Immortal! what can strike the sense so strong, As this the soul? it thunders to the thought, Reason amazes, gratitude o'erwhelms :
No more we slumber on the brink of Fate;
Roused at the sound, the' exulting soul ascends, 560
And breathes her native air, an air that feeds
Ambitions high, and fans ethereal fires;
Quick kindles all that is divine within us,
Nor leaves one loitering thought beneath the stars.
Has not Lorenzo's bosom caught the flame?
Immortal! were but one immortal, how
Would others envy! how would thrones adore!
Because 'tis common, is the blessing lost?
How this ties up the bounteous hand of Heaven!
O vain, vain, vain, all else! Eternity!
A glorious and a needful refuge that,
From vile imprisonment in abject views.
'Tis Immortality, 'tis that alone,
Amid life's pains, abasements, emptiness,
The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill:
That only, and that amply, this performs;
Lifts us above life's pains, her joys above;
Their terror those, and these their lustre lose;
Eternity depending covers all;
Eternity depending all achieves ;
Sets earth at distance; casts her into shades;
Blends her distinctions; abrogates her powers;
The low, the lofty, joyous, and severe,
Fortune's dread frowns and fascinating smiles,
Make one promiscuous and neglected heap,
The man beneath; if I may call him man,
Whom Immortality's full force inspires.
Nothing terrestrial touches his high thought;
Suns shine unseen, and thunders roll unheard,
By minds quite conscious of their high descent, 590 Their present province, and their future prize;
Divinely darting upward every wish,
Warm on the wing, in glorious absence lost!
Doubt you this truth? why labours your belief?
If earth's whole orb, by some due-distant eye
Were seen at once, her towering Alps would sink,
And level'd Atlas leave an even sphere.
Thus earth, and all that earthly minds admire,
Is swallow'd in Eternity's vast round.
To that stupendous view, when souls awake,
So large of late, so mountainous to man,
Time's toys subside, and equal all below.
Enthusiastic this?-then all are weak
But rank enthusiasts. To this godlike height
Some souls have soar'd, or martyrs ne'er had bled: 605
And all may do what has by man been done.
Who, beaten by these sublunary storms,
Boundless, interminable joys can weigh
Unraptured, unexalted, uninflamed?
What slave unbless'd, who from to-morrow's dawn 610 Expects an empire? he forgets his chain,
And, throned in thought, his absent sceptre waves.
And what a sceptre waits us! what a throne!
Her own immense appointments to compute,
Or comprehend her high prerogatives,
In this her dark minority, how toils,
How vainly pants, the human soul divine!
Too great the bounty seems for earthly joy :
What heart but trembles at so strange a bliss?
In spite of all the truths the Muse has sung,
Ne'er to be prized enough! enough revolved!
Are there who wrap the world so close about them,
They see no farther than the clouds, and dance
On heedless Vanity's fantastic toe,
Till, stumbling at a straw, in their career,
Headlong they plunge, where end both dance and song?
Are there, Lorenzo? Is it possible?
Are there on earth (let me not call them men)
Who lodge a soul immortal in their breasts,
Unconscious as the mountain of its ore,
Or rock of its inestimable gem?
When rocks shall melt, and mountains vanish, these
Shall know their treasure; treasure them no more.
Are there (still more amazing!) who resist
The rising thought? who smother, in its birth,
The glorious truth? who struggle to be brutes!
Who through this bosom-barrier burst their way,
And, with reversed ambition, strive to sink?
Who labour downwards through the' opposing powers
Of instinct, reason, and the world against them, 640
To dismal hopes, and shelter in the shock
Of endless night?"night darker than the grave's?
Who fight the proofs of Immortality?
With horrid zeal, and execrable arts,
Work all their engines, level their black fires,
To blot from man this attribute divine,
(Than vital blood far dearer to the wise)
Blasphemers and rank atheists to themselves?
To contradict them, see all Nature rise!
What object, what event, the moon beneath,
But argues, or endears, an after-scene?
To reason proves, or weds it to desire?
All things proclaim it needful; some advance
One precious step beyond, and prove it sure.
A thousand arguments swarm round my pen,
From Heaven, and earth, and man. Indulge a few,
By Nature, as her common habit, worn;
So pressing Providence, a truth to teach,
Which truth untaught, all other truths were vain.
Thou! whose all-providential eye surveys,
Whose hand directs, whose spirit fills and warms
Creation, and holds empire far beyond '
Eternity's Inhabitant august!
Of two eternities, amazing Lord!
One pass'd, ere man's or angel's had begun;
Aid! while I rescue from the foe's assault
Thy glorious immortality in man;
A theme for ever, and for all, of weight,
Of moment, infinite! but relish'd most
By those who love thee most, who most adore.
Nature, thy daughter, ever-changing birth
Of thee the great Immutable, to man
Speaks wisdom; is his oracle supreme;
And he who most consults her is most wise.
Lorenzo! to this heavenly Delphos haste,
And come back all immortal, all divine.
Look Nature through, 'tis revolution all;
All change, no death: day follows night, and night
The dying day: stars rise, and set, and rise :
Earth takes the' example. See, the Summer gay, 680
With her green chaplet and ambrosial flowers,
Droops into pallid Autumn: Winter gray,
Horrid with frost, and turbulent with storm,
Blows Autumn and his golden fruits away,
Then melts into the Spring: soft Spring, with breath
Favonian, from warm chambers of the south,
Recals the first. All, to reflourish, fades:
As in a wheel, all sinks to reascend :
Emblems of man, who passes, not expires.
With this minute distinction, emblems just,
Nature revolves, but man advances; both
Eternal: that a circle, this a line:
That gravitates, this soars. The' aspiring soul,
Ardent and tremulous, like flame, ascends,
Zeal and humility her wings, to Heaven.
The world of matter, with its various forms,
All dies into new life. Life born from Death
Rolls the vast mass, and shall for ever roll.
No single atom, once in being, lost,
With change of counsel charges the Most High. 700 What hence infers Lorenzo? Can it be?
Matter immortal? and shall spirit die?
Above the nobler shall less noble rise?
Shall man alone, for whom all else revives,
No resurrection know? shall man alone,
Imperial man! be sown in barren ground,
Less privileged than grain on which he feeds?
Is man, in whom alone is power to prize
The bliss of being, or, with previous pain,
Deplore its period, by the spleen of Fate,
Severely doom'd Death's single unredeem'd?
If Nature's revolution speaks aloud
In her gradation, hear her louder still.
Look Nature through, 'tis neat gradation all.
By what minute degrees her scale ascends!
Each middle nature join'd at each extreme;
To that above it join'd, to that beneath.
Parts into parts reciprocally shot,
Abhor divorce. What love of union reigns!
Here dormant matter waits a call to life;
Half-life, half-death, join there : here life and sense,
There sense from reason steals a glimmering ray ;
Reason shines out in man. But how preserved
The chain unbroken upward, to the realms
Of incorporeal life? those realms of bliss,
Where Death hath no dominion? Grant a make
Half-mortal, half immortal; earthy part,
And part ethereal: grant the soul of man
Eternal, or in man the series ends.
Wide yawns the gap; connexion is no more;
Check'd Reason halts; her next step wants support;
Striving to climb, she tumbles from her scheme,
A scheme Analogy pronounced so true;
Analogy! man's surest guide below.
Thus far all Nature calls on thy belief; And will Lorenzo, careless of the call, False attestation on all Nature charge,
Rather than violate his league with Death?
Renounce his reason, rather than renounce
The dust beloved, and run the risk of Heaven?
O what indignity to deathless souls!
What treason to the majesty of man!
Of man immortal! hear the lofty style:
'If so decreed, the' Almighty Will be done.
Let earth dissolve, yon ponderous orbs descend,
And grind us into dust. The soul is safe;
The man emerges; mounts above the wreck,
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