When Heaven makes him the soul of all he sees? 440 Absurd! not rare! so great, so mean, is man.

What wealth in senses such as these! what wealth

In fancy, fired to form a fairer scene

Than sense surveys! in Memory's firm record,
Which, should it perish, could this world recal 445
From the dark shadows of o'erwhelming years'
In colours fresh, originally bright,

Preserve its portrait, and report its fate!

What wealth in intellect, that sovereign power!
Which sense and fancy summons to the bar :
Interrogates, approves, or reprehends;
And from the mass those underlings import,
From their materials sifted and refined,
And in Truth's balanco accurately weigh'd,
Forms art and science, government and law,
The solid basis, and the beauteous frame,

450

455

The vitals, and the grace of civil life!

And manners (sad exception!) set aside,

Strikes out, with master-hand, a copy fair
Of his idea, whose indulgent thought

460

Long, long ere Chaos teem'd, plann'd human bliss. What wealth in souls that soar, dive, range around

Disdaining limit or from place or time;

And hear at once, in thought extensive, hear

The' Almighty Fiat, and the trumpet's sound ' 465 Bold, on Creation's outside walk, and view

What was, and is, and more than e'er shall be ;

Commanding with omnipotence of thought,

Creations new,

in Fancy's field to rise!

Souls that can grasp whate'er the' Almighty made, 470 And wander wild through things impossible!

What wealth in faculties of endless growth,

In quenchless passions violent to crave,

In liberty to chocse, in power to reach,

And in duration (how thy riches rise !)
Duration to perpetuate-boundless bliss!

Ask you what power resides in feeble man,

475

That bliss to gain? Is Virtue's then, unknown?
Virtue! our present peace, our future prize.
Man's unprecarious, natural estate,
Improveable at will, in virtue lies;

Its tenure sure, its income is divine.

480

High built abundance, heap on heap! for what'
To breed new wants, and beggar us the more;
Then make a richer scramble for the throng?
Soon as this feeble pulse, which leaps so long,
Almost by miracle, is tired with play,
Like rubbish, froin disploding engines thrown,
Our magazines of hoarded trifles fly;
Fly diverse; fly to foreigners, to foes;
New masters court, and call the former fool,
(How justly!) for dependence on their stay.
Wide scatter, first, our playthings' then, our dust.
Dost court abundance for the sake of peace?
Learn, and lament thy self-defeated scheme.
Riches enable to be richer still,

485

490

495

And richer still what mortal can resist?

Thus Wealth (a cruel task-master!) enjoins

New toils, succeeding toils, an endless train!

And murders Peace, which taught it first to shine. 500 The poor are half as wretched as the rich,

Whose proud and painful privilege it is

At once to bear a double load of woe,
To feel the stings of envy and of want,
Outrageous want! both Indies cannot cure.
A competence is vital to Content;

505

Much wealth is corpulence, if not disease:
Sick, or encumber'd, is our happiness.

A competence is all we can enjoy.

O be content, where Heaven can give no more

510

More, like a flash of water from a lock,

Quickens our spirit's movement for an hour,

But soon its force is spent; nor rise our joys
Above our native temper's common stream,
Hence Disappointment lurks in every prize,
As bees in flowers, and stings us with success.

515

The rich man, who denies it, proudly feigns,
Nor knows the wise are privy to the lie.
Much learning slows how little mortals know;
Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy :
At best it babies us with endless toys,
And keeps us children till we drop to dust.
As monkeys at a mirror stand amazed,

520

They fail to find what they se plainly see:

Thus men, in shining riches, see the face

525

Of Happiness, nor know it is a shade;

But gaze, and touch, and peep, and peep again,
And wish, and wonder it is absent still.

How few can rescue opulence from want!
Who lives to nature rarely can be poor;
Who lives to fancy never can be rich.
Poor is the man in debt; the man of gold,
In debt to Fortune, trembles at her power:
The man of reason smiles at her and death.
O what a patrimony this! a being
Of such inherent strength and majesty,

530

535

Not worlds possess'd can raise it; worlds destroy'd
Can't injure; which holds on its glorious course,

When thine, O Nature! ends: too bless'd to mourn

Creation's obsequies. What treasure this!

540

The monarch is a beggar to the man.

Immortal! ages pass'd, yet nothing gone!

Morn without eve! a race without a goal!

The meanest slave dares then Lorenzo scorn?
The meanest slave thy sovereign glory shares
Proud youth fastidious of the lower world'

550

Man's lawful pride includes humility

Stoops to the lowest; is too great to find
Inferiors; all immortal! brothers all!

Proprietors eternal of thy love'

555

Immortal! what can strike the sense so strong,

As this the soul? it thunders to the thought,
Reason amazes, gratitude o'erwhelms :

No more we slumber on the brink of Fate;

Roused at the sound, the' exulting soul ascends

560

And breathes her native air, an air that feeds
Ambitions high, and fans ethereal fires;

Quick kindles all that is divine within us,

Nor leaves one loitering thought beneath the stars.
Has not Lorenzo's bosom caught the flame?

565

Immortal! were but one immortal, how

Would others envy! how would thrones adore!
Because 'tis common, is the blessing lost?

How this ties up the bounteous hand of Heaven!
O vain, vain, vain, all else! Eternity!
A glorious and a needful refuge that,
From vile imprisonment in abject views.
'Tis Immortality, 'tis that alone,
Amid life's pains, abasements, emptiness,
The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill:
That only, and that amply, this performs;
Lifts us above life's pains, her joys above;

570

575

Their terror those, and these their lustre lose;
Eternity depending covers all;

Eternity depending all achieves ;

580

Sets earth at distance; casts her into shades;
Blends her distinctions; abrogates her powers;
The low, the lofty, joyous, and severe,

Fortune's dread frowns and fascinating smiles,
Make one promiscuous and neglected heap,
The man beneath; if I may call him man,
Whom Immortality's full force inspires.
Nothing terrestrial touches his high thought;
Suns shine unseen, and thunders roll unheard,
By minds quite conscious of their high descent,
Their present province, and their future prize;
Divinely darting upward every wish,
Warm on the wing, in glorious absence lost!

585

590

Doubt you this truth? why labours your belief?
If earth's whole orb, by some due-distant eye
Were seen at once, her towering Alps would sink,
And level'd Atlas leave an even sphere.
Thus earth, and all that earthly minds admire,
Is swallow'd in Eternity's vast round.
To that stupendous view, when souls awake,
So large of late, so mountainous to man,
Time's toys subside, and equal all below.

Enthusiastic this?--then all are weak

595

600

But rank enthusiasts. To this godlike height
Some souls have soar'd, or martyrs ne'er had bled: 605
And all may do what has by man been done.
Who, beaten by these sublunary storms,
Boundless, interminable joys can weigh

Unraptured, unexalted, uninflamed?

What slave unbless'd, who from to-morrow's dawn 610 Expects an empire? he forgets his chain,

And, throned in thought, his absent sceptre waves.

And what a sceptre waits us! what a throne!

Her own immense appointments to compute,
Or comprehend her high prerogatives,
In this her dark minority, how toils,
How vainly pants, the human soul divine!

615

Too great the bounty seems for earthly joy:
What heart but trembles at so strange a bliss?

In spite of all the truths the Muse has sung,
Ne'er to be prized enough! enough revolved!
Are there who wrap the world so close about them,
They see no farther than the clouds, and dance
On heedless Vanity's fantastic toc,

Till, stumbling at a straw, in their career,

620

625

Headlong they plunge, where end both dance and song? Are there, Lorenzo? Is it possible?

Are there on earth (let me not call them men)

Who lodge a soul immortal in their breasts,

Unconscious as the mountain of its ore,

Or rock of its inestimable gem?

630