Our own! To rife in Science, as in Bliss,
Initiate in the Secrets of the Skies!
To read Creation; read its mighty Plan
In the bare Bofom of the Deity!
The Plan, and Execution, to collate!
To fee, before each Glance of piercing Thought,
All Cloud, all Shadow, blown remote; and leave
No Mystery-but that of Love Divine,
Which lifts us on the Seraph's flaming Wing,
From Earth's Aceldama, this Field of Blood,
Of inward Anguish, and of outward Ill,
From Darkness, and from Duft, to fuch a Scene!
Love's Element! true Joy's illuftrious Home!
From Earth's fad Contraft (now deplor'd) more fair
What exquifite Viciffitude of Fate!
Bleft Abfolution of our blackest Hour!
LORENZO, these are Thoughts that make Man Man The Wife illumine, aggrandize the Great. How Great (while yet we tread the kindred Clod, And ev'ry Moment fear to fink beneath The Clod we tread; foon trodden by our Sons) How Great, in the wild Whirl of Time's Pursuits To stop, and paufe, involv'd in high Presage, Through the long Vifto of a thousand Years, To ftand contemplating our diftant Selves, As in a magnifying Mirror feen, Enlarg'd, Ennobled, Elevate, Divine! To prophefy our own Futurities!
To gaze in Thought on what all Thought tranfcends!
To talk, with Fellow-Candidates, of Joys
As far beyond Conception, as Defert,
Ourselves th' astonish'd Talkers, and the Tale!
LORENZO, fwells thy Bofom at the Thought! The Swell becomes thee: 'Tis an honeft Pride. Revere thyself; and yet thyfelf defpife.
His Nature no Man can o'er-rate; and none
Can under-rate his Merit. Take good heed,
Nor there be modeft, where thou shouldst be proud;
That almoft univerfal Error fhun.
How just our Pride, when we behold thofe Heights!
Not thofe Ambition paints in Air, but those
Reafon points out, and ardent Virtue gains ;
And Angels emulate; our Pride how just!
When mount we? when these Shackles caft? when quit
This Cell of the Creation? this small Neft,
Stuck in a Corner of the Universe,
Wrapt up in fleecy Cloud, and fine-fpun Air?
Fine-fpun to Senfe; but grofs and feculent
To Souls celeftial; Souls ordain'd to breathe
Ambrofial Gales, and drink a purer Sky;
Greatly triumphant on Time's farther Shore,
Where Virtue reigns, enrich'd with full Arrears;
While Pomp imperial begs an Alms of Peace,
In Empire high, or in proud Science deep, Ye born of Earth! on what can you confer,
With half the Dignity, with half the Gain,
The Guft, the Glow of rational Delight,
As on this Theme, which Angels praife, and fhare?
Man's Fates and Favours are a Theme in Heaven.
What wretched Repetition cloys us here!
What periodic Potions for the Sick!
Diftemper'd Bodies, and diftemper'd Minds!
In an Eternity, what Scenes fhall ftrike!
Adventures thicken! Novelties furprise!
What Webs of Wonder fhall unravel, there!
What full Day pour on all the Paths of Heaven,
And light th' Almighty's Footfleps in the Deep!
How fhall the bleffed Day of our Discharge
Unwid, at once, the Labyrinths of Fate,
And ftraiten its inextricable Maze!
If inextinguishable Thirst in Man
To know; how rich, how full our Banquet Here!
Here, not the Moral World alone unfolds;
The World Material, lately feen in Shades,
And, in thofe Shades, by Fragments only feen,
And feen those Fragments by the lab'ring Eye,
Unbroken, now, illuftrious, and intire,
Its ample Sphere, its univerfal Frame,
In full Dimensions, fwells to the Survey;
And enters, at one Glance, the ravifht Sight.
From fome fuperior Point (where, who can tell?
Suffice it, 'tis a Point where Gods refide)
How shall the stranger Man's illumin'd Eye,
In the vast Ocean of unbounded Space,
Behold an Infinite of floating Worlds
Divide the Crystal Waves of Ether pure,
In endless Voyage, without Port? The leaft
Of thefe diffeminated Orbs, how great?
Great as they are, what Numbers These surpass,
Huge, as Leviathan, to that finall Race,
Those twinkling Multitudes of little Life,
He swallows unperceiv'd! Stupendous Thefe!
Yet what are thefe ftupendous to the Whole?
As Particles, as Atoms, ill-perceiv'd;
As circulating Globules in our Veins;
So vaft the Plan: Fecundity Divine!
Exub'rant Source! perhaps, I wrong thee ftill.
If Admiration is a Source of Joy,
What Transport hence? Yet this the leaft in Heaven,
What This to that illuftrious Robe He wears
Who toft this Mafs of Wonders from his Hand,
A Specimen, an Earneft, of his Power?
"Tis, to that Glory, whence all Glory flows,
As the Mead's meaneft Flow'ret to the Sun,
Which gave it Birth. But what, this Sun of Heav'n ?
This Bliss fupreme of the fupremely Bleft?
Death, only Death, the Question can refolve.
By Death, cheap-bought th' Ideas of our Joy;
The bare Ideas! Solid Happiness
So diftant from its Shadow chas❜d below,
And chafe we ftill the Phantom thro' the Fire,
O'er Bog, and Break, and Precipice, till Death?
And toil we still for fublunary Pay?
Defy the Dangers of the Field, and Flood,
Or, Spider-like, fpin out our precious All,
Our more than Vitals fpin (if no Regard
To great Futurity) in curious Webs
Of fubtle Thought, and exquifite Design;
(Fine Net-work of the Brain!) to catch a Fly?
The momentary Buz of vain Renown!
A Name, a mortal Immortality!
Or (meaner ftill!) inftead of grafping Air,
For fordid Lucre plunge we in the Mire?
Drudge, fweat, tho' ev'ry Shame, for ev'ry Gain,
For vile contaminating Trafh, throw up
Our Hope in Heav'n, our Dignity with Man?
And deify the Dirt, matur'd to Gold?
Ambition, Av'rice; the two Demons, these
Which goad through ev'ry Slough our Human Herd, Hard-travel'd from the Cradle to the Grave.
How low the Wretches ftoop! How steep they climb! Thefe Demons burn Mankind; but most poffefs LORENZO'S Bofom, and turn out the Skies.
Is it in Time to hide Eternity?
And why not in an Atom on the Shore,
To cover Ocean? or a Mote, the Sun ?
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