Think you my song too turbulent too warm?
Aro passions, then, the pagans of the soul?
Reason alone baptized? alone ordain'd
To touch things sacred? Oh, for warmer still!
Guilt chills my zeal, and age benumbs my powers
Oh, for an humbler heart and prouder song!
Thou, my much injured Theme! with that soft eyo
Which melted o'er doom'd Salem, deign to look
Compassion to the coldness of my breast,
And pardon to the winter in my str..........
Oh, ye cold-hearted, frozen Formansts!
On such a theme 'tis impious to be calm:
Passion is reason, transport temper here.
Shall Heaven, which gave us ardour, and has shown
Her own for man so strongly, not disdain
What smooth emollients in theology,
Recumbent Virtue's downy doctors, preach;
That prose of piety, a lukewarm praise?
Rise odours sweet from incense uninflamed?
Devotion when lukewarm is undevout;
But when it glows, its heat is struck to Heaven,
To human hearts her golden harps are strung;
High Heaven's orchestra chants Amen to man.
Hear I, or dream I hear, their distant strain,
Sweet to the soul, and tasting strong of Heaven,
Soft wafted on celestial Pity's plume,
Through the vast spaces of the universe.
To cheer me in this melancholy gloom ?
Oh, when will Death (now stingless) like a friend
Admit me of their choir? Oh, when will Death
This mouldering, old, partition wall throw down?
Give beings, one in nature, one abode ?
Oh, Death divine! that givest us to the skies:
Great future! glorious patron of the past
And present! when shall I thy shrine adore?
From Nature's continent, immensely wide,
Immensely bless'd, this little isle of life,
This dark incarcerating colony
Divides us. Happy day! that breaks our chain;
That manumits; that calls from exile home,
That leads to Nature's great metropolis,
And readmits us, through the guardian hand
Of elder brothers, to our Father's throne;
Who hears our Advocate, and, through his wounds
Beholding man, allows that tender name.
'Tis this makes Christian triumph a command:
'Tis this makes joy a duty to the wise.
'Tis impious in a good man to be sad.
Seest thou, Lorenzo, where hangs all our hope?
Touch'd by the Cross, we live; or, more than die ;
That touch which touch'd not angels; more divine
Than that which touch'd confusion into form,
And darkness into glory: partial touch!
Ineffably preeminent regard!
Sacred to man, and sovereign through the whole
Long golden chain of miracles, which hangs
From Heaven through all duration, and supports,
In one iliustrious and amazing plan,
Thy welfare, Nature! and thy God's renown.
That touch, with charms celestial, heals the soul
Diseased, drives pain from guilt, lights life in death,
Turns earth to Heaven, to heavenly thrones transforms
The ghastly ruins of the mouldering tomb.
Dost ask me when? When He who died returns; Returns, how changed; where then the man of woe? In Glory's terrors all the Godhead burns, And all his courts, exhausted by the tide Of deities triumphant in his train, Leave a stupendous solitude in Heaven, Replenish'd soon, replenish'd with increase Of pomp and multitude; a radiant band Of angels new, of angels from the tomb '
Is this by Fancy thrown remote ? and rise Dark doubts between the promise and event? I send thee not to volumes for thy cure; Read Nature: Nature is a friend to truth;
Nature is Christian; preaches to mankind,
And bids dead matter aid us in our creed.
Heaven's mighty cape; and then revisits earth,
From the long travel of a thousand years.
Thus at the destined period shall return.
He, once on earth, who bids the comet blaze,
And with Him all our triumph o'er the tomb.
Nature is dumb on this important point,
Our Hope precarious in low whisper breathes,
Faith speaks aloud, distinct; e'en adders hear,
But turn, and dart into the dark again.
Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death,
To break the shock blind Nature cannot shun,
And lands Thought smoothly on the farther shore
Death's terror is the mountain faith removes,
That mountain barrier between man and peace. 725
'Tis Faith disarms Destruction, and absolves
From every clamorous charge the guiltless tomb.
Why disbelieve? Lorenzo!' Reason bids;
All-sacred Reason.'--Hold her sacred still;
Nor shalt thou want a rival in thy flame :
All-sacred Reason! source, and soul, of all
Demanding praise, on earth, or earth above!
My heart is thine: deep in its inmost folds
Live thou with life; live dearer of the two.
Wear I the blessed Cross, by Fortune stamp'd
On passive Nature before Thought was born?
My birth's blind bigot! fired with local zeal!—
No: Reason rebaptized me when adult :
Weigh'd true and false in her impartial scale ;
My heart became the convert of my head,
And made that choice which once was but my fate
'On argument alone my faith is built,'
Reason pursued is Faith; and unpursued,
Where proof invites, 'tis reason then no more:
And such our proof, that or our Faith is right,
Or Reason lies, and Heaven designed it wrong.
Absolve we this! what then is blasphemy?—
Fond as we are, and justly fond of Faith,
Reason, we grant, demands our first regard;
The mother honour'd, as the daughter dear.
Reason the root, fair Faith is but the flower :
The fading flower shall die, but Reason lives
Immortal, as her Father in the skies!
When Faith is virtue, Reason makes it so.
Wrong not the Christian; think not Reason yours; Tis Reason our great Master holds so dear; 'Tis Reason's injured rights his wrath resents; 'Tis Reason's voice obey'd his glories crown: To give lost Reason life he pour'd his own. Believe, and show the reason of a man; Believe, and taste the pleasure of a god;
Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb.
Through Reason's wounds alone thy Faith can die,
Which dying, tenfold terrcr gives to Death,
And dips in venom his twice mortal sting.
Learn hence what honours, what loud peans, due
To those who push our antidote aside;
Those boasted friends to Reason and to man,
Whose fatal love stabs every joy, and leaves
Death's terror heighten'd, gnawing on his heart. 770
These pompous sons of Reason idolized,
And vilified at once; of Reason dead,
Then deified, as monarchs were of old;
What conduct plants proud laurels on their brow? While love of truth through all their camp resound They draw Pride's curtain o'er the noontide ray, 776 Spike up their inch of reason on the point
Of philosophic wit, call'd Argument,
And then exulting in their taper, cry,
'Behold the Sun!' and, Indianlike, adore.
Talk they of morals? O thou bleeding Love
Thou Maker of new morals to mankind!
The grand morality is love of Thee.
As wise as Socrates, if such they were
(Nor will they bate of that sublime renown,)
As wise as Socrates might justly stand
The definition of a modern fool.
A Christian is the highest style of man!
And is there who the blessed Cross wipes off,
As a foul blot, from his dishonour'd brow?
If angels tremble, 'tis at such a sight:
The wretch they quit, desponding of their charge,
More struck with grief or wonder who can tell?
Ye sold to sense! ye citizens of earth'
(For such alone the Christian banner fly)
Know ye how wise your choice, how great your gain.
Behold the picture of Earth's happiest man :
'He calls his wish, it comes: he sends it back,
And says he call'd another: that arrives,
Meets the same welcome; yet he still calls on ;
Till one calls him, who varies not his call,
But holds him fast, in chains of darkness bound,
Till Nature dies, and Judgment sets him free;
A freedom far less welcome than his chain.'
But grant man happy, grant him happy long; 805 Add to life's highest prize her latest hour;
That hour, so late, is nimble in approach,
That, like a post, comes on in full career.
How swift the shuttle flies that weaves thy shroud. Where is the fable of thy former years?
Thrown down the gulf of time; as far from thee
As they had near been thine; the day in hand,
Like a bird struggling to get loose, is going;
Scarce now possess'd, so suddenly 'tis gone;
And each swift moment fled, is death advanced
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