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: 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, Unburthen'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 th' important, yet depending, fate 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 bedropt with eyes of gold, Rising, where thought is now denied to rise, Look down triumphant on these dazzling spheres. Why then persist? - No mortal ever liv'd, But, dying, he pronounc'd (when words are true) The whole that charms thee, absolutely vain ; 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 ensures ill fate;
And Hell had been, though there had been no God. 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.
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,
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,
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;
By whom, the various tenants of these spheres,
Diversified in fortunes, place, and powers,
Rais'd in enjoyment, as in worth they rise,
Arrive at length (if worthy such approach)
At that blest fountain-head, from which they
stream;
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!
It suits their make; it soothes their vast desires;
Passion is pleas'd; 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, Sinking from bad to worse; few years, the sport Of fortune; then the morsel of despair.
Say, then, Lorenzo! (for thou knows't it well) What 's vice? - Mere want of compass in our thought.
Religion, what?—The proof of common-sense.
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 terrour, stand thy friend?
And art thou still an insect in the mire?
How, like thy guardian angel, have I flown;
Snatch'd thee from Earth; escorted thee through all
Th' ethereal armies; walk'd thee, like a god,
Through splendours of first magnitude, arrang'd
On either hand; clouds thrown beneath thy feet;
Close-cruis'd on the bright Paradise of God;
And almost introduc'd thee to the throne!
And art thou still carousing, for delight,
Rank poison; first fermenting to mere froth,
And then subsiding into final gall?
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
(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;
For, by strong guilt's most violent assault,
Conscience is but disabled, not destroy'd.
O thou most aweful being; and most vain !
Thy will, how frail! how glorious is thy power!
Though dread eternity has sown her seeds
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?
Lorenzo! No: it cannot,
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
Through senseless mazes hunt souls un-inspir'd.
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,
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,
And raise ideas, solemn as the scene!
By Night, and all of aweful, Night presents
To thought or sense (of aweful much, to both,
The goddess brings!) By these her trembling fires,
Like Vesta's, ever-burning; and, like hers,
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 rever'd awhile,
To reach his throne; as stages of the soul,
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,
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,
And shocks her with an 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
Ejected, to make room for human earth;
The monarch's terrour! 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;
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,
The gliding spectre ! and the groaning grave!
By groans, and graves, and miseries that groan
For the grave's shelter! By desponding men,
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