To store up treasure with incessant toil,
This is man's province, this his highest praise :
To this great end keen Instinct stiugs him on:
To guide that instinct, Reason! is thy charge;
"Tis thine to tell us where true treasure lies
But Reason, failing to discharge her trust,
Or to the deaf discharging it in vain,

A blunder follows; and blind Industry,

450

Gall'd by the spur, but stranger to the course,

455

(The course where stakes of more than gold are won)

O'erloading with the cares of distant age

The jaded spirits of the present hour,

Provides for an eternity tow.

'Thou shalt not covet,' is a wise command,

460

But bounded to the wealth the Sun surveys.

Look farther, the command stands quite reversed,

And avarice is a virtue most divine.

Is Faith a refuge for our happiness?—

Most sure; and is it not for reason too?

465

Nothing this world unriddles but the next.

Whence inextinguishable thirst of gain?

From inextinguishable life in man :

Man, if not meant, by worth, to reach the skies,

Had wanted wing to fly so far in guilt.

47C

Sour grapes, I grant, ambition, avarice;

Yet still their root is immortality:

These its wild growths, so bitter and so base, (Pain and reproach!) religion can reclaim.

Refine, exalt, throw down their poisonous lee,
And make them sparkle in the bowl of bliss.

475

See, the third witness laughs at bliss remote,

And falsely promises an Eden here :

Truth she shall speak for once, though prone to lie,

A common cheat, and Pleasure is her name.

To Pleasure never was Lorenzo deaf;

Then hear her now, now first thy real friend.

Since Nature made us not more fond than proud

Of happiness, (whence hypocrites in joy!

480

Makers of mirth! artificers of smiles!)
Why should the joy most poignant sense affords
Burn us with blushes, and rebuke our pride —
Those heaven-born blushes tell us man descends,
E'en in the zenith of his earthly bliss:

Should Reason take her infidel repose,

This honest instinct speaks our lineage high;
This instinct calls on darkness to conceal
Our rapturous relation to the stalls.
Our glory covers us with noble shame,
And he that's unconfounded is unmann'd.
The man that blushes is not quite a brute.
Thus far with thee, Lorenzo' will I close,-
Pleasure is good, and man for pleasure made;
But pleasure, full of glory as of joy;
Pleasure, which neither blushes nor expires.

482

490

495

500

The witnesses are heard, the cause is o'er; Let Conscience file the sentence in her court: Dearer than deeds that half a realm convey,

Thus, seal'd by Truth, the' authentic record runs. 'Know all; know, Infidels,-unapt to know! Tis immortality your nature solves;

505

'Tis immortality deciphers man,

And opens all the mysterics of his make ·

Without it, half his instincts are a riddle,

Without it, all his virtues are a dream:

510

His very crimes attest his dignity;

His sateless thirst of pleasure, gold, and fame,

Declares him born for blessings infinite.

What less than infinite makes unabsurd

Passions, which all on earth but more inflames '

515

Fierce passions, so mismeasured to this scene,
Stretch'd out, like eagles' wings, beyond our nest,
Far, far beyond the worth of all below,

For earth too large, presage a nobler flight,
And evidence our title to the skies.

520

Ye gentle theologues of calmer kind! Whose constitution dictates to your pen,

Who, cold yourselves, think ardour comes from Hell
Think not our passions from corruption sprung,
Though to corruption now they lend their wings: 525
That is their mistress, not their mother. All
(And justly) Reason deem divine: I see,

I feel a grandeur in the passions too,

Which speaks their high descent and glorious end ;
Which speaks them rays of an eternal fire :

In Paradise itself they burn'd as strong,
Ere Adam fell; though wiser in their aim.
Like the proud Eastern, struck by Providence,

What though our passions are run mad, and stoop,
With low terrestrial appetite, to graze

530

535

On trash, on toys, dethroned from high desire?
Yet still, through their disgrace, a feeble ray
Of greatness shines, and tells us whence they fell:
But these (like that fallen monarch when reclaim'd)
When Reason moderates the reign aright,
Shall reascend, remount their former sphere,
Where once they soar'd illustrious, ere seduced,
By wanton Eve's debauch, to stroll on earth,

And set the sublunary world on fire.

540

But grant their frenzy lasts; their frenzy fails 545

To disappoint one providential end,

For which Heaven blew up ardour in our hearts

Were Reason silent, boundless Passion speaks

A future scene of boundless objects too,

And brings glad tidings of eternal day.

550

Eternal day! 'tis that enlightens all,

And all, by that enlighten'd, proves it sure.
Consider man as an immortal being,

The learn'd Lorenzo cries,' And let her weep;

Weak modern Reason: ancient times were wise. 560

Authority, that venerable guide,

Stands on my part; the famed Athenian Porch (And who for wisdom so renown'd as they?) Denied this immortality to man.'

I grant it; but affirm, they proved it too.

'A riddle this ?'—Have patience; I'll explain.
What noble vanities, what moral flights,
Glittering through their romantic Wisdom's page,
Make us, at once, despise them and admire !
Fable is flat to these high-season'd sires;
They leave the' extravagance of song below.
'Flesh shall not feel, or, feeling, shall enjoy
The dagger or the rack; to them, alike

A bed of roses, or the burning bull.'

565

570

In men exploding all beyond the grave,

575

Strange doctrine this! as doctrine it was strange,
But not as prophecy; for such it proved,
And, to their own amazement, was fulfilled :
They feign'd a firmness Christians need not feign.
The Christian truly triumph'd in the flame;

580

The Stoic saw,

in double wonder lost,

Wonder at them, and. wonder at himself,
To find the bold adventures of his thought
Not bold, and that he strove to lie in vain.

Whence, then, those thoughts? those towering thoughts, that flew

585

Such monstrous heights?-From instinct and from pride.
The glorious instinct of a deathless soul.
Confusedly conscious of her dignity,

Suggested truths they could not understand.

In Lust's dominion, and in Passion's storm,
Truth's system broken, scatter'd fragments lay,
As light in chaos, glimmering through the gloom.
Smit with the pomp of lofty sentiments,
Pleased Pride proclaim'd what Reason disbelieved.
Pride, like the Delphic priestess, with a swell,

590

595

Raved nonsense, destined to be future sense,

When life iminortal, in full day should shine;

And Death's dark shadows fly the gospel-sun.
They spoke what nothing but immortal souls

Could speak and thus the truth they question'd

:

proved.

Can, then, absurdities, as well as crimes,

Speak man immortal?" All things speak him so.

600

Much has been urged; and dost thou call for more? Call, and with endless questions be distress'd,

All unresolvable, if earth is all.

Why life, a moment? infinite, desire?

605

Our wish, eternity? our home, the grave?

Heaven's promise dormant lies in human hope;
Who wishes life immortal proves it too.

Why happiness pursued, though never found!

610

Man's thirst of happiness declares it is
(For Nature never gravitates to nought);
That thirst unquench'd, declares It is not here.
My Lucia, thy Clarissa, call to thought;
Why cordial friendship riveted so deep,
As hearts to pierce at first, at parting rend,
If friend and friendship vanish in an hour?
Is not this torment in the mask of joy?
Why by reflection marr'd the joys of sense?
Why past and future preying on our hearts,
And putting all our present joys to death?
Why labours Reason? Instinct were as well;
Instinct far better: what can choose can err.
O how infallible the thoughtless brute !
"Twere well his Holiness were half as sure.
Reason with Inclination why at war ,

615

620

625

Why sense of guilt? why conscience up in arms?

Conscience of guilt is prophecy of pain,

And bosom-counsel to decline the blow.
Reason with Inclination ne'er had jarr'd,
If nothing future paid forbearance here.

630

Thus on-these, and a thousand pleas uncall'd,

All promise, some insure, a second scene;
Which, were it doubtful, would be dearer far

Than all things else most certain were it false, 635