Sham'd at the disproportion vast between
The passion, and the purchase, he will sigh
At such success, and blush at his renown:
And why? because far richer prize invites
His heart; far more illustrious glory calls.
And can ambition a fourth proof supply?
It can, and stronger than the former three.
Though disappointments in ambition pain,
And though success disgusts, yet still we strive
In vain to pluck it from us: man must soar:
An obstinate activity within,
An insuppressive spring will toss him up,
In spite of fortune's load. Not kings alone,
Each villager has his ambition too:
No Sultan prouder than his fetter'd slave:
Slaves build their little Babylons of straw,
Echo the proud Assyrian, in their hearts,
And cry, Behold the wonders of my might!"
And why? because immortal as their lord:
And souls immortal must for ever heave
At something great; the glitter, or the gold;
The praise of mortals, or the praise of heav'n.
§ 208. Avarice.
THUS far ambition. What says avarice?
This her chief maxim, which has long been
"The wise and wealthy are the same." I grant
To store up treasure, with incessant toil,
This is man's province, this his highest praise:
To this great end keen instinct stings him on;
To guide that instinct, reason! is thy charge;
"Tis thine to tell us where true treasure lies:
But reason, failing to discharge her trust,
A blunder follows, and blind industry
O'erloading, with the cares of distant age,
The jaded spirits of the present hour,
Providing for eternity below.
Whence inextinguishable thirst of gain?
From inextinguishable life in man;
Man, if not meant by worth to reach the skies,
Had wanted wing to fly so far in guilt.
Sour grapes I grant ambition, avarice;
Yet still their root is immortality.
These its wild growths religion can reclaim,
Refine, exalt, throw down their pois'nous lee,
And make them sparkle in the bowl of bliss.
§ 209. Address to Unbelievers.
"KNOW all; know infidels, unapt to know,
"Tis immortality your nature solves;
"Tis immortality deciphers man,
And opens all the myst'ries of his make.
Without it half his instincts are a riddle;
Without it, all his virtues are a dream :
His very crimes attest his dignity;
His sateless appetite of gold, and fame,
Declares him born for blessings infinite.
What, less than infinite, makes unabsurd
Passions, which all on earth but more infinite?
Fierce passions so mismeasur'd to this scene,
Stretch'd out, like eagles' wings, beyond our nest,
Far, far, beyond the worth of all below,
For earth too large, presage a nobler flight,
And evidence our title to the skies."
$210. The Passions.
YE gentle theologues, of calmer kind!
Whose constitution dictates to your pen,
Who, cold yourselves, think ardor comes from
hell!
Think not our passions from corruption sprung,
Though to corruption now they lend their wings:
That is their mistress, not their mother. All
(And justly) reason deem divine: I see
I feel a grandeur in the passions too, [end;
Which speaks their high descent, and glorious
Which speaks them rays of an eternal fire.
In paradise itself they burnt as strong,
Ere Adam fell; the wiser in their aim.
What though our passions are run mad, and stoop
With low terrestrial appetite, to graze
On trash, on toys, dethron'd from high desire;
Yet still, through their disgrace, no feeble ray
Of greatness shines, and tells us whence they fell:
But these, when reason moderates the rein,
Shall re-ascend, re-mount their former sphere.
But grant their phrensy lasts; their phrensy
To disappoint one providential end; [fails
Was reason silent, boundless passion speaks
A future scene of boundless objects too,
And brings glad tidings of eternal day.
Eternal day! 'tis that enlightens all;
And all by that enlighten'd, proves it sure.
Consider man as an immortal being,
Intelligible, all; and all is great:
Consider man as mortal, all is dark,
And wretched; reason weeps at the survey.
$211. Proofs of Immortality. Man's Happi-
ness consists in the Hope of it.
MUCH has been urg'd; and dost thou call for
Call; and with endless questions be distrest,
All unresolvable, if earth is all.
Why life, a moment; infinite, desire?
Our wish eternity; our home, the grave?
Heaven's promise dormant lies in human hope;
Who wishes life immortal, proves it 100.
Why happiness pursu'd, though never found?
Man's thirst of happiness declares it is,
(For nature never gravitates to nought;)
That thirst unquench'd declares it is not here.
Why cordial friendship rivetted so deep,
As, hearts to pierce at first, at parting rend,
If friend and friendship vanish in an hour?
Is not this torment in the mask of joy?
-Why by reflection marr'd the joys of sense?
Why past and future preying on our hearts,
And putting all our present joys to death?
Why labors reason? instinct were as well;
Instinct far better; what can choose can err;
O how infallible the thoughtless brute!
Reason with inclination why at war?
Why sense of guilt? why conscience up in arms?"
Conscience of guilt, is prophecy of pain,
And bosom-counsel to decline the blow.
Reason with inclination ne'er had jarr'd,
If nothing future paid forbearance here.
Thus on-these, and a thousand pleas uncall'd,
All promise, some insure, a second scene;
Which, was it doubtful, would be dearer far
Than all things else most certain; was it false,
What truth on earth so precious as the lie?
This world it gives us, let what will ensue;
This world it gives, in that high cordial, hope;
The future of the present is the soul:
How this life groans, when sever'd from the next!
Poor, inutilated wretch, that disbelieves !
By dark distrust his being cut in two,
In both parts perishes; life void of joy,
Sad prelude of eternity in pain!
$212. Misery of Unbelief.
COULDST thou persuade me, fail
Contemplate this amazing universe,
Dropt from his hand, with miracles replete!
For what? 'Mid miracles of nobler naine,
To find one miracle of misery!
To find the being, which alone can know,
And praise his works, a blemish on his praise!
Through nature's ample range, in thought to
stray
And start at man, the single mourner there, Breathing high hope! chain'd down to pangs, and death!
Knowing is suff'ring: and shall virtue share The sigh of knowledge? virtue shares the sigh. By straining up the steep of excellent,
By battles fought, and from temptation won, What gains she, but the pang of seeing worth, the next life would Angelic worth, soon shuffled in the dark With ev'ry vice, and swept to brutal dust?
Our ardent wishes; how should I pour out
My bleeding heart in anguish, new, as deep!
Oh! with what thoughts, thy hope, and my de-
Abhorr'd Annihilation, blasts the soul, [pair,
And wide extends the bounds of human woe!
In this black channel would my ravings run:
"Grief from the future borrow'd peace, ere-
while.
The future vanish'd, and the present pain'd!
Fall, how profound! hurl'd headlong, hurl'd at
To night! to nothing! darker still than night.
If 'twas a dream, why wake me, my worst foe?
O for delusion! O for error still! [plant
Could vengeance strike much stronger than to
A thinking being in a world like this,
Not over-rich before, now beggar'd quite;
More curst than at the fall? The sun goes out!
The thorns shoot up! what thorns in ev'ry
thought!
Why sense of better? it imbitters worse:
Why sense? why life? if but to sigh, then sink
To what I was? twice nothing! and much woe!
Woe, from heaven's bounties! woe, from what
To flatter most, high intellectual powers.
"Thought, virtue, knowledge blessings, by
thy scheme,
All poison'd into pains. First knowledge, once
My soul's ambition, now her greatest dread.
To know myself, true wisdom?-no, to shun
That shocking science, parent of despair!
Avert thy mirror; if I see, I die.
"Know my Creator! Climb his blest abode
By painful speculation, pierce the veil,
Dive in his nature, read his attributes,
And gaze in admiration-on a foe
Obtruding life, witholding happiness?
From the full rivers that surround his throne,
Not letting fall one drop of joy on man;
Man gasping for one drop, that he might cease
To curse his birth, nor envy reptiles more!
Ye sable clouds! ye darkest shades of night;
Hide him, for ever hide him, from my thought,
Once all my comfort; source and soul of joy!
"Know his achievements! study his renown!
"Duty! Religion! these, our duty done, Imply reward, Religion is mistake: Duty! there's none, but to repel the cheat. Ye cheats! away; ye daughters of my pride! Who feign yourselves the fav'rites of the skies: Ye tow'ring hopes! abortive energies! That toss and tumble in my lying breast, To scale the skies, and build presumption there, As I were heir of an eternity: Vain, vain ambitions! trouble me no more, As bounded as my being, be my wish. All is inverted, wisdom is a fool; Sense! take the rein; blind passion! drive us on; And, ignorance! befriend us on our way; Yes; give the pulse full empire; live the brute, Since, as the brute, we die: the sum of man, Of godlike man! to revel, and to rot.
"But not on equal terms with other brutes: Their revels a more poignant relish yield, And safer too; they never poisons choose. Instinct, than reason, makes more wholesome meals,
And sends all-marring murmur far away,
For sensual life they best philosophise;
Theirs, that serene, the sages sought in vain:
'Tis man alone expostulates with heaven;
His, all the pow'r, and all the cause to mourn.
Shall human eyes alone dissolve in tears?
And bleed, in anguish, none but human hearts?
The wide-stretch'd realm of intellectual woe,
Surpassing sensual far, is all our own.
In life so fatally distinguish'd, why
Cast in one lot, confounded, lumpt, in death?
"And why then have we thought? To toil
[thought.
Then make our bed in darkness, needs no
What superfluities are reas'ning souls!
Oh give eternity! or thought destroy,-
But without thought our curse were half unfelt!
Its blunted edge would spare the throbbing heart;
And therefore 'tis bestow'd, I thank thee, reason,
For aiding life's too small calamities,
And giving being to the dread of death.
Such are thy bounties !-Was it then too much
For me, to trespass on the brutal rights?
Too much for heav'n to make one einmet more?
Too much for chaos to permit my mass
A longer stay with essences unwrought,
Unfashioned, untormented into man?
Wretched preferment to this round of pains!
Wretched capacity of phrensy, thought!
Wretched capacity of dying, life!
Life, thought, worth, wisdom, all (oh foul re-
volt!)
Once friends to peace, gone over to the foe.
"Death then has chang'd its nature, too; O
death,
Come to my bosom, thou best gift of heav'n!
Best friend of man! since man is man no more.
Why in this thorny wilderness so long,
Since there's no promis'd land's ambrosial bow'r?
But why this sumptuous insult o'er our heads?
Why this illustrious canopy display'd?
Why so magnificently lodg'd despair?
At stated periods sure returning, roll,
These glorious orbs, that mortals may compute
Their length of labors, and of pains; nor lose
Their misery's full measure?-smiles with flow'rs,
And fruits promiscuous, ever-teeming earth,
That man may languish in luxurious scenes,
And in an Eden mourn his with'ring joys?
Claim earth and skies man's admiration, due
For such delights? blest animals! too wise
To wonder; and too happy to complain!
"Our doom decreed demands a mournful
scene;
Why not a dungeon dark for the condemn'd?
Why not the dragon's subterranean den,
For man to howl in? why not his abode
Of the same dismal color with his fate?
A Thebes, a Babylon, at vast expense
Of time, toil, treasure, art, for owls and adders,
As congruous, as, for man, this lofty dome,
Which prompts proud thought, and kindles high
desire;
If from her humble chamber in the dust, [flames,
While proud thought swells, and high desire in-
The poor worm calls us for her inmates there;
And round us death's inexorable hand
Draws the dark curtain close; undrawn no more.
"Undrawn no more? behind the cloud of
Once I beheld a sun; a sun which gilt [death,
That sable cloud, and turn'd it all to gold:
How the grave's alter'd! fathomless as hell!
Annihilation! how it yawns before me!
Next moment I may drop from thought, from
The privilege of angels, and of worms, [sense,
An outcast from existence! and this spirit,
This all-pervading, this all-conscious soul,
This particle of energy divine,
Which travels nature, flies from star to star,
And visits gods, and emulates their pow'rs,
For ever is extinguish'd. Horror! death!
Death of that death I fearless once survey'd,
When horror universal shall descend,
And heaven's dark concave urn all human race,
On that enormous, unrefunding tomb,
How just this verse! this monumental sigh!
Beneath the lumber of demolish'd worlds
Of matter, never dignify'd with life,
Here lie proud rationals; the sons of heav'n!
The lords of earth! the property of worms!
Beings of yesterday, and not to-morrow!
Who liv'd in terror, and in pangs expir'd."
And art thou then a shadow? less than shadow?
A nothing? less than nothing? To have been,
And not to be, is lower than unborn.
Art thou ambitious? why then make the worm
Thine equal? runs thy taste of pleasure high?
Why patronise sure death of every joy?
Charm riches? why choose begg'ry in the grave,
Of ev'ry hope a bankrupt! and for ever!
Dar'st thou persist? And is there nought on earth
But a long train of transitory forms,
Rising, and breaking, millions in an hour?
Bubbles of a fantastic lord, blown up
In sport, and then in cruelty destroy'd?
Oh for what crime, unmerciful Lorenzo,
Destroys thy scheme the whole of human race?
Kind is fell Lucifer compar'a to thee:
Oh! spare
this waste of being half divine;
And vindicate th' economy of heav'n,
§ 213. The Annihilation of Man, incompatible
with the Goodness of God.
HEAV'N is all love; all joy in giving joy;
It never had created, but to bless ;
And shall it then strike off the list of life,
A being blest, or worthy so to be?
Heav'n starts at an annihilating God.
§ 214. The Guilty alone wish for Annihilation.
Is that, all nature starts at, thy desire?
Art such a clod, to wish thyself all clay?
What is that dreadful wish?-the dying groan
Of nature murder'd by the blackest guilt:
What deadly poison has thy nature drank ?
To nature undebauch'd no shock so great;
Nature's first wish is endless happiness;
Annihilation is an after-thought,
A monstrous wish, unborn, till virtue dies.
And oh! what depth of horror lies inclos'd!
For non-existence no man ever wish'd,
But first he wish'd the Deity destroy'd.
$215. No spiritual Substance annihilated.
THINK'ST thou omnipotence a naked root,
Each blossom fair of Deity destroy'd ?
Nothing is dead; nay, nothing sleeps; each soul
That ever animated human clay,
Now wakes; is on the wing; and when the call
Of that loud trump collects us round heav'n's'
Conglob'd we bask in everlasting day. [throne.
How bright this prospect shines! how gloomy
A trembling world! and a devouring God!
Earth, but the shambles of omnipotence!
Heav'n's face all stain'd with causeless massacres
Of countless millions, born to feel the pang
Of being lost. Lorenzo! can it be?
This bids us shudder at the thoughts of life.
Who would be born to such a phantom world,
Where nought substantial, but our misery?
A world, where dark, mysterious vanity
Of good and ill the distant colors blends,
Confounds all reason, and all hope destroys;
A world so far from great (and yet how great
It shines to thee !) there's nothing real in it;
Being, a shadow! consciousness, a dream!
A dream how dreadful! universal blank.
Before it, and behind! poor man a spark
From non-existence struck by wrath divine,
Glitt'ring a moment, nor that moment sure,
'Midst upper, nether, and surrounding night,
His sad, sure, sudden, and eternal tomb.`
$216. The World a System of Theology.
THE skies above proclaim immortal man,
And man immortal all below resounds.
The world's a system of theology,
Read by the greatest strangers to the schools;
If honest, learn'd; and sages o'er a plough.
What then is unbelief? 'tis an exploit:
A strenuous enterprise: to gain it, man
Must burst through ev'ry bar of common sense,
Of common shame, magnanimously wrong;
And what rewards the sturdy combatant?
His prize, repentance; infamy, his crown.
$217. Virtue the Fruit of Immortality. THE virtues grow on immortality; That root destroy'd, they wither and expire; A Deity believ'd will nought avail; Rewards and punishments make God ador'd; And hopes and fears give conscience all her As in the dying parent dies the child, Virtue with immortality expires. Who tells me he denies his soul immortal, Whate'er his boast, has told me, he's a knave. His duty, 'tis to love himself alone, Nor care, though mankind perish, if he smiles. And are there such ?-Such candidates there
For more than death; for utter loss of being;
Is it in words to paint you? O ye fall'n!
Fall'n from the wings of reason, and of hope!
Erect in stature, prone in appetite!
Patrons of pleasure, posting into pain!
Boasters of liberty, fast-bound in chains!
More senseless than th' irrationals you scorn!
Far more undone! O ye most infamous
Of beings, from superior dignity!
And are you, too, convinc'd, your souls fly
In exhalation soft, and die in air,
From the full flood of evidence against you?
In the coarse drudgeries, and sinks of sense,
Your souls have quite worn out the make
heav'n,
By vice new-cast, and creatures of your own. $218. Free-thinking.
By truths enlighten'd, and sustain'd, afford
An arch-like, strong foundation, to support
Th' incumbent weight of absolute, complete
Conviction; here, the more we press, we stand
More firm; who most examine, most believe.
Parts, like half sentences, confound; the whole
Conveys the sense, and God is understood,
Who not in fragments writes to human race:
Read his whole volume, sceptic! then reply.
This, this is thinking free, a thought that
Beyond a grain, and looks beyond an hour.
Turn up thine eyes, survey this midnight scene;
What are earth's kingdoms to yon boundless orbs,
Of human souls, one day, the destin'd range?
And what yon boundless orbs to godlike man?
Those numerous worlds that throng the firma
ment,
And ask more space in heaven, can roll at large
In man's capacious thought, and still have room
For ampler orbs, for new creations, there.
Can such a soul contract itself, to gripe
A point of no dimension, or no weight?
It can; it does: the world is such a point;
And of that point how small a part enslaves!
How small a part-of nothing, shall I say? Why not?-friends, our chief treasure, how they drop!
How the world falls to pieces round about us,
And leaves us in a ruin of our joy!
What says this transportation of my friends?
It bids me love the place where now they dwell,
And scorn this wretched spot, they leave so poor.
Eternity's vast ocean lays before thee;
Give thy mind sea-room; keep it wide of earth,
That rock of souls immortal; cut thy cord;
Weigh anchor; spread thy sails; call ev'ry wind;
Eye thy great Pole-star; make the land of life.
$219. Rational and Animal Life.
Two kinds of life has double-natur'd man,
And two of death; the last far more severe.
Life animal is nurtur'd by the sun;
Thrives on its bounties, triumphs in its beams
Life rational subsists on higher food,
Triumphant in his beams who made the day.
When we leave that sun, and are left by this,
(The fate of all who die in stubborn guilt,)
"Tis utter darkness; strictly, double death.
We sink by no judicial stroke of heav'n,
But nature's course; as sure as plummets fall.
If then that double death should prove thy lot,
Blame not the bowels of the Deity:
Man shall be blest, as far as man permits.
Not man alone, all rationals heav'n arms
With an illustrious, but tremendous, pow'r,
To counteract its own most gracious ends;
And this, of strict necessity, not choice.
That pow'r deny'd, men, angels, were no more
But passive engines, void of praise or blame.
A nature rational implies the pow'r
Of being bless'd, or wretched, as we please;
Else idle reason would have nought to do;
And he that would be barr'd capacity
Of pain, courts incapacity of bliss.
Heav'n wills our happiness, allows our doom;
Invites us ardently, but not compels;
Man falls by man, if finally he falls;
And fall he must, who learns from death alone
The dreadful secret,-that he lives for ever.
Why this to thee? thee yet perhaps in doubt
Of second life? but wherefore doubtful still?
Eternal life is nature's ardent wish:
What ardently we wish, we soon believe:
Thy tardy faith declares that wish destroy'd:
What has destroy'd it?-shall I tell thee, what?
When fear'd the future, 'tis no longer wish'd;
And when unwish'd, we strive to disbelieve.
INSTEAD of racking fancy, to refute,
Reform thy manners, and the truth enjoy.-
From purer manners, to sublimer faith,
Is nature's unavoidable ascent;
An honest deist, where the Gospel shines,
Matur'd to nobler, in the Christian ends.
When that blest change arrives, e'en cast aside
This song superfluous; life immortal strikes
Conviction, in a flood of light divine.
A Christian dwells, like Uriel in the sun :
Meridian evidence puts doubt to flight;
And ardent hope anticipates the skies.
Read, and revere the sacred page; a page
Where triumphs immortality; a page
Which not the whole creation could produce;
Which not the conflagration shall destroy:
In nature's ruins not one letter lost :
'Tis printed in the minds of gods for ever.
§ 221. The Mystery of a Future State, no Argument against it.
STILL seems it strange, that thou shouldst live for ever?
Is it less strange, that thou shouldst live at all?
This is a miracle; and that no more.
Who gave beginning, can exclude an end;
Deny thou art, then doubt if thou shalt be.
A miracle, with miracles inclos'd,
Is man! and starts his faith at what is strange?
What less than wonders from the Wonderful?
What less than miracles from God can flow?
Admit a God, that mystery supreme!
That cause uncaus'd! all other wonders cease;
Nothing is marvellous for him to do:
Deny him-all is mystery besides.
We nothing know, but what is marvellous;
Yet what is marvellous, we can't believe.
So weak our reason, and so great our God,
What most surprises in the sacred page,
Or full as strange, or stranger, must be true.
Faith is not reason's labor, but repose.
HOPE, of all passions, most befriends us here; Joy has her tears, and transport has her death; Hope, like a cordial, innocent, though strong, Man's heart, at once, inspirits and serenes,
Nor makes him pay his wisdom for his joys; "Tis all our present state can safely bear, Health to the frame! and vigor to the mind! And to the modest eye chastis'd delight! Like the fair summer-evening, mild, and sweet! 'Tis man's full cup: his paradise below!
§ 223. NIGHT VIII. Worldly Pursuits. ON life's gay stage, one inch above the grave, The proud run up and down in quest of eyes; The sensual, in pursuit of something worse; The grave, of gold; the politic, of pow'r; And all, of other butterflies, as vain. As eddies draw things frivolous and light, How is man's heart by vanity drawn in; On the swift circle of returning toys, Whirl'd, straw-like, round and round, and then ingulph'd,
Where gay delusion darkens to despair!
§ 224. Human Life compared to the Ocean. OCEAN! thou dreadful and tumultuous home Of dangers, at eternal war with man! Death's capital! where most he domineers, With all his chosen terrors frowning round, (Though lately feasted high at Albion's cost,) Wide op'ning, and loud roaring still for more! Too faithful mirror! how dost thou reflect The melancholy face of human life! The strong resemblance tempts me farther still: And, haply, Britain may be deeper struck By moral truth, in such a mirror seen, Which nature holds for ever at her eye.
Self-flatter'd, unexperienced, high in hope, When young, with sanguine cheer and streamers We cut our cable, launch into the world, [gay, And fondly dream each wind and star our friend; All in some darling enterprise embark'd: But where is he can fathom its event? Amid a multitude of artless hands, Ruin's sure perquisite! her lawful prize! Some steer aright: but the black blast blows hard, And puffs them wide of hope: with hearts of proof,
Full against wind and tide, some win their way;
And when strong effort has deserv'd the port,
And tugg'd it into view, 'tis won! 'tis lost!
They strike; and, while they triumph, they
expire.
In stress of weather, most; some sink outright;
O'er them and o'er their names the billows close;
To-morrow knows not they were ever born:
Others a short memorial leave behind,
Like a flag floating, when the bark's ingulph'd;
It floats a moment, and is seen no more:
One Cæsar lives, a thousand are forgot.
How few, beneath auspicious planets born,
With swelling sails make good the promis'd port,
With all their wishes freighted! Yet ev'n these,
Freighted with all their wishes, soon complain;
They still are men; and when is man secure?
As fatal time, as storm! the rush of years
Beats down their strength: their numberless
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