Why this illustrious canopy display'd? Why so magnificently lodged, Despair? These glorious orbs, that mortals may compute 790 Their misery's full measure?-Smiles with flowers 795 'Our doom decreed demands a mournful scene: 800 Why not a dungeon dark for the condemn'd Why not the dragon's subterranean den For man to howl in? why not his abode A Thebes, a Babylon, at vast expense Of the same dismal colour with his fate? 805 Of time, toil, treasure, art, for owls and adders Which prompts proud thought, and kindles high desire If, from her humble chamber in the dust, While proud thought swells, and high desire inflames 811 Draws the dark curtain close, undrawn no more. 'Undrawn no more!-behind the cloud of death, Once, I beheld a sun; a sun which gilt 815 That sable cloud, and turn'd it all to gold. How the grave's alter'd! fathomless as hell! A real hell to those who dream'd of Heaven. Next moment I may drop from thought, from sense, 821 An outcast from existence! and this spirit, This all-pervading, this all-conscious soul, This particle of energy divine, Which travels Nature, flies from star to star, 825 And visits gods, and emulates their powers, 830 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! 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, 850 Art thou ambitious? why then make the worm * In the Sixth Night. 860 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 ; 880 It never had created but to bless; 885 A monstrous wish, unborn till Virtue dies, 890 If so what words are dark enough to draw 898 All hell invited, and all hell in joy At such a birth, a birth so near of kin, 900 Did thy foul fancy whelp so black a scheme And deities begun, reduced to dust? 'There's nought (thou say'st) 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 Which, as it call'd forth all things, can recal, 910 915 920 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? 935 Nothing is dead: nay, nothing sleeps; each soul, Now wakes, is on the wing: and where, O where 941 As sounding brass, collects us round Heaven's throne How should we gasp, as in an empty void! 945 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 being lost. Lorenzo! can it be? 955 A world so far from great, (and yet how great 960 965 Lorenzo! dost thou feel these arguments? Or is there nought but vengeance can be felt ' 970 |