My theme! my infpiration! and my crown!
My ftrength in age! my rife in low estate!
My foul's ambition, pleafure, wealth!-my world!
My light in darknefs! and my life in death! 590
My boaft through time! blifs through eternity!
Eternity, too fhort to speak thy praife!
Or fathom thy profound of love to man!
To man of meu the meanest, ev'n to me; [595
My facrifice! my God!-what things are thefe!
What then art Thou? by what name fhall I call
Thee?

Knew I the name devout archangels use,
Devout archangels fhould the name enjoy,
By me unrival'd; thoufands more fublime,
None half so dear, as that, which, though
fpoke,

645

Recumbent virtue's downy doctors, preach;
That profe of piety, a lukewarm praise?
Rife odours fweet from incenfe uninflam'd?
Devotion, when lukewarm, is undevout;
But when it glows, its heat is ftruck to heaven;
To human hearts her golden harps are frung;
High heaven's orcheftra chaunts amen to man. 650
Hear I, or dream I hear, their distant strain,
Sweet to the foul, and tafting throng of heaven,
Soft-wafted on celeftial pity's plume,
Through the vast spaces of the universe,
To chear me in this melancholy gloom?
Oh when will death (now ftinglefs), like a friend,
Admit me of their choir? O when will death
This mouldering, old, partition-wall throw down?
Give beings, one in nature, one abode ?

655

Still glows at heart: O how omnipotence Is loft in love! Thou great Philanthropist! Father of angels! but the friend of man! Like Jacob, fondeft of the younger born! Thou, who didft fave him, fnatch the fmoking brand 605

From out the flames, and quench it in

blood!

thy

610

How art thou pleas'd, by bounty to distress!
To make us groan beneath our gratitude,
Too big for birth! to favour, and confound;
To challenge, and to distance all return!
Of lavish love ftupendous heights to foar,
And leave praife panting in the diftant vale!
Thy right, too great, defrauds thee of thy due;
And facrilegious our fublimed fong.
But fince the naked will obtains thy fmile,
Bencath this monument of praife unpaid,
And future life fymphonious to my train,
(That nobleft hymn to heaven!) for ever lie
Intomb'd my fear of death! and every fear,
The dread of every evil, but Thy frown.

620

།

664

Whom fee I yonder, fo demurely fmile? Laughter a labour, and might break their reft. Ye quietifts, in homage to the fkies! Serene! of foft addrefs! who mildly make An unobtrusive tender of your hearts, Abhorring violence! who balt indeed ; But for the blefling, wrelle not with heaven! Think you my fong too turbulent? too warm? Are paffions, then, the pagans of the foul! Reafon alone baptiz'd? alone ordain'd To touch things facred? Oh for warmer fill! Guilt chills my zeal, and age benumbs my! powers;

630

Oh for an humbler heart! and prouder fong! Thou, my much injur'd theme! with that foft eye [635 Which melted o'er doom'd Salem, deign to look Compaflion to the coldness of my breast; And pardon to the winter in my strain.

Oh ye cold-hearted, frozen, formalists! On fuch a theme, 'tis impious to be calm; Paffion is reafon, transport temper, bere. 640 Shall heaven, which gave us ardour, and has fhewn

Her own for man fo ftrongly, not difdain

deash,

Turns earth to heaven, to heavenly thrones trans forms

The ghaftly ruins of the mouldering tomb. 690
Doft afk me when? When he who dy'd returus;
Returns, how chang'&! Where then the man of
woe?

In glory's terrors all the Godhead burns;
And all his courts, exhausted by the tide
Of deities triumphant in his train,
Leave a ftupendous folitude in heaven;
Replenish'd foon, replenish'd with increase
Of pomp, and multitude; a radiant band
Of angels new; of angels from the tomb.

Is this by fancy thrown remote; and rife
Dark doubts between the promife and event?
i lend thee not to volumes for thy cure;
Read Nature; Nature is a friend to truth;

695

700

[715

Of more than folar glory; doubles wide
Heaven's mighty cape; and then revifits earth,
From the long travel of a thousand years:
Thus, at the deftin'd period, shall return
He, once on earth, who bids the comet blaze:
And, with Him, all our triumph o'er the tomb.
Nature is dumb on this important point;
Or hope precarious in low whisper breathes;
Faith Ipeaks aloud, diftinct; ev'n adders hear;
But turn, and dart into the dark again.
Faith builds a bridge across the gulph of death,
To break the fhock blind nature cannot fhun,
And lands thought smoothly on the farther fhore.
Death's terror is the mountain faith removes ;
That mountain barrier between man and peace.
'Tis faith difarms deftruction; and abfolves
From every clamorous charge, the guiltless
tomb.

720

726

730

Why difbelieve? Lorenzo!" Reafon bids, "All-facred reafon."-Hold her facred ftill; Nor fhalt thou want a rival in thy flame : All-facred reafun! fource, and foul, of all Demanding praife, on earth, or earth above! My heart is thine: deep in its inmoft folds, Live thou with life; live dearer of the two. Wear I the bleffed Crofs, by fortune ftamp'd On paffive nature, before thought was born? My birth's blind bigot! fir'd with local zeal! No; reafon re-baptiz'd me when adult; Weigh'd true, and falfe, in her impartial scale; My heart became the convert of my head And made that choice, which once was but my fate.

735

740

"On argument alone my faith is built :"
Reafon purfu'd is faith; and, unpursued
Where proof invites, 'tis reafon, then, no more:
And fuch our proof, That, or our faith is right,
Or reafon lies, and heaven defign'd it wrong: 746
Abfolve we 'This? What, then, is blafphemy?,

Fond as we are, and justly fond, of faith,
Reason, we grant, demands our first regard;
The mother honour'd as the daughter dear,
Reafon the root, fair faith is but the flower;
The fading flower fhall die; but reafon lives
Immortal, as her Father in the fkies.
When faith is virtue, reafon makes it fo.
Wrong not the Chriftian; think not

750

They draw pride's curtain o'er the noon-tide-ray,
Spike up their inch of reafon, on the point
Of philofophic wit, call'd Argument;
And then, exulting in their taper, cry,
"Behold the fun :" and, Indian-like, adore. So
Talk they of morals? O thou bleeding Love!
Thou maker of new morals to mankind!
The grand morality is love of Thee.

As wife as Socrates, if fuch they were,
(Nor will they 'bate of that fublime renown) 785
As wife as Socrates, might justly stand
The definition of a modern fool.

A Chriftian is the highest ftile of man:

reafon

755

As they had ne'er been thine; the day in hand,
Like a bird struggling to get loofe, is going;
Scarce now poffefs'd, fo fuddenly 'tis gone;
And each fwift moment fled, is death advanc'd 815
By itrides as fwift: Eternity is All;

"Tis

To give loft reafon life, He pour'd his own ; Believe, and fhew the reason of a man ; Believe, and taste the pleasure of a God; Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb Through reafon's wounds alone thy faith die;

And whofe Eternity? Who triumphs there? Bathing for ever in the font of blifs!

760

For ever basking in the Deity!

:

can

Lorenzo! who?--Thy confcience fhall reply. 820
O give it leave to fpeak; 'twill speak ere long,
Thy leave unafk'd: Lorenzo! hear it now,

While useful its advice, its accent mild.

I orenzo! and thy brothers of the fmile!
If, what imports you moft, can moft engage,
Shall fteal your car,, and chain you to my fong.
Or if you fail me, know, the wife fhall tafte
The truths I fing; the truths I fing fhall feel; 85
And, feeling, give affent: and their affent
Is ample recompence; is more than praise.
But chiefly thine, O Litchfield' nor mistake;
Think not unintroduc'd I force my way;
Narciffa, not unknown, not unally'd,
By virtue, or by blood, illuftrious youth!
To thee, from blooming amaranthine bowers,
Where all the language harmony, defcends
Uncall'd, and afks admittance for the Mufe:
A Mufe that will not pain thee with
praise ;

90

thy .95

100

Thy praife the drops, by nobler still infpir'd.
O Thou! Bleft Spirit! whether the supreme,
Great ante-mundane Father! in whose breaft
Embryo creation, unborn being, dwelt,
And all its various revolutions roll'd
Prefent, though future; prior to themselves;
Whofe breath can blow it into nought again;
Or, from his throne fome delegated power,
Who, ftudious of our peace, doft turn
thought

Nor touches on the world, without a ftain: The world's infectious; few bring back at eve, Immaculate, the manners of the morn. Something we thought, is blotted; we refolv'd, Is fhaken; we renounc'd, returns again. 145 Each falutation may fide in a fin Unthought before, or fix a former flaw. Nor is it strange light, motion, concourse, noife, All, fcatter us abroad; thought outward-bound, Neglectful of our home affairs, flies off In fume and diffipation, quits her charge, And leaves the breaft unguarded to the foe. Prefent example gets within our guard, And acts with double force, by few repell'd. | Ambition fires ambition; love of gain Strikes, like a peftilence, from break to breast; Riot, pride, perfidy, blue vapours breathe; And inhumanity caught from man,

150

155

From fmiling mạn A flight, a single glance, And fhot at random, often has brought home 160 A fudden fever to the throbbing heart,

Of envy, rancour, or impure defire.

the

From vain and vile, to folid and sublime! Unfeen thou lead'ft me to delicious draughts Of infpiration, from a purer ftream,

105

We fee, we hear, with peril; fafety dwells
Remote from multitude; the world's a school
Of wrong, and what proficients fwarm around!
We muft, or imitate, or difapprove;
Muft lift as their accomplices, or foes;
That ftains our innocence; this wounds our

166

And fuller of the god, than that which burst
From fam'd Caftalia: nor is yet allay'd

My facred thirst; though long my foul has rang'd

'Through pleasing paths of moral, and divine, By thee fuftain'd, and lighted by the Stars.

110

By them beft lighted are the paths of thought: Nights are their days, their moft illumin'd hours. By day, the foul, o'erborne by life's career, 115 Stunn'd by the din, and giddy with the glare, Reels far from reafon, joilled by the throng. By day the foul is paffive, all her thoughts Impos'd, precarious, broken ere mature. By night, from objects free, from paffion cool, Thoughts uncontrol'd, and unimprefs'd,

births

peace.

From nature's birth, hence, wisdom has been fmit

With fweet recefs, and languisht for the fhade, 170
This facred fhade, and folitude, what is it?
'Tis the felt prefence of the Deity.
Few are the faults we flatter when alone,
Vice finks in her allurements, is ungilt,
And looks, like other objects, black by night. 175
By night an Atheist half-believes a God.

Night is fair virtue's immemorial friend;
The confcious moon, through every distant age,
Has held a lamp to wisdom, and let fall,
On contemplation's eye, her purging ray.
180
The fam'd Athenian, he who woo'd from hea

120

the

ven

Philofopby the fair, to dwell with men,

To fettle on Herfelf, our point fupreme!
There lies our theatre ! there fits our judge.
Darkness the curtain drops o'er life's dull scene';
Tis the kind hand of Providence stretcht out
'Twixt man and vanity; 'tis reafon's reign,
And virtue's too; these tutelary fhades
Are man's afylum from the tainted throng.
Night is the good man's friend, and guardian too;
It no less refenes virtue, than infpires.

Virtue, for ever frail, as fair, below,
Her tendea nature suffers in the croud,

135

In private audience: all the live-long night,
Rigid in thought, and motionless, he stands,
Nor quits his theme, or pofture, till the fun 190
Rude drunkard rifing rofy from the main!)
Difturbs his nobler intellectual beam,
And gives him to the tumult of the world.
Hail, precious moments! ftol'n from the black

wafte