-endow'd

With various measures, and with various modes

Of instinct, reason, intuition; beams

2240

More pale or bright, from day Divine, to break

The Dark of matter organized; (the ware

Of all created spirit;) beams, that rise

Each over other in superior light,

Till the last ripens into lustre strong,

2245

Of next approach to Godhead. Father fond

(Far fonder than e'er bore that name on earth)

Of intellectual beings! beings bless'd

With powers to please Thee; not of passive ply

To laws they know not! beings lodged in seats

2250

Of well-adapted joys, in different domes

Of this imperial palace for Thy sons;

Of this proud, populous, well-policied,

Though boundless, habitation, plann'd by Thee;

Whose several clans their several climates suit;

2255

And transposition, doubtless, would destroy.

Or, O! indulge, Immortal King! indulge

A title, less august indeed, but more

Endearing; ah! how sweet in human ears,

Sweet in our ears, and triumph in our hearts!

2260

Father of Immortality to man!

A theme that lately set my soul on fire.—

And Thou the next, yet equal! Thou, by whom

That blessing was convey'd, (far more!) was bought,

Ineffable the price! by whom all worlds

2265

Were made, and one redeem'd! illustrious Light,

From light illustrious! Thou, whose regal power,

Finite in time, but infinite in space,

On more than adamantine basis fix'd,

O'er more, far more, than diadems and thrones

2270

Inviolably reigns; the dread of gods!

And, O! the friend of man! beneath whose foot,

And by the mandate of whose awful nod,

All regions, revolutions, fortunes, fates,

Of high, of low, of mind and matter, roll

2275

Through the short channels of expiring Time,

Or shoreless ocean of eternity,

Calm or tempestuous, (as thy Spirit breathes,)

In absolute subjection!—And, O Thou,

The glorious Third! distinct, not separate!

2280

Beaming from both, with both incorporate!

And (strange to tell!) incorporate with dust!

By condescension, as Thy glory, great,

Enshrined in man! of human hearts, if pure,

Divine inhabitant! the tie Divine

2285

Of Heaven with distant earth! by whom, I trust,

(If not inspired) uncensured this address

To Thee, to them—To whom? Mysterious power!

Reveal'd, yet unreveal'd! Darkness in light!

Number in unity! our joy, our dread!

2290

The triple bolt that lays all wrong in ruin!

That animates all right, the triple Sun!

Sun of the Soul, her never-setting Sun!

Triune, unutterable, unconceived,

Absconding yet demonstrable, Great God!

2295

Greater than greatest, better than the best!

Kinder than kindest! with soft Pity's eye,

Or (stronger still to speak it) with Thine own,

From Thy bright home, from that high firmament,

Where Thou, from all eternity, hast dwelt,

2300

Beyond archangel's unassisted ken;

From far above what mortals highest call;

From elevation's pinnacle; look down,

Through—what? Confounding interval! through all,

And more than labouring Fancy can conceive,—

2305

Through radiant ranks of essences unknown;

Through hierarchies from hierarchies detach'd,

Round various banners of Omnipotence,

With endless change of rapturous duties fired;

Through wondrous beings' interposing swarms,

2310

All clustering at the call, to dwell in Thee;

Through this wide waste of worlds; this vista vast,

All sanded o'er with suns! suns turn'd to night

Before Thy feeblest beam,—Look down, down, down,

On a poor breathing particle in dust,

2315

Or, lower,—an immortal in his crimes.

His crimes forgive; forgive his virtues too,—

Those smaller faults, half-converts to the right!

Nor let me close these eyes, which never more

May see the sun, (though night's descending scale

2320

Now weighs up morn,) unpitied and unbless'd!

In Thy displeasure dwells eternal pain:

Pain, our aversion; pain, which strikes me now:

And, since all pain is terrible to man,

Though transient, terrible; at Thy good hour,

2325

Gently, ah! gently, lay me in my bed,

My clay-cold bed! by Nature, now, so near!

By Nature, near; still nearer by Disease!

Till then, be this an emblem of my grave!

Let it out-preach the Preacher; every night

2330

Let it out-cry the boy at Philip's ear;

That tongue of death, that herald of the tomb!

And when (the shelter of Thy wing implored)

My senses, soothed, shall sink in soft repose;

O sink this truth still deeper in my soul,

2335

Suggested by my pillow, sign'd by Fate,

First, in Fate's volume, at the page of Man:—

Man's sickly soul, though turn'd and toss'd for ever

From side to side, can rest on nought but Thee,—

Here in full trust, hereafter in full joy;

2340

On Thee, the promised, sure, eternal down

Of spirits, toil'd in travel through this vale.

Nor of that pillow shall my soul despond;

For—Love almighty! Love almighty! (Sing,

Exult, Creation!) Love almighty reigns!

2345

That death of death, that cordial of despair!

And loud Eternity's triumphant song!

“Of whom no more: for, O thou Patron-God!

Thou God and mortal! thence more God to man!

Man's theme eternal, man's eternal theme!

2350

Thou canst not 'scape uninjured from our praise.

Uninjured from our praise can He escape,

Who, disembosom'd from the Father, bows

The heaven of heavens, to kiss the distant earth?

Breathes out in agonies a sinless soul;

2355

Against the cross, Death's iron sceptre breaks;

From famish'd Ruin plucks her human prey;

Throws wide the gates celestial to his foes;

Their gratitude, for such a boundless debt,

Deputes their suffering brothers to receive;

2360

And, if deep human guilt in payment fails,

As deeper guilt, prohibits our despair,

Enjoins it, as our duty, to rejoice;

And, (to close all,) omnipotently kind,

Takes His delights among the sons of men?”  *****)

2365

What words are these?—And did they come from heaven?

And were they spoke to man? to guilty man?

What are all mysteries to love like this?

The songs of angels, all the melodies

Of choral gods, are wafted in the sound;

2370

Heal and exhilarate the broken heart,

Though plunged before in horrors dark as night:

Rich prelibation of consummate joy!

Nor wait we dissolution to be bless'd.

This final effort of the moral Muse,

2375

How justly titled!  ******) Nor for me alone;

For all that read! What spirit of support,

What heights of Consolation, crown my song!

Then farewell, NIGHT! Of darkness now no more:

Joy breaks, shines, triumphs; 't is eternal day.

2380

Shall that which rises out of nought complain

Of a few evils, paid with endless joys?

My soul! henceforth, in sweetest union join

The two supports of human happiness,

Which some erroneous think can never meet,—

2385

True taste of life, and constant thought of death;

The thought of death, sole victor of its dread!

Hope be thy joy, and probity thy skill;

Thy Patron, He whose diadem has dropp'd

Yon gems of heaven; eternity, thy prize:

2390

And leave the racers of the world their own,

Their feather, and their froth, for endless toils:

They part with all for that which is not bread;

They mortify, they starve, on wealth, fame, power;

And laugh to scorn the fools that aim at more.

2395

How must a spirit, late escaped from earth,—

Suppose Philander's, Lucia's, or Narcissa's,—

The truth of things new-blazing in its eye,

Look back, astonish'd, on the ways of men,

Whose lives' whole drift is to forget their graves!

2400

And when our present privilege is pass'd,

To scourge us with due sense of its abuse,

The same astonishment will seize us all.

What then must pain us, would preserve us now.

Lorenzo! 't is not yet too late; Lorenzo!

2405

Seize Wisdom, ere 't is torment to be wise;

That is, seize Wisdom, ere she seizes thee.

For what, my small philosopher, is Hell?

'T is nothing but full knowledge of the Truth,

When Truth, resisted long, is sworn our foe,

2410

And calls Eternity to do her right.

Thus, Darkness aiding intellectual light,

And sacred Silence whispering truths Divine,

And truths Divine converting pain to peace,

My song the midnight raven has outwing'd,

2415

And shot, ambitious of unbounded scenes,

Beyond the flaming limits of the world,

Her gloomy flight. But what avails the flight

Of Fancy, when our hearts remain below?

Virtue abounds in flatterers and foes;

2420

'T is pride to praise her, penance to perform.

To more than words, to more than worth of tongue,

Lorenzo! rise at this auspicious hour:

An hour when Heaven's most intimate with man;

When, like a falling star, the ray Divine

2425

Glides swift into the bosom of the just;

And just are all, determined to reclaim;

Which sets that title high, within thy reach.

Awake then; thy Philander calls; awake!

Thou who shalt wake when the creation sleeps;

2430

When, like a taper, all these suns expire;

When Time, like him of Gaza, in his wrath,

Plucking the pillars that support the world,

In Nature's ample ruins lies entomb'd;

And Midnight, universal Midnight, reigns.

End of the Night Thoughts.

_________

*) Referring to the First Night. 

**) Lucia. 

***) Night the Eighth. 

****) John xv. 1. 

*****) Prov. viii. 

******) The Consolation.