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!

285

Great end! and great beginning! say, where art thou? Art thou in time, or in eternity?

Nor in eternity nor time I find thee:

291

295

These, as two monarchs, on their borders meet,
(Monarchs of all elapsed or unarrived!)
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'd
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!

300

Roused at one call, upstarted from one bed,

Fress'd in one crowd, appall'd with one amaze

305

He turns them o'er, Eternity! to thee:

Then (as a king deposed 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 310

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!

315

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.

320

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,

325

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 the' event

Of that great drama, whose preceding scenes

330

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 pass'd,
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.

335

340

Down, down she hurls it through the dark profound, Ten thousand thousand fathom, there to rust,

And ne'er unlock her resolution more.

The deep resounds, and hell, through all her glooms,

Returns, in groans, the melancholy roar.

350

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 closed!
To see the mighty Dramatist's last act
(As meet) in glory rising o'er the rest.

355

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 worlás celestial, is there found on earth

A peevish, dissonant, rebellious string,

360

365

Which jars in the grand chorus, and complains? 370
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, resumed the friends He gave ?
And have I been complaining, then, so long?
Complaining of his favours, 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;

375

And second death to guard immortal life ;

381

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

385

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 act, or judgment, is the scurce
Of endless sighs. We sin, or we mistake;
And Nature tax, when false opinion stings.

390

395

Let impious grief be Danish'd, joy indulged ;

But chiefly then, when Grief puts in her claim.
Joy from the joyous frequently betrays,

Oft lives in vanity, and dies in woe.

400

Joy amidst ills, corroborates, exalts;

"Tis joy and conquest; joy and virtue too.

A noble fortitude in ills delights

Heaven, earth, ourselves; 'tis duty, glory, peace!

Affliction is the good man's shining scene,

405

Prosperity conceals his brightest ray.

As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.
Heroes in battle, pilots in the storm,

And virtue in calamities, admire.

The crown of manhood is a winter joy ;

410

An evergreen that stands the northern blast,

And blossoms in the rigour of our fate.

"Tis a prime part of happiness, to know How much unhappiness must prove our lot; A part which few possess! I'll pay life's tax, Without one rebel murmur, from this hour, Nor think it misery to be a man;

Who thinks it is, shall never be a god.

Some ills we wish for, when we wish to live.

415

What spoke proud Passion?- Wish my being lost?"* Presumptuous! blasphemous! absurd! and false ! 421 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

425

New ages, where this phantom of an hour,

Which courts, each night, dull slumber for repair,

Shall wake, and wonder, and exult, and praise,

430

And fly through infinite, and all unlock;

And (if deserved) by Heaven's redundant love,
Made half-adorable itself, adore;

*Referring to the First Night

And find, in adoration, endless joy!

Where thou, not master of a moment here,

435

Frail as the flower, and fleeting as the gale,

Mayst boast a whole eternity, enrich'd

With all a kind Omnipotence can pour.

Since Adam fell, no mortal uninspired
Has ever yet conceived, or ever shall,

How kind is God, how great (if good) is man.

440

No man too largely from Heaven's love can hope,
If what is hoped he labours to secure.

[Thee,

Ills there are none: All gracious! none from From man full many! Numerous is the race

445

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,

Fast barr'd by thine; high-wall'd with adamant, 450 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;

455

If unreveal'd, more dangerous, nor less sure.
Thus an indulgent father warns his sons,
'Do this, fly that ;'-nor always tells the cause;
Pleased to reward, as duty to his will,

460

A conduct needful to their own repose.

Great God of wonders! (if, thy love survey'd,

Aught else the name of wonderful retains)

What rocks are these on which to build our trust!
Thy ways admit no blemish; none I find;
Or this alone,-That none is to be found :

Not one,

to soften Censure's hardy crime;

Not one, to palliate peevish Grief's complaint,

Who, like a demon, murmuring from the dust,

465

Dares into judgment call her judge.-Supreme! 470 For all I bless Thee; most for the severe ;