And vapid: Sense and Reason show the door,
Call for my bier, and point me to the dust.
O thou great Arbiter of life and death!
Nature's immortal, immaterial Sun!
Whose all-prolific beam late call'd me forth
From darkness, teemning darkness, where I lay
The worm's inferior; and, in rank, beneath
The dust I tread on; high to bear my brow,
To drink the spirit of the golden day,
And triumph in existence; and couldst know
No motive but my bliss; and hast ordain'd
A rise in blessing! with the patriarch's joy,
Thy call I follow to the land unknown;
I trust in thee, and know in whom I trust:
Or life or death is equal; neither weighs;
All weight in this-O let me live to Thee!
Though Nature's terrors thus may be repress'd,
Still frowns grim Death; guilt points the tyrant's spear.
And whence all human guilt?-From death forgot.
Ah me! too long I set at nought the swarm
Of friendly warnings which around me flew,
And smiled unsmitten. Small my cause to smile!
Death's admonitions, like shafts upward shot,
More dreadful by delay; the longer ere
They strike our hearts, the deeper is their wound: 160
O think how deep, Lorenzo! here it stings;
Who can appease its anguish? How it burns!
What hand the barb'd, envenom'd thought can draw ?
What healing hand can pour the balm of peace,
And turn my sight undaunted on the tomb?
With joy, with grief, that healing hand I see ;
Ah! too conspicuous! it is fixed on high.
On high-what means my frenzy? I blaspheme:
Alas! how low! how far beneath the skies!
The skies it form'd, and now it bleeds for me-
But bleeds the balm I want-yet still it bleeds;
Draw the dire steel-ah, no! the dreadful blessing
What heart or can sustain, or dares forego?
There hangs all human hope; that nail supports
The falling universe: that gone, we drop;
Horror receives us, and the dismal wish
Creation had been smother'd in her birth-
Darkness his curtain, and his bed the dust,
When stars and sun are dust beneath his throne;
In Heaven itself can such indulgence dwell?
O what a groan was there! a groan not his :
He seized our dreadful right, the load sustain'd,
And heaved the mountain from a guilty world.
A thousand worlds, so bought, were bought too dear; Sensations new in angels' bosoms rise,
Suspend their song, and make a pause in bliss.
O for their song to reach my lofty theme!
Inspire me, Night! with all thy tuneful spheres:
Whilst I with seraphs share seraphic tlfemes,
And show to men the dignity of man;
Lest I blaspheme my subject with my song.
Shall Pagan pages glow celestial flame,
And Christian languish? On our hearts, not heads,
Falls the foul infamy. My heart! awake:
Feel the great truths which burst the tenfold night
Of Heathen error with a golden flood
Of endless day. To feel is to be fired;
And to believe, Lorenzo! is to feel.
Thou most indulgent, most tremendous Power!
Still more tremendous for thy wonderous love!
That arms with awe more awful thy commands,
And foul transgression dips in sevenfold guilt;
How our hearts tremble at thy love immense!
In love immense, inviolably just!
Thou, rather than thy justice should be strain'd,
Didst stain the Cross; and, work of wonders far
The greatest, that thy dearest far might bleed.
Boid thought! shall I dare speak it or repress? 210 Should man more execrate or boast the guilt
Which roused such vengeance? which such love in
O'er guilt (how mountainous!) with outstretch'd arms
Stern Justice and soft-smiling Love embrace,
Supporting in full majesty thy throne,
When seem'd its majesty to need support;
Or that, or man, inevitably lost :
What but the fathomless of thought divine
Could labour such expedient from despair,
And rescue both? Both rescue! both exalt !
O how are both exalted by the deed!
The wondrous deed! or shall I call it more?
A wonder in Omnipotence itself!
A mystery no less to gods than men !
Not thus our infidels the' Eternal draw,
A God all o'er consummate, absolute,
Full orb'd, in his whole round of rays complete:
They set at odds Heaven's jarring attributes,
And with one excellence another wound;
Maim Heaven's perfection, break its equal beams, 230 Bid mercy triumph over-God himself,
Undeified by their opprobrious praise :
A God all mercy is a God unjust.
Ye brainless wits! ye baptized infidels!
Ye worse for mending! wash'd to fouler stains! 235 The ransom was paid down; the fund of Heaven, Heaven's inexhaustible, exhausted fund,
Amazing and amazed, pour'd forth the price,
All price beyond: though curious to compute,
Archangels fail'd to cast the mighty sum:
Its value vast, ungrasp'd by minds create,
For ever hides and glows in the Supreme.
And was the ransom paid? it was; and paid
(What can exalt the bounty more :) for you!
The Sun beheld it.-No, the shocking scene
Drove back his chariot: midnight veil'd his face;
Not such as this, not such as Nature makes;
A midnight Nature shudder'd to behold;
A midnight new! a dread eclipse (without
Opposing spheres) from her Creator's frown!
Sun! didst thou fly thy Maker's pain? or start
At that enormous load of human guilt
Which bow'd his blessed head, o'erwhelm'd his cross, Made groan the centre, burst earth's marble womb With pangs, strange pangs! deliver'd of her dead? 255 Hell howl'd; and Heaven that hour let fall a tear : Heaven wept, that men might smile! Heaven bled, that man
And is devotion virtue? 'tis compell'd.
What heart of stone but glows at thoughts like these?
Such contemplations mount us, and should mount 261
The mind still higher, nor ever glance on man
Unraptured, uninflamed.-Where roll'd my thoughts
To rest from wonders? other wonders rise,
And strike where'er they roll: my soul is caught: 265
Heaven's sovereign blessings, clustering from the cross,
Rush on her, in a throng, and close her round,
The prisoner of amaze !-In his bless'd life
I see the path, and in his death the price,
And in his great ascent the proof supreme,
Of immortality.-And did he rise?—
Hear, O ye Nations! hear it, O ye Dead!
He rose! he rose ! he burst the bars of Death.
Lift up your heads, ye everlasting Gates!
And give the King of glory to come in.
Who is the King of glory? he who left
His throne of glory for the pang of death.
Lift up your heads, ye everlasting Gates!
And give the King of glory to come in.
Who is the King of glory? he who slew
The theme, the joy, how then shall man sustain ?
Oh, the burst gates! crush'd sting! demolish'd throne.!
Last gasp of vanquish'd Death! Shout, earth and heaven,
This sum of good to man! whose nature then
Took wing, and mounted with him from the tomb. 290
Then, then I rose; then first Humanity
Triumphant pass'd the crystal ports of light,
(Stupendous guest!) and seized eternal youth,
Seized in our name. E'er since 'tis blasphemous
To call man mortal. Man's mortality
Was then transferr'd to death; and Heaven's duration Unalienably seal'd to this frail frame,
This child of dust.-Man, all immortal! hail;
Hail, Heaven! All lavish of strange gifts to man!
Thine all the glory, man's the boundless bliss!
Where am I rapp'd by this triumphant theme,
On Christian joy's exulting wing, above
The' Aonian mount !-Alas! small cause for joy!
What, if to pain immortal? if extent
Of being, to preclude a close of woe?
Where, then, my boast of immortality?
I boast it still, though cover'd o'er with guilt:
For guilt, not innocence, his life he pour'd;
"Tis guilt alone can justify his death;
Nor that, unless his death can justify
Relenting guilt in Heaven's indulgent sight.
If, sick of folly, I relent; he writes
My name in Heaven with that inverted spear
(A spear deep dipped in blood) which pierced his side, And open'd there a font for all mankind,
Who strive, who combat crimes, to drink and live :
This, only this, subdues the fear of death!
And what is this?-Survey the wondrous cure,
And at each step let higher wonder rise!
"Pardon for infinite offence! and pardon
Through means that speak its value infinite!
A pardon bought with blood! with blood divine!
With blood divine of him I made my foe;
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