The Nature, Proof, and Importance of
JEAVEN gives the needful, but neglected, call.
What day, what hour, but knocks at human
hearts,
To wake the soul to sense of future scenes ?
Deaths stand, like Mercuries in every way;
And kindly point us to our journey's end.
Pope, who couldst make immortals; art thou dead?
I give thee joy: nor will I take my leave;
So soon to follow. Man but dives in death;
Dives from the sun, in fairer day to rise;
The grave, his subterranean road to bliss.
Yes, infinite indulgence plann'd it so;
Through various parts our glorious story runs ;
Time gives the preface, endless age unrolls
The volume (ne'er unroll'd) of human fate.
This earth and skies* already have proclaim'd.
The world's a prophecy of worlds to come;
*Night the Sixth.
And who, what God foretels (who speaks in things, Still louder than in words) shall dare deny? If Nature's arguments appear too weak, Turn a new leaf, and stronger read in man. If man sleeps on, untaught by what he sees, Can he prove infidel to what he feels? He, whose blind thought futurity denies, Unconscious bears, Bellerophon! like thee, His own indictment; he condemns himself; Who reads his bosom, reads immortal life; Or, Nature, there, imposing on her sons, Has written fables; man was made a lie. Why discontent for ever harbor'd there? Incurable consumption of our peace! Resolve me, why, the cottager, and king, He whom sea-sever'd realms obey, and he Who steals his whole dominion from the waste, Repelling winter blasts with mud and straw, Disquieted alike, draw sigh for sigh, In fate so distant, in complaint so near?
Is it, that things terrestrial can't content?
Deep in rich pasture, will thy flocks complain?
Not so; but to their master is deny'd
To share their sweet serene. Man, ill at ease,
In this, not his own place, this foreign field,
Where Nature fodders him with other food,
Than was ordain'd his cravings to suffice,
Poor in abundance, famish'd at a feast,
Sighs on for something more, when most enjoy'd.
Is heaven then kinder to thy flocks than thee?
Not so; thy pasture richer, but remote;
In part, remote; for that remoter part
Man bleats from instinct, though perhaps debauch'd
By sense, his reason sleeps, nor dreams the cause.
The cause how obvious, when his reason wakes!
His grief is but his grandeur ir disguise;
And discontent is immortality.
Shall sons of Æther, shall the blood of heaven,
Set up their hopes on earth, and stable here,
With brutal acquiescence in the mire ?
Lorenzo! no! they shall be nobly pain'd;
The glorious foreigners distrest, shall sigh
On thrones; and thou congratulate the sigh:
Man's misery declares him born for bliss;
His anxious heart asserts the truth I sing,
And gives the sceptic in his head the lie.
Our heads, our hearts, our passions, and our powers, Speak the same language, call us to the skies: Unripen'd these in this inclement clime, Scarce rise above conjecture, and mistake; And for this land of trifles those too strong Tumultuous rise, and tempest human life: What prize on earth can pay us for the storm? Meet objects for our passions heaven ordain'd, Objects that challenge all their fire, and leave No fault, but in defect: blest heaven! avert A bounded ardor for unbounded bliss; O for a bliss unbounded! Far beneath A soul immortal, is a mortal joy. Nor are our powers to perish immature; But, after feeble effort here, beneath A brighter sun, and in a nobler soil, Transplanted from this sublunary bed, Shall flourish fair, and put forth all their bloom. Reason progressive, instinct is complete; Swift instinct leaps; slow reason feebly climbs. Brutes soon their zenith reach; their little all Flows in at once; in ages they no more Could know, or do, or covet, or enjoy. Were man to live coëval with the sun, The patriarch pupil would be learning still; Yet, dying, leave his lesson half-unlearnt. Men perish in advance, as if the sun Should set ere noon, in eastern oceans drown'd; If fit, with dim, illustrious to compare, The sun's meridian, with the soul of man. To man, why step-dame Nature! so severe ? Why thrown aside thy master-piece half-wrought, While meaner efforts thy last hand enjoy ? Or, if abortively poor man must die,
Nor reach, what reach he might, why die in dread? Why curst with foresight? Wise to misery?
Why of his proud prerogative the prey?
Why less pre-eminent in rank, than pain?
His immortality alone can tell ;
Full ample fund to balance all amiss,
And turn the scale in favor of the just!
His immortality alone can solve
That darkest of ænigmas, human hope;
Of all the darkest, if at death we die.
Hope, eager hope, the assassin of our joy,
All present blessings treading under-foot,
Is scarce a milder tyrant than despair.
With no past toils content, still planning new,
Hope turns us o'er to death alone for ease.
Possession, why, more tasteless than pursuit ?
Why is a wish far dearer than a crown?
That wish accomplish'd, why, the grave of bliss?
Because, in the great future bury'd deep,
Beyond our plans of empire, and renown,
Lies all that man with ardor should pursue;
And HE who made him, bent him to the right.
Man's heart the Almighty to the future sets,
By secret and inviolable springs;
And makes his hope his sublunary joy.
Man's heart eats all things, and is hungry still;
"More, more!" the glutton cries: for something new
So rages appetite, if man can't mount,
He will descend. He starves on the possest.
Hence, the world's master, from ambition's spire,
In Caprea plung'd; and div'd beneath the brute.
In that rank sty why wallow'd empire's son
Supreme? because he could no higher fly;
His riot was ambition in despair.
Old Rome consulted birds; Lorenzo! thou,
With more success, the flight of hope survey;
Of restless hope, for ever on the wing.
High-perch'd o'er every thought that falcon sits,
To fly at all that rises in her sight;
And, never stooping, but to mount again
Next moment, she betrays her aim's mistake,
And owns her quarry lodg'd beyond the grave.
There should it fail us (it must fail us there,
If being fails) more mournful riddles rise,
And virtue vies with hope in mystery.
Why virtue? Where its praise, its being, fled!
Virtue is true self-interest pursu❜d:
What true self-interest of quite-mortal man?
To close with all that makes him happy here.
If vice (as sometimes) is our friend on earth,
Then vice is virtue; 'tis our sovereign good.
In self-applause is virtue's golden prize;
No self-applause attends it on thy scheme :
Whence self-applause? From conscience of the right.
And what is right, but means of happiness?
No means of happiness when virtue yields;
That basis failing, falls the building too,
And lays in ruin every virtuous joy.
The rigid guardian of a blameless heart,
So long rever'd, so long reputed wise,
Is weak; with rank knight-errantries o'er-run.
Why beats thy bosom with illustrious dreams
Of self-exposure, laudable, and great?
Of gallant enterprize, and glorious death?
Die for thy country?-Thou romantic fool!
Seize, seize the plank thyself, and let her sink:
Thy country! what to thee?-The Godhead; what?
(I speak with awe!) though he should bid thee bleed;
If, with thy blood, thy final hope is spilt,
Nor can Omnipotence reward the blow;
Be deaf; preserve thy being; disobey.
Nor is it disobedience: know, Lorenzo!
Whate'er the Almighty's subsequent command,
His first command is this :-" Man, love thyself."
In this alone, free-agents are not free.
Existence is the basis, bliss the prize;
If virtue costs existence, 'tis a crime;
Bold violation of our law supreme,
Black suicide: though nations, which consult
Their gain, at thy expence, resound applause.
Since virtue's recompence is doubtful, here,
If man dies wholly, well may we demand,
Why is man suffer'd to be good in vain ?
Why to be good in vain, is man enjoin'd?
Why to be good in vain, is man betray'd?
Betray'd by traitors lodg'd in his own breast,
By sweet complacencies from virtue felt?
Why whispers Nature lies on virtue's part?
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