And for this land of trifles those too strong
Tumultuous rise, and tempest human life.
What prize on earth can pay us for the storm?
Meet objects for our passions Heaven ordain'd,
Objects that challenge all their fire, and leave
No fault but in defect. Bless'd Heaven! avert
A bounded ardour for unbounded bliss!
O for a bliss unbounded! far beneath
A soul immortal is a mortal joy.
Nor are our powers to perish immature;
But after feeble effort here, beneath
A brighter sun, and in a nobler soil,
Transplanted from this sublunary bed,
Shall flourish fair, and put forth all their bloom.
Reason progressive, instinct is complete ;
Swift Instinct leaps; slow Reason feebly climbs
Brutes soon their zenith reach; their little all
Flows in at once; in ages they no more
Could know, or do, or covet, or enjoy.

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85

Were man to live coeval with the Sun,

The patriarch-pupil would be learning still,

Yet, dying, leave his lesson half-unlearn'd.

Men perish in advance, as if the Sun

Should set ere noon, in eastern occans drown'd;
If fit, with dim, illustrious to compare,
The Sun's meridian with the soul of man.
To man why, stepdame Nature! so severe ?

90

Why thrown aside thy masterpiece half-wrought,
While meaner efforts thy last hand enjoy?
Or if, abortively, poor man must die,

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Nor reach what reach he might, why die in dread ›

Why cursed with foresight? wise to misery?

Why of his proud prerogative the prey?

Why less preeminent in rank than pain?

His immortality alone can tell ;

Full ample fund to balance all amiss,
And turn the scale in favour of the just!
His immortality alone can solve

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That darkest of enigmas, human hope;
Of all the darkest, if at death we die.
Hope, eager Hope, the' assassin of our joy,
All present blessings treading under foot,
Is scarce a milder tyrant than Despair.
With no past toils content, still planning new,
Hope turns us o'er to Death alone for ease.
Possession, why more tasteless than pursuit ?
Why is a wish far dearer than a crown?

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That wish accomplish'd, why the grave of bliss ?—
Because in the great future buried deep,
Beyond our plans of empire and renown,

115

Lies all that man with ardour should pursue ;

And He who made him bent him to the right.

Man's heart the' Almighty to the future sets, By secret and inviolable springs;

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And makes his hope his sublunary joy.

Man's heart eats all things, and is hungry still;

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"More, more!' the glutton cries: for something new
So rages appetite; if man can't mount,
He will descend. He starves on the possess'd;
Hence, the world's master, from Ambition's spire,
In Caprea plunged, and dived beneath the brute.
In that rank sty why wallow'd Empire's son
Supreme? Because he could no higher fly:
His riot was Ambition in despair.

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Old Rome consulted birds: Lorenzo! thou With more success the flight of Hope survey,

Of restless Hope for ever on the wing.

High perch'd o'er every thought that falcon sits,
To fly at all that rises in her sight:

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And never stooping, but to mount again

Next moment, she betrays her aim's mistake,

And owns her quarry lodged beyond the grave
There should it fail us, (it must fail us there.
If being fails) more mournful riddles rise,
And virtue vies with hope in mystery.
Why virtue? where its praise its being, fled

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Virtue 13 true self-interest pursued ;
What true self-interest of quite mortal man?
To close with all that makes him happy here.
If vice (as sometimes) is our friend on earth,
Then vice is virtue; 'tis our sovereign good.
In self-applause is virtue's golden prize?
No self applause attends it on thy scheme

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Whence self-applause? from conscience of the right; And what is right, but means of happiness?

151

Is weak, with rank knight-errantries o'errun.

Why beats thy bosom with illustrious dreams
Of self-exposure, laudable and great?

Of gallant enterprise, and glorious death?

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Die for thy country?-thou romantic fool!

Seize, seize the plank thyself, and let her sink.
Thy country! what to thee?-the Godhead, what!
(I speak with awe!) though He should bid thee bleed?

If, with thy blood, thy final hope is spilt?
Nor can Omnipotence reward the blow:
Be deaf; preserve thy being; disobey.

Nor is it disobedience. Know, Lorenzo!

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Whate'er the' Almighty's subsequent command,
His first command is this:- Man, love thyself.' 170
In this alone free agents are not free.
Existence is the basis, bliss the prize;
If virtue costs existence, 'tis a crime;
Bold violation of our law supreme;
Black suicide; though nations, which consult
Their gain at thy expense, resound applause.
Since Virtue's recompense is doubtful here,
If man dies wholly; well may we demand
Why is man suffer'd to be good, in vain ?
Why to be good in vain, is man enjoin'd?

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Why to be good in vain is man betray'd?
Betray'd by traitors lodged in his own breast,
By sweet complacencies from virtue felt?
Why whispers Nature lies on Virtue's part?
Or if blind Instinct (which assumes the name
Of sacred Conscience) plays the fool in man,
Why Reason made accomplice in the cheat?
Why are the wisest loudest in her praise?
Can man by Reason's beam be led astray?
Or, at his peril, imitate his God?

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Since virtue sometimes ruins us on earth,

Or both are true, or man survives the grave.

Or man survives the grave; or own, Lorenzo, Thy boast supreme a wild absurdity.

Dauntless thy spirit, cowards are thy scorn.

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Grant man immortal, and thy scorn is just.

The man immortal, rationally brave,

Dares rush on death-because he cannot die!

But if man loses all when life is lost,

He lives a coward, or a fool expires.

200

A daring Infidel (and such there are,

From pride, example, lucre, rage, revenge,

Or pure heroical defect of thought)

Of all earth's madmen most deserves a chain.

When to the grave we follow the renown'd

205

For valour, virtue, science, all we love,

And all we praise; for worth, whose noontide beam,

Enabling us to think in higher style,

Mends our ideas of ethereal powers;

Dream we, that lustre of the moral world

210

Goes out in stench, and rottenness the close?

Why was he wise to know, and warm to praise,

And strenuous to transcribe, in human life,

The Mind Almighty? Could it be that Fate,

Just when the lineaments began to shine,

215

And dawn the Deity, should snatch the draught,

With night eternal blot it out, and give
The skies alarm, lest angels too might die?

If human souls why not angelic too, Extinguish'd; and a solitary God,

220

O'er ghastly ruin frowning from his throne?
Shall we this moment gaze on God in man,
The next lose man for ever in the dust?

From dust we disengage, or man mistakes;

And there, where least his judgment fears a flaw. 225
Wisdom and worth how boldly he commends!
Wisdom and worth are sacred names; revered
Where not embraced; applauded! deified!

Why not compassion'd too? if spirits die,
Both are calamities, inflicted both

230

To make us but more wretched. Wisdom's eye
Acute, for what? to spy more miseries;

And worth, so recompensed, new points their stings.
Or man surmounts the grave, or gain is loss,
And worth exalted humbles us the more.
Thou wilt not patronize a scheme that makes

235

Weakness and vice the refuge of mankind.

'Has virtue, then, no joys?—Yes, joys dear bought.

Talk ne'er so long in this imperfect state,

Virtue and vice are at eternal war.

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Virtue's a combat; and who fights for nought,

The crown, the' unfading crown, her soul inspires; 'Tis that and that alone can countervail

The body's treacheries and the world's assaults.

On earth's poor pay our famish'd virtue dies;
Truth incontestable ! in spite of all
A Bayle has preach'd, or a Voltaire believed.

250

In man the more we dive, the more we see Heaven's signet stamping an immortal make. Dive to the bottom of his soul, the base Sustaining all, what find we? knowledge, love!

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