Which, as it call'd forth all things, can recall,
And force destruction to refund her spoil?
Command the grave restore her taken prey?
Bid death's dark vale its human harvest yield,
And earth and ocean pay their debt of man,
True to the grand deposit trusted there?
Is there no potentate whose out-stretch'd arm,
When ripening time calls forth th' appointed hour,
Pluck'd from foul devastation's famish'd maw,
Binds present, past, and future, to his throne?
His throne, how glorious, thus divinely grac'd,
By germinating beings clustering round!
A garland worthy the divinity!
A throne, by Heaven's omnipotence in smiles,
Built (like a pharos towering in the waves)
Amidst immense effusions of his love!
An ocean of communicated bliss!
An all-prolific, all-preserving god!
This were a god indeed.-And such is man,
As here presum'd: he rises from his fall.
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 where, O where,
Will the swarm settle?-When the trumpet's call,
As sounding brass, collects us, round Heaven's throne
Conglob'd, we bask in everlasting day,
(Paternal splendour!) and adhere for ever.
Had not the soul this outlet to the skies,
In this vast vessel of the universe,
How should we gasp, as in an empty void!
How in the pangs of famish'd hope expire!
How bright my prospect shines; how gloomy
A trembling world! and a devouring God! Earth, but the shambles of Omnipotence! Heaven's face all stain'd with causeless massacres Of countless millions, born to feel the pang 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?
Where joy (if joy) but heightens our distress,
So soon to perish, and revive no more?
The greater such a joy, the more it pains.
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,
Glittering a moment, nor that moment sure,
'Midst upper, nether, and surrounding night,
His sad, sure, sudden, and eternal tomb!
Lorenzo! dost thou feel these arguments?
Or is there nought but vengeance can be felt?
How hast thou dar'd the Deity dethrone?
How dar'd indict him of a world like this?
If such the world, creation was a crime;
For what is crime but cause of misery?
Retract, blasphemer! and unriddle this,
Of endless arguments above, below,
Without us, and within, the short result!
"If man's immortal, there's a God in Heaven.”
But wherefore such redundancy? such waste
Of argument? One sets my soul at rest!
One obvious, and at hand, and, oh!
So just the skies, Philander's life so pain'd,
His heart so pure; that, or succeeding scenes
Have palms to give, or ne'er had he been born.
"What an old tale is this!" Lorenzo cries.
I grant this argument is old; but truth
No years impair; and had not this been true,
Thou never hadst despis'd it for its age.
Truth is immortal as thy soul;
As fleeting as thy joys: be wise, nor make Heaven's highest blessing, vengeance; O be wise! Nor make a curse of immortality.
Say, know'st thou what it is, or what thou art? Know'st thou the importance of a soul immortal? Behold this midnight glory: worlds on worlds! Amazing pomp! redouble this amaze;
Ten thousand add; add twice ten thousand more; Then weigh the whole; one soul outweighs them
And calls th' astonishing magnificence
Of unintelligent creation poor.
For this, believe not me; no man believe;
Trust not in words, but deeds; and deeds no less
Than those of the Supreme; nor his, a few ;
Consult them all; consulted, all proclaim
Thy soul's importance: tremble at thyself;
For whom Omnipotence has wak'd so long:
Has wak'd, and work'd, for ages; from the birth
Of Nature to this unbelieving hour.
In this small province of his vast domain,
(All Nature bow, while I pronounce his name!)
What has God done, and not for this sole end,
To rescue souls from death? The soul's high price
Is writ in all the conduct of the skies.
The soul's high price is the Creation's key,
Unlocks its mysteries, and naked lays
The genuine cause of every deed divine:
That is the chain of ages, which maintains
Their obvious correspondence, and unites
Most distant periods in one blest design :
That is the mighty hinge, on which have turn'd
All revolutions, whether we regard
The natural, civil, or religious, world;
The former two but servants to the third:
To that their duty done, they both expire,
Their mass new-cast, forgot their deeds renown'd:
And angels ask, "Where once they shone so fair?”
To lift us from this abject, to sublime;
This flux, to permanent; this dark, to day ;
This foul, to pure; this turbid, to serene;
This mean, to mighty! - for this glorious end
Th' Almighty, rising, his long sabbath broke!
The world was made; was ruin'd; was restor❜d;
Laws from the skies were publish'd; were repeal'd;
On Earth kings, kingdoms, rose; kings, kingdoms,
Fam'd sages light'd up the pagan world;
Prophets from Sion darted a keen glance
Through distant age; saints travell❜d; martyrs bled;
By wonders sacred Nature stood controll'd;
The living were translated; dead were rais'd;
Angels, and more than angels, came from Heaven
And, oh! for this, descended lower still:
Guilt was Hell's gloom; astonish'd'at his guest,
For one short moment Lucifer ador'd:
Lorenzo! and wilt thou do less? - For this,
That hallow'd page, fools scoff at, was inspir'd,
Of all these truths thrice-venerable code!
Deists! perform your quarantine; and then
Fall prostrate, ere you touch it, lest you die.
Nor less intensely bent infernal powers
To mar, than those of light, this end to gain.
O what a scene is here! - Lorenzo! wake!
Rise to the thought; exert, expand thy soul,
To take the vast idea: it denies
All else the name of great. Two warring worlds!
Not Europe against Afric; warring worlds!
Of more than mortal! mounted on the wing!
On ardent wings of energy and zeal,
High-hovering o'er this little brand of strife!
This sublunary ball— But strife, for what?
In their own cause conflicting? No; in thine,
In man's. His single interest blows the flame;
His the sole stake; his fate the trumpet sounds,
Which kindles war immortal. How it burns!
Tumultuous swarms of deities in arms!
Force, force opposing, till the waves run high,
And tempest Nature's universal sphere.
Such opposites eternal, steadfast, stern,
Such foes implacable, are good, and ill;
Yet man, vain man, would mediate peace between
Think not this fiction, "There was war in Heaven."
From Heaven's high crystal mountain, where it hung,
Th' Almighty's out-stretch'd arm took down his bow,
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