The lot of man! how few of human race

By their own mud unmurder'd! how we wage
Self-war eternal !-Is your painful day

Of hardy conflict o'er? or are you still

Raw candidates at school? and have you those

1800

Who disaffect reversions, as with us?—

But what are we? you never heard of man,

Or earth, the bedlam of the universe!

Where Reason (undiseased with you) runs mad

And nurses Folly's children as her own,

1805

Fond of the foulest. In the sacred mount
Of Holiness, where Reason is pronounced
Infallible, and thunders like a god,

E'en there, by saints the demons are outdone;

What these think wrong, our saints refine to right; And kindly teach dull Hell her own black arts; 1811 Satan, instructed, o'er their morals smiles.

But this how strange to you, who know not man!

Has the least rumour of our race arrived?

Call'd here Elijah in his flaming car?

1815

Pass'd by you the good Enoch, on his road

To those fair fields whence Lucifer was hurl'd;

Who brush'd, perhaps, your sphere in his descent,
Stain'd your pure crystal ether, or let fall
A short eclipse from his portentous shade?

1820

O that the fiend had lodged on some broad orb
Athwart his way; nor reach'd his present home,
Then blacken'd earth, with footsteps foul'd in Hell,
Nor wash'd in ocean, as from Rome he pass'd
To Britain's isle; too, too conspicuous there.'
But this is all digression: where is He
That o'er Heaven's battlements the felon hurl'd

1825

To groans, and chains, and darkness? where is He
Who sees Creation's summit in a vale?

He whom, wnile man is man, he can't but seek, 1830

And if he finds, commences more than man?

O for a telescope his throne to reach!

Tell me, ye learn'd on earth' or bless'd above!

Ye searching, ye Newtonian angels! tell

Where your Great Master's orb! his planets where ?
Those conscious satellites, those morning stars, 1836
First-born of Deity! from central love,

By veneration most profound, thrown off;
By sweet attraction no less strongly drawn;

Awed, and yet raptured; raptured, yet serene;

Past thought illustrious, but with borrow'd beams;
In still approaching circles still remote,
Revolving round the Sun's eternal Sire?
Or sent, in lines direct, on embassies
To nations-in what latitude ?-beyond
Terrestrial thought's horizon!—and on what
High errands sent ?-Here human effort ends,
And leaves me still a stranger to his throne.

Full well it might! I quite mistook my road;
Born in an age more curious than devout,
More fond to fix the place of heaven or hell,
Than studious this to shun, or that secure.
'Tis not the curious, but the pious, path
That leads me to my point. Lorenzo! know,
Without or star or angel for their guide,
Who worship God shall find him. Humble Lovo,
And not proud Reason, keeps the door of heaven;
Love finds admission where proud Science fails.
Man's scic.ice is the culture of his heart,
And not to lose his plummet in the depths

Of Nature, or the more profound of God:
Either to know, is an attempt that sets
The wisest on a level with the fool.
To fathom Nature (ill attempted here!)
Past doubt, is deep philosophy above;
Higher degrees in bliss archangels take,
As deeper learn'd, the deepest learning still.
For what a thunder of Omnipotence
(So might I dare to speak) is seen in all !
In man! in earth! in more amazing skies!
Teaching this lesson Pride is loath to learn-

1840

1845

1850

1853

1860

1865

1870

'Not deeply to discern, not much to know, Mankind was born to wonder and adore!'

And is there cause for higher wonder still

Than that which struck us from our past surveys ?— Yes; and for deeper adoration too.

1876

From my late airy travel unconfined,

Have I learn'd nothing?—Yes, Lorenzo! this:

Each of these stars is a religious house;

I saw their altars smoke, their incense rise,

1880

Beneath his genial ray; and, if escaped

The pestilential blasts of stubborn will,

When grown mature, are gather'd for the skies. 1890
And is devotion thought too much on earth,

When beings, so superior, homage boast,
And triumph in prostrations to the throne?

But wherefore more of planets or of stars?

Ethereal journeys, and, discover'd there,
Ten thousand worlds, ten thousand ways devout,

1895

All Nature sending incense to the throne,
Except the bold Lorenzos of our sphere!
Opening the solemn sources of my soul,
Since I have pour'd, like feign'd Eridanus,
My flowing numbers o'er the flaming skies,
Nor see of fancy or of fact what more
Invites the Muse-here turn we, and review
Our pass'd nocturnal landscape wide; then say,
Say, then, Lorenzo! with what burst of heart,
The whole, at once, revolving in his thought,
Must man exclaim, adoring and aghast?

1900

1905

what a root! O what a branch, is here!

O what a Father! what a family!

Worlds! systems! and creations!—and creations, 1910
In one agglomerated cluster, hung,

Great Vine!* on thee; on thec the cluster hangs,
The filial cluster! infinitely spread

In glowing globes, with various being fraught,

And drinks (nectarcous draught !) immortal life. 1915 Or, shall I say (for who can say enough?)

A constellation of ten thousand gems,

(And, O! of what dimension! of what weight!)

Set in one signet, flames on the right hand

Of Majesty divine! The blazing seal,

That deeply stamps, on all created mind,
Indelible, his sovereign attributes,

Omnipotence and Love! that passing bound,
And this surpassing that. Nor stop we here

1920

For want of power in God, but thought in man. 1925 E'en this acknowledged, leaves us still in debt;

If greater aught, that greater all is thine,
Dread Sire!-Accept this miniature of Thee,
And pardon an attempt from mortal thought,

In which archangels might have fail'd, unblamed.'
How such ideas of the' Almighty's power,

1931

And such ideas of the' Almighty's plan, (Ideas not absurd) distend the thought

Of feeble mortals! nor of them alone!

The fulness of the Deity breaks forth
In inconceivables, to men and gods.

1935

Think, then, O think, nor ever drop the thought
How low must man descend when gods adore!
Have I not, then, accomplish'd my proud boast ?
Did I not tell thee 'We would mount, Lorenzo! 1940
And kindle our devotion at the stars?'

And have I fail'd? and did I flatter thee?

An art all adamant? and dost confute,

All urged, with one irrefragable smile ?
Lorenzo mirth how miserable here!

1945

Swear by the stars, by Him who made them, swear,

* John xv. 1.

Thy heart, henceforth, shall be as pure as they;
Then thou, like them, shalt shine: like them, shalt rise
From low to lofty, from obscure to bright,

By due gradation, Nature's sacred law.

1350

The stars from whence?-ask Chaos-he can tell.

Those bright temptations to idolatry

From darkness and confusion took their birth;
Sons of deformity! from fluid dregs
Tartarean, first they rose to masses rude,
And then to spheres opaque; then dimly shone,
Then brighten'd; then blazed out in perfect day
Nature delights in progress, in advance

1955

From worse to better; but when minds ascend,
Progress, in part, depends upon themselves.
Heaven aids exertion: greater makes the great;
The voluntary little lessens more.

O be a man! and thou shalt be a god!

1960

And half self-made !-ambition how divine!

O thou, ambitious of disgrace alone!

1965

Still undevout? unkindled?--though high taught,

School'd by the skies, and pupil of the stars,
Rank coward to the fashionable world!
Art thou ashamed to bend thy knee to Heaven?
Cursed fume of pride, exhaled from deepest hell!
Pride in religion is man's highest praise.
Bent on destruction! and in love with death!
Not all these luminaries, quench'd at once,

Were half so sad as one benighted mind,

1971

Which gropes for happiness, and meets despair. 1975
How like a widow in her weeds, the Night,

Amid her glimmering tapers, silent sits!
How sorrowful, how desolate, she weeps
Perpetual dews, and saddens Nature's scene!

A scene more sad Sin makes the darken'd soul, 1980
All comfort kills, nor leaves one spark alive.
Though blind of heart, still open is thine eye.
Why such magnificence in all thou seest?
Of matter's grandeur, know one end is this,