And visits gods, and emulates their powers,
For ever is extinguish’d. Horror! death!
Death of that death I fearless once survey'd !--
When horror universal shall descend,
And Heaven's dark concave urn all human race 830
On that enormous, unrefunding tomb,
How just this verse; this monumental sigh!'-
“ Beneath the lumber of demolish'd worlds,
Deep in the rubbish of the general wreck,
Swept ignominious to the common mass

835
Of matter, never dignified with life,
Here lie proud rationals; the sons of Heaven !
The lords of Earth! the property of worms !
Beings of yesterday, and no to-morrow!
Who lived in terror, and in pangs expired !

840 All gone to rot in chaos, or to make Their happy transit into blocks or brutes, Nor longer sully their Creator's name.

Lorenzo ! hear, pause, ponder, and pronounce. Just is this history ? if such is man,

845 Mankind's historian, though divine, might weep And dares Lorenzo smile?-I know thee proud: For once let pride befriend thee : Pride looks pale At such a scene, and sighs for something more. Amid thy boasts, presumptions, and displays, 850 And art thou then a shadow ? less than shade ? A nothing ? less than nothing ? To have been, And not to be, is lower than unborn. Art thou ambitious ? why then make the worm Thine equal ?--Runs thy taste of pleasure high ? 855 Why patronize sure death of every joy ?-Charm riches ? why choose beggary in the grave, Of every hope a bankrupt! and for ever?Ambition, Pleasure, Avarice persuade thee To make that world of glory, rapture, wealth, 860 They lately proved,* thy soul's supreme desire ! What art thou made of? rather, how unmade ?

* In the Sixth Night.

Great Nature's master-appetite destroy'd,
Is endless life and happiness despised ?
Or both wish'd here, where neither can be found. 865
Such man's perverse eternal war with Heaven!
Darest thou persist ? and is there nought on earth
But a long train of transitory forms,
Rising and breaking millions in an hour ?
Bubbles of a fantastic deity, blown up

870
In sport, and then in cruelty destroy'd ?
Oh! for what crime, unmerciful Lorenzo !
Destroys thy scheme the whole of human race?
Kind is fell Lucifer compared to thee.
Oh! spare this waste of being half divine, 875
And vindicate the economy of Heaven.

Heaven is all love ; all joy in giving joy ;
It never had created but to bless;
And shall it then strike off the list of life
A being bless'd, or worthy so iu be ?

880
Heaven starts at an annihilating God.
Is that, all Nature starts at, thy desire ?
Art such a clod to wish thyself all clay ?
What is that dreadful wish ?--the dying groan
Of Nature, murder'd by the blackest guilt. 885
What deadly poison has thy nature drunk ?
To Nature undebauch'd, no shock so great.
Nature's first wish is endless happiness ;
Annihilation is an afterthought,
A monstrous wish, unborn till Virtue dies, 890
And, oh! what depth of horror lies enclosed'
For nonexistence no man ever wish'd,
But first he wish'd the Deity destroy'd.

If so: what words are dar; enough to draw
Thy picture true ? the darkest are too fair.
Beneath what baleful planet, in what huur
uf desperation, by what fury's aid,
In what infernal posture of the soul,
All hell invited, and all hell in joy
At such a birth, a birth so near of kin,

90

Did thy foul fancy whelp so black a scheme
Of hopes abortive, faculties half-blown,
And deities begun, reduced to dust?

• There's dought (thou sayʻst) but one eternal flux Of feeble essences, tumultuous driven

905 Through Time's rough billows into Night's abyss.' Say, in this rapid tide of human ruin, Is there no rock on which man's tossing thought Can rest from terror, dare his fate survey, And boldly think it something to be born? 910 Amid such hourly wrecks of being fair, Is there no central, all-sustaining base, All-realizing, all-connecting power, Which, as it call'd forth all things, can recal, And force Destruction to refund her spoil ? 915 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 outstretch'd arm, 920 When ripening Time calls forth the 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 graced By germinating beings clustering round ! 925 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 !

930 An all-prolific, all-preserving God! This were a God indeed. And such is man, As here presumed; he rises from his fall. Think'st. thou Omnipotence a naked root, Each blossom fair of Deity destroy'd ?

936 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
Conglobed, we bask in everlasting day,

941 (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 !

945 How in the pangs of famish'd hope expire !

How bright my prospect shines ! how gloomy thine !
A trembling world and a devouring God !
Earth but the shambles of Omnipotence!
Heaven's face all stain'd with causeless massacres 950
Of countless millions, born to feel the pang
Of being lost. Lorenzo! can it be?
This bids us shudder at the thoughts of life!
Who would be born to such a phantom world,
Were nought substantial, but our misery? 955
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; 960
Being, a shadow ; consciousness, a dream :
A dream how dreadful ! universal blank
Before it and behind! poor man, a spark
From nonexistence struck by wrath divine,
Glittering a moment, nor that moment sure, 965
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 dared the Deity dethrone ?
How dared 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,

970

Of endless arguments above, below,

975 Without us, and within, the short resultIf 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 lat heart. 980 So just the skies, Philander's life so pain'd, His heart so pure, that or succeeding scenes Havo 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

985 No years impair; and had not this been true, Thou never hadst despised it for its age Truth is immortal as thy soul, and fable As fleeting as thy joys. Be wise, nor make Heaven's highest blessing vengeance. O be wise ! 990 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 immo-tal ? Behold this midnight glory : worlds on worlds ! Amazing pomp; redouble this amaze!

995 Ten thousand add ; add twice ten thousand more; Then weigh the whole ; one scul outweighs them all, And calls the’ astonishing magnificence Of unintelligent creation poor.

For this, believe not me: no man believe ; 1000 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 importanco. Tremble at thyself, For whom Omnipotence has waked so long ; 1005 Has waked, and work’d for ages; from the birth Of Nature to this vinbelieving 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, 1010 Ir rescue souls from death? The soul's high price Is writ in all the conduct of the skies