And that in sorrow buried; this, in shame ;
While howling furies ring the doleful knell ;
And conscience, now so soft thou scarce canst hear
Her whisper, echoes her eternal peal.

Where, the prime actors of the last year's scene;
Their port so proud, their buskin, and their plume?
How many sleep, who kept the world awake
With lustre, and with noise! Has Death proclaim'd
A "uce, and hung his sated lance on high?
Tis brandish'd still; nor shall the present year
Be more tenacious of her human leaf,
Or spread of feeble life a thinner fall.

But needless monuments to wake the thought;
Life's gayest scenes speak man's mortality,
Though in a style more florid, full as plain,
As mausoleums, pyramids, and tombs.
What are our noblest ornaments, but deaths
Turn'd flatterers of life, in paint or marble,
The well-stain'd canvas, or the featur'd stone?
Our fathers grace, or rather haunt, the scene.
Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead.

"Profest diversions!-cannot these escape?"
Far from it: these present us with a shroud;
And talk of death, like garlands o'er a grave.
As some bold plunderers, for buried wealth,
We ransack tombs for pastime; from the dust
Call up the sleeping hero; bid him tread
The scene for our amusement: how like gods
We sit; and, wrapt in immortality,

She generous tears on wretches born to die;
Their fate deploring, to forget our own!
What all the pomps and triumphs of our lives,
But legacies in blossom? Our lean soil,
Luxuriant grown, and rank in vanities,
From friends interr'd beneath, a rich manure!
Like other worms, we banquet on the dead;
Like other worms, shall we craw! on, nor know
Our present frailties, or approaching fate?

Lorenzo! such the glories of the world!
What is the world itself? Thy world—a grave.
Where is the dust that has not been alive?
The spade, the plow, disturb our ancestors;
From human mould we reap our daily bread.
The globe around Earth's hollow surface shakes,
And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons.
O'er devastation we blind revels keep;
Whole buried towns support the dancer's heel.
The moist of human frame the Sun exhales;
Winds scatter through the mighty void the dry;
Earth repossesses part of what she gave,
And the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire;
Each element partakes our scatter'd spoils;
As Nature, wide, our ruins spread: man's death
Inhabits all things, but the thought of man.

Nor man alone; his breathing bust expires, His tomb is mortal; empires die: where now The Roman Greek? they stalk, an empty name! Yet few regard them in this useful light; Though half our learning is their epitaph. When down thy vale, unlock'd by midnight thought, That loves to wander in thy sunless realms, O Death! I stretch my view; what visions rise! What triumphs! toils imperial! arts divine! In wither'd laurels glide before my sight! What lengths of far-fam'd ages, billow'd high With human agitation, roll along In unsubstantial images of air! The melancholy ghosts of dead renown, Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause, With penitential aspect, as they pass,

All point at Earth, and hiss at human pride,
The wisdom of the wise, and prancings of the greal
But, O Lorenzo! far the rest above,
Of ghastly nature, and enormous size,
One form assaults my sight, and chills my blood,
And shakes my frame. Of one departed world
I see the mighty shadow: oozy wreath
And dismal sea-weed crown her; o'er her urn
Reclin'd, she weeps her desolated realms,
And bloated sons; and, weeping, prophesies
Another's dissolution, soon, in flames.
But, like Cassandra, prophesies in vain;
In vain, to many; not, I trust, to thee.

For, know'st thou not, or art thou loth to know
The great decree, the counsel of the skies?
Deluge and conflagration, dreadful powers!
Prime ministers of vengeance! chain'd in caves
Distinct, apart the giant furies roar,
Apart; or, such their horrid rage for ruin,
In mutual conflict would they rise, and wage
Eternal war, till one was quite devour'd.
But not for this ordain'd their boundless rage;
When Heaven's inferior instruments of wrath,
War, famine, pestilence, are found too weak
To scourge a world for her enormous crimes,
These are let loose, alternate: down they rush,
Swift and tempestuous, from, th' eternal throne,
With irresistible commission arm'd,
The world, in vain corrected, to destroy,
And ease creation of the shocking scene.

See'st thou, Lorenzo! what depends on man?
The fate of Nature; as for man, her birth.
Earth's actors change Earth's transitory scenes,
And make creation groan with human guilt.
How must it groan, in a new deluge whelm'd,
But not of waters! at the destin'd hour,
By the loud trumpet summon'd to the charge,
See, all the formidable sons of fire,
Eruptions, earthquakes, comets, lightnings, play
Their various engines; all at once disgorge
Their blazing magazines; and take, by storm,
This poor terrestrial citadel of man.

Amazing period! when each mountain-height
Out-burns Vesuvius; rocks eternal pour
Their melted mass, as rivers once they pour'd;
Stars rush; and final ruin fiercely drives
Her plowshare o'er creation!-while aloft,
More than astonishment! if more can be!
Far other firmament than e'er was seen,
Than e'er was thought by man! far other stars!
Stars animate, that govern these of fire;
Far other Sun!-A Sun, O how unlike
The babe at Bethlem! how unlike the man

That groan'd on Calvary!-Yet he it is;
That Man of Sorrows! O how chang'd! what pomp
In grandeur terrible, all Heaven descends!
And gods, ambitious, triumph in his train.
A swift archangel, with his golden wing,
As blots and clouds, that darken and disgrace
The scene divine, sweeps stars and suns aside.
And now, all dross remov'd, Heaven's own pure day
Full on the confines of our ether, flames.
While (dreadful contrast!) far, how far beneath!
Hell, bursting, belches forth her blazing seas,
And storms sulphureous; her voracious jaws
Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey.
Lorenzo! welcome to this scene; the last
In Nature's course; the first in wisdom's thought.
This strikes, if aught can strike thee! this awakes
The most supine; this snatches man from death

Rouse, rouse, Lorenzo, then, and follow me,
Where truth, the most momentous man can hear,
Loud calls my soul, and ardor wings her flight.
I find my inspiration in my theme;
The grandeur of my subject is my Muse.

At midnight, when mankind is wrapt in peace,
And worldly fancy feeds on golden dreams;
To give more dread to man's most dreadful hour,
At midnight, 'tis presum'd this pomp will burst
From tenfold darkness; sudden as the spark
From smitten steel; from nitrous grain, the blaze
Man, starting from his couch, shall sleep no more!
The day is broke, which never more shall close!
Above, around, beneath, amazement all!
Terror and glory join'd in their extremes!
Our God in grandeur, and our world on fire!
All Nature struggling in the pangs of death!
Dost thou not hear her? Dost thou not deplore
Her strong convulsions, and her final groan?
Where are we now? Ah me! the ground is gone
On which we stood: Lorenzo! while thou may st,
Provide more firm support, or sink for ever!
Where? how? from whence? Vain hope! it is too late!
Where, where, for shelter, shall the guilty fly,
When consternation turns the good man pale?

Great day! for which all other days were made;
For which Earth rose from chaos, man from Earth;
And an eternity, the date of Gods,
Descended on poor earth-created man!
Great day of dread, decision, and despair!
At thought of thee, each sublunary wish
Lets go its eager grasp, and drops the world;
And catches at each reed of hope in Heaven.
At thought of thee!—and art thou absent then?
Lorenzo! no; 'tis here; it is begun ;-
Already is begun the grand assize,

In thee, in all: deputed conscience scales
The dread tribunal, and forestalls our doom;
Forestalls; and, by forestalling, proves it sure.
Why on himself should man void judgment pass?
Is idle Nature laughing at her sons?
Who conscience sent, her sentence will support,
And God above assert that god in man.
Thrice-happy they! that enter now the court
Heaven opens in their bosoms: but, how rare,
Ah me! that magnanimity, how rare!
What hero, like the man who stands himself;
Who dares to meet his naked heart alone;
Who hears, intrepid, the full charge it brings,
Resolv'd to silence future murmurs there?
The coward flies; and, flying, is undone.
(Art thou a coward? No:) the coward flies;
Thinks, but thinks slightly; asks, but fears to know;
Asks,
What is truth?" with Pilate; and retires;
Dissolves the court, and mingles with the throng;
Asylum sad! from reason, hope, and Heaven!

Shall all, but man, look out with ardent eye,
For that great day, which was ordain'd for man?
O day of consummation! mark supreme
(If men are wise) of human thought! nor least,
Or in the sight of angels, or their King!
Angels, whose radiant circles, height o'er height,
Order o'er order, rising, blaze o'er blaze,
As in a theatre, surround this scene,
Intent on man, and anxious for his fate.
Angels look out for thee; for thee, their Lord,
To vindicate his glory; and for thee,
Creation universal calls aloud,

To dis-involve the moral world, and give
To Nature's renovation brighter charms.

Shall man alone, whose fate, whose final fate, Hangs on that hour, exclude it from his thought? I think of nothing else; I see! I feel it! All Nature, like an earthquake, trembling round All deities, like summer's swarms, on wing! All basking in the full meridian blaze! I see the Judge enthron'd! the flaming guard The volume open'd! open'd every heart! A sunbeam pointing out each secret thought No patron! intercessor none! now past The sweet, the clement, mediatorial hour! For guilt no plea! to pain, no pause! no bound Inexorable, all! and all, extreme!

Nor man alone; the foe of God and man, From his dark den, blaspheming, drags his chain, And rears his brazen front, with thunder scarr'd Receives his sentence, and begins his hell. All vengeance past, now, seems abundant grace Like meteors in a stormy sky, how roll His baleful eyes; he curses whom he dreads; And deems it the first moment of his fall.

"Tis present to my thought!—and yet when is it
Angels can't tell me; angels cannot guess
The period; from created beings lock'd
In darkness. But the process, and the place,
Are less obscure; for these may man inquire.
Say, thou great close of human hopes and fears!
Great key of hearts! great finisher of fates!
Great end! and great beginning! say, Where art
thou?

Art thou in time, or in eternity?
Nor in eternity, nor time, I find thee.
These, as two monarchs, on their borders meet,
(Monarchs of all elaps'd, or unarriv'd!)
As in debate, how best their powers allied
May swell the grandeur, or discharge the wrath.
Of him, whom both their monarchies obey.

Time, this vast fabric, for him built (and doom'
With him to fall) now bursting o'er his head;
His lamp, the Sun, extinguish'd; from beneath
The frown of hideous darkness, calls his sons
From their long slumber! from Earth's heaving
womb,

To second birth! contemporary throng!
Rous'd at one call, upstarted from one bed,
Prest in one crowd, appall'd with one amaze,
He turns them o'er, Eternity! to thee.
Then (as a king depos'd disdains to live)
He falls on his own scythe; nor falls alone;
His greatest foe falls with him; Time, and he
Who murder'd all Time's offspring, Death, expire
Time was! Eternity now reigns alone!
Awful eternity! offended queen!
And her resentment to mankind, how just!
With kind intent, soliciting access,

How often has she knock'd at human hearts!
Rich to repay their hospitality,

How often call'd! and with the voice of God!
Yet bore repulse, excluded as a cheat!

A dream! while foulest foes found welcome there.
A dream, a cheat, now, all things, but her smile.
For, lo! her twice ten thousand gates thrown wide
As thrice from Indus to the frozen Pole,
With banners streaming as the comet's blaze,
And clarions, louder than the deep in storms,
Sonorous as immortal breath can blow,
Pour forth their myriads, potentates, and powers,
Of light, of darkness; in a middle field,
Wide, as creation! populous, as wide!
A neutral region! there to mark th' event

Of that great drama, whose preceding scenes
Detain'd them close spectators, through a length
Of ages, ripening to this grand result;
Ages, as yet unnumber'd, but by God;
Who now pronouncing sentence, vindicates
The rights of virtue, and his own renown.
Eternity, the various sentence past,
Assigns the sever'd throng distinct abodes,
Sulphureous, or ambrosial: what ensues?
The deed predominant! the deed of deeds!

Which makes a Hell of Hell, a Heaven of Heaven.
The goddess, with determin'd aspect, turns
Her adamantine key's enormous size
Through destiny's inextricable wards,

Deep driving every bolt on both their fates.

Then, from the crystal battlements of Heaven,
Down, down, she hurls it through the dark profound,
Ten thousand thousand fathom; there to rust,
And ne'er unlock her resolution more.

But chiefly then, when grief puts in her claim,
Joy from the joyous, frequently betrays,
Oft lives in vanity, and dies in woe.
Joy, amidst ills, corroborates, exalts;
"Tis joy, and conquest; joy, and virtue too.

A noble fortitude in ills, delights

glooms,

Returns, in groans, the melancholy roar.

O how unlike the chorus of the skies!

O how unlike those shouts of joy, that shake
The whole ethereal? How the concave rings!
Nor strange! when deities their voice exalt;
And louder far, than when creation rose.
To see creation's godlike aim, and end,
So well accomplish'd! so divinely clos'd!
To see the mighty dramatist's last act
(As meet) in glory rising o'er the rest.
No fancied god, a god indeed, descends,

To solve all knots; to strike the moral home;
To throw full day on darkest scenes of time;
To clear, commend, exalt, and crown the whole.
Hence, in one peal of loud, eternal praise,
The charm'd spectators thunder their applause!
And the vast void beyond, applause resounds.
What then am I?-

Amidst applauding worlds,
And worlds celestial, is there found on Earth
A peevish, dissonant, rebellious string,
Which jars on the grand chorus, and complains?
Censure on thee, Lorenzo! I suspend,
And turn it on myself; how greatly due!
All, all is right, by God ordain'd or done;
And who, but God; resum'd the friends he gave?
And have I been complaining, then, so long?
Complaining of his favors, pain, and death?
Who, without pain's advice, would e'er be good?
Who, without death, but would be good in vain?
Pain is to save from pain; all punishment,
To make for peace; and death to save from death;
And second death, to guard immortal life;
To rouse the careless, the presumptuous awe,
And turn the tide of souls another way;
By the same tenderness divine ordain'd,
That planted Eden, and high-bloom'd for man
A fairer Eden, endless, in the skies.

Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene; Resumes them, to prepare us for the next. All evils natural are moral goods; All discipline, indulgence, on the whole. None are unhappy: all have cause to smile, But such as to themselves that cause deny. Our faults are at the bottom of our pains; Error, in acts, or judgment, is the source Of endless sighs: we sin, or we mistake; And Nature tax, when false opinion stings. Let impions grief be banish'd, joy indulg'd;

Who thinks it is, shall never be a God.
Some ills we wish for, when we wish to live.
What spoke proud passion?" Wish my being
lost?"

Presumptuous! blasphemous! absurd! and false'
The triumph of my soul is-That I am;

And therefore that I may be-what? Lorenzo!
Look inward, and look deep; and deeper still;
Unfathomably deep our treasure runs

In golden veins, through all eternity!
Ages, and ages, and succeeding still
New ages, where the phantom of an hour,

Which courts, each night, dull slumber, for repair,
Shall wake, and wonder, and exult, and praise,
And fly through infinite, and all unlock;
And (if deserv'd) by Heaven's redundant love,
Made half-adorable itself, adore ;
And find, in adoration, endless joy!
Where thou, not master of a moment here,
Frail as the flower, and fleeting as the gale,
May'st boast a whole eternity, enrich'd
With all a kind Omnipotence can pour.
Since Adam fell, no mortal, uninspir'd,
Has ever yet conceiv'd, or ever shall,
How kind is God, how great (if good) is man.
No man too largely from Heaven's love can hope,
If what is hop'd he labors to secure.

Ills?-there are none :-All-gracious! none from thee;

From man full many! numerous is the race
Of blackest ills, and those immortal too,
Begot by madness on fair liberty;
Heaven's daughter, Hell-debauch'd! her hand alone
Unlocks destruction to the sons of men,
First barr'd by thine: high-wall'd with adamant,
Guarded with terrors reaching to this world,
And cover'd with the thunders of thy law,
Whose threats are mercies, whose injunctions, guides,
Assisting, not restraining, reason's choice;
Whose sanctions, unavoidable results
From Nature's course, indulgently reveal'd;
If unreveal'd, more dangerous, nor less sure.

Thus, an indulgent father warns his sons,