There's no confiftence, meaning, plan, or end,
In all beneath the fun, in all above,
(As far as man can penetrate), or heaven
Is an immense, inestimable prize;
Or all is Nothing, or that prize is all.
And shall each toy be still a match for heaven,
And full equivalent for groans below?
Who would not give a trifle to prevent
What he would give a thousand worlds to cure?
Lorenzo! thou haft feen (if thine to fee)
All nature, and her God (by nature's course,
And nature's courfe control'd) declare for me:
The skies above proclaim, " immortal man!”
And, "man immortal!" all below refounds.
The world's a fyftem of theology,
Read by the greatest strangers to the schools;
If honeft, learn'd; and fages o'er a plough.
Is not, Lorenzo! then, impos'd on thee
This hard alternative; or, to renounce
Thy reason, or thy fenfe; or, to believe?
What then is unbelief? 'Tis an exploit ;
A ftrenuous enterprize: to gain it, man
Muft burst through every bar of common sense,
Of common fhame, magnanimously wrong;
And what rewards the sturdy combatant?
His prize, repentance; infamy, his crown.
But wherefore, infamy?—For want of faith, 1150 Down the steep precipice of wrong he slides; There's nothing to fupport him in the right. Faith in the future wanting is at least
In embryo, every weakness, every guilt;
And strong temptation ripens it to birth.
If this life's gain invites him to the deed,
Why not his country fold, his father slain ?
'Tis virtue to purfue our good fupreme;
And his fupreme, his only good is here.
Ambition, avarice, by the wife disdain'd,
Is perfect wisdom, while mankind are fools,
And think a turf, or tomb-ftone, covers all :
Thefe find employment, and provide for sense
A richer pasture, and a larger range;
And fenfe by right divine afcends the throne,
When virtue's prize and profpect are no more;
Virtue no more we think the will of heaven.
Would heaven quite beggar virtue, if belov'd?
"Has virtue charms ?"-I grant her heavenly fair;
And hopes and fears give confcience all her power.
As in the dying parent dies the child,
Virtue, with immortality, expires.
Who tells me he denies his foul immortal,
Whate'er his boaft, has told me, He's a knave. 1180
His duty 'tis, to love himself alone ;
Nor care though mankind perifh, if he fmiles.
Who thinks ere long the man fhall wholly die,
Is dead already; nought but brute furvives.
And are there fuch ?-Such candidates there are 1185 For more than death; for utter lofs of being, Being, the basis of the Deity!
you the cause?-The cause they will not tell :
Nor need they: Oh the forceries of fenfe!
They work this transformation on the foul,
Difmount her, like the serpent at the fall,
Difmount her from her native wing (which foar'd
Ere-while ethereal heights), and throw her down,
To lick the duft, and crawl in fuch a thought.
Is it in words to paint you? O ye fall'n !
Fall'n from the wings of reafon, and of hope!
Erect in ftature, prone in appetite!
Patrons of pleasure, pofting into pain!
Lovers of argument, averfe to sense!
Boafters of liberty, faft bound in chains!
Lords of the wide creation, and the fhame!
More fenfeless than th' irrationals you scorn!
More bafe than thofe you rule! Than thofe you pity, Far more undone! O ye most infamous
Of beings, from fuperior dignity!
Deepeft in woe from means of boundless blifs!
Ye curft by bleffings infinite! because
Moft highly favour'd, moft profoundly loft !
Ye motly mafs of contradiction strong!
And are you, too, convinc'd, your fouls fly off
In exhalation foft, and die in air,
From the full flood of evidence against you?
In the coarfe drudgeries and sinks of fenfe,
Your fouls have quite worn out the make of heaven,
By vice new-caft, and creatures of your own:
But though you can deform, you can't destroy ;
To curfe, not uncreate, is all your power.
Lorenzo! this black brotherhood renounce;
Renounce St. Evremont, and read St. Paul.
Ere, rapt by miracle, by reafon wing'd,
His mounting mind made long abode in heaven.
This is freethinking, unconfin'd to parts,
To fend the foul, on curious travel bent,
Through all the provinces of human thought;
Todart her flight through the whole sphere of man; 1225
Of this vaft univerfe to make the tour;
In each recefs of space, and time, at home;
Familiar with their wonders; diving deep;
And, like a prince of boundless interests there,
Still moft ambitious of the most remote;
To look on truth unbroken, and intire;
Truth in the fyftem, the full orb; where truths
By truths enlighten'd, and fuftain'd, afford
An arch-like, ftrong foundation, to fupport
Th' incumbent weight of abfolute, complete
Conviction; here, the more we press, we stand
More firm; who most examine, most believe.
Parts, like half-fentences, confound; the whole
Conveys the fenfe, and God is understood;
Who not in fragments writes to human race: 1240 Read his whole volume, fceptic! then reply.
This, this, is thinking free, a thought that grafps Beyond a grain, and looks beyond an hour.
thine eye, furvey this midnight scene; What are earth's kingdoms, to yon boundless orbs, 1245 Of human fouls, one day, the deftin'd range? And what yon boundless orbs, to godlike man? Those numerous worlds that throng the firmament, And ask more space in heaven, can roll at large In man's capacious thought, and ftill leave room 1250 For ampler orbs, for new creations, there.
. Can fuch a foul contract itself, to gripe
A point of no dimenfion, of no weight?
it does the world is fuch a point:
And, of that point, how small a part enflaves!
How fmail a part-of nothing, fhall I say?
Why not?-Friends, our chief treasure! how they drop!
Lucia, Narciffa fair, Philander, gone!
The grave, like fabled Cerberus, has op'd
A triple mouth; and, in an aweful voice,
Loud calls my foul, and utters all I fing.
How the world falls to pieces round about us,
And leaves us in a ruin of our joy!
What fays this transportation of my friends?
It bids me love the place where now they dwell, 1265
And fcorn this wretched fpot, they leave fo poor.
Eternity's vaft ocean lies before thee;
There; there, Lorenzo! thy Clariffa fails.
Give thy mind fea-room; keep it wide of earth,
That rock of fouls immortal; cut thy cord;
Weigh anchor; fpread thy fails; call every wind;
Eye thy Great Pole-ftar; make the land of life,
Two kinds of life has double-natur'd man,
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