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Back to the fountain, to that parent Power

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Who gives the tongue to sound, the thought to soar,
The soul to be. Men homage pay to men,
Thoughtless beneath whose dreadful eye they bow,
In mutual awe profound, of clay to clay,
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Of guilt to guilt, and turn their backs on thee,
Great Sire! whom thrones celestial ceaseless sing;
To prostrate angels an amazing scene!
O the presumption of man's awe for man!-
Man's Author! End! Restorer! Law and Judge!
Thine all! Day thine, and thine this gloom of Night,
With all her wealth, with all her radiant worlds.
What night eternal, but a frown from thee?
What Heaven's meridian glory, but thy smile?
And shall not praise be thine, not human praise,
While Heaven's high host on hallelujahs live?
O may I breathe no longer than I breathe
My soul in praise to Him who gave my soul;
And all her infinite of prospect fair,

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Cut through the shades of hell, great Love! by thee, Oh most adorable! most unadored!

Where shall that praise begin, which ne'er should end? Where'er I turn, what claim on all applause!

How is Night's sable mantle labour'd o'er,

How richly wrought with attributes divine!

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What wisdom shines; what love! This midnight pomp,

This gorgeous arch, with golden worlds inlaid!
Built with divine ambition! nought to thee;
For others this profusion. Thou apart,
Above! beyond! Oh! tell me, mighty Mind!
Where art thou? Shall I dive into the deep?
Call to the Sun? or ask the roaring winds
For their Creator! shall I question loud
The thunder, if in that the' Almighty dwells?
Or holds He furious storms in straiten'd reins,

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And bids fierce whirlwinds wheel his rapid car?

What mean these questions ?--Trembling ] retract; My prostrate soul adores the present God!

Praise I a distant Deity? He tunes

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My voice (if tuned ;) the nerve that writes sustains:
Wrapp'd in his being I resound his praise :

But though past all diffused, without a shore
His essence, local is his throne (as meet)

To gather the dispersed (as standards call
'The listed from afar ;) to fix a point,
A central point, collective of his sons;

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Since finite every nature but his own.

The nameless He, whose nod is Nature's birth,
And Nature's shield the shadow of his hand;
Her dissolution his suspended smile!
The great First-Last! pavilion'd high he sits
In darkness, from excessive splendour born,
By gods unseen, unless through lustre lost.
His glory, to created glory, bright,

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As that to central horrors he looks down

On all that soars, and spans immensity.

Boundless Creation! what art thou? a beam,

Though night unnumber'd worlds unfolds to view,

A mere effluvium of his majesty.

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And shall an atom of this atom world

Mutter, in dust and sin, the theme of Heaven?

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Down to the centre should I send my thought,
Through beds of glittering ore and glowing gems;
Their beggar'd blaze wants lustre for my lay;
Goes out in darkness: if, on towering wing,
I send it through the boundless vault of stars!
The stars, though rich, what dross their gold to thee,
Great! good! wise! wonderful! eternal King!
If to those conscious stars thy throne around,
Praise ever pouring, and imbibing bliss,

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And ask their strain: they want it, more they want.

Poor their abundance, humble their sublime,

Languid their energy, their ardour cold;

Indebted still, their highest rapture burns,

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Short of its mark, defective though divine!

Still more this theme is man's, and man's alone;

Their vast appointments reach it not; they see
On earth a bounty not indulged on high,

And downward look for Heaven's superior praise! 440
Firstborn of Ether! high in fields of Light!

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View man, to see the glory of
your God!
Could angels envy, they had envied here:
And some did envy; and the rest, though goda,
Yet still gods unredeem'd (there triumphs man,
Tempted to weigh the dust against the skies,)
They less would feel, though more adorn my theme.
They sung Creation (for in that they shared ;)
How rose in melody that child of love!
Creation's great superior, man! is thine;
Thine is Redemption! they just gave the key;
"Tis thine to raise and eternize the song,
Though human, yet divine; for should not this
Raise man o'er man, and kindle seraphs here?
Redemption! 'twas Creation more sublime;
Redemption! 'twas the labour of the skies;
Far more than labour-it was death in Heaven!
A truth so strange, 'twere bold to think it true,
If not far bolder still to disbelieve.

?

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Here pause and ponder. Was there death in Heaven? What then on earth on earth, which struck the blow? Who struck it? Who-O how is man enlarged, Seen through this medium! How the pigmy towers! How counterpoised his origin from dust! How counterpoised, to dust his sad return! How voided his vast distance from the skies!

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How near he presses on the seraph's wing!
Which is the seraph? which the born of clay?
How this demonstrates, through the thickest cloud
Of guilt and clay condensed, the Son of Heaven' 470
The double Son; the made, and the remade!
And shall Heaven's double property be lost —
Man's double madness only can destroy.
To man the bleeding Cross has promised all;
The bleeding Cross has sworn eternal grace.

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Who gave his life, what grace shall He deny?
O ye! who from this rock of ages leap
Apostates, plunging headlong in the deep!
What cordial joy, what consolation strong,
Whatever winds arise, or billows roll,
Our interest in the Master of the storm!
Cling there, and in wreck'd Nature's ruins smile;
While vile apostates tremble in a calm.

Man! know thyself: all wisdom centres there
To none man seems ignoble, but to man.
Angels that grandeur, men o'erlook, admire.
How long shall human nature be their book,
Degenerate mortal! and unread by thee?
The beam dim Reason sheds shows wonders there;
What high contents! illustrious faculties!

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But the grand comment, which displays at full

Our human height, scarce sever'd from divine,

By Heaven composed, was publish'd on the Cross.
Who looks on that, and sees not in himself

An awful stranger, a terrestrial god?
A glorious partner with the Deity
In that high attribute, immortal life?

If a God bleeds, he bleeds not for a worm.

I gaze, and, as I gaze, my mounting soul
Catches strange fire, Eternity! at thee,

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And drops the world—or, rather, more enjoys.

How changed the face of Nature! how improved!

What seem'd a chaos, shines a glorious world;

Or what a world, an Eden; heighten'd all'

It is another scene! another self!

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And still another, as time rolls along,

And that a self far more illustrious still.
Beyond long ages, yet roll'd up in shades
Unpierced by bold Conjecture's keenest ray,
What evolutions of surprising Fate!

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How Nature opens, and receives my soul,

In boundless walks of raptured thought! where gods

Encounter and embrace me What new birth

Of strange adventure, foreign to the sun,

Where what now charms, perhaps, whate'er exists
Old Time and fair Creation, are forgot.

Is this extravagant? of man we form
Extravagant conception, to be just :

Conception unconfined wants wings to reach him;
Beyond its reach the Godhead only more.
He, the great Father! kindled at one flame
The world of rationals: one spirit pour'd
From spirits' awful Fountain; pour'd Himself
Through all their souls, but not in equal stream,
Profuse, or frugal, of the' inspiring God,

As his wise plan demanded; and when pass'd
Their various trials, in their various spheres,
If they continue rational, as made,

Resorbs them all into Himself again,

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His throne their centre, and his smile their crown. 530 Why doubt we, then, the glorious truth to sing, Though yet unsung, as deem'd, perhaps, too bold? Angels are men of a superior kind;

Angels are men in lighter habit clad,

High o'er celestial mountains wing'd in flight;

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And men are angels, loaded for an hour,
Who wade this miry vale, and climb with pain,
And slippery step, the bottom of the steep.
Angels their failings, mortals have their praise:
While here, of corps ethereal, such enroll'd,
And summon'd to the glorious standard soon,
Which flames eternal crimson through the skies.
Nor are our brothers thoughtless of their kin,
Yet absent; but not absent from their love.
Michael has fought our battles; Raphael sung
Our triumphs; Gabriel on our errands flown,
Sent by the Sovereign: and are these, O man!
Thy friends, thy warm allies? and thou (shame burn
The cheek to cinder!) rival to the brute?
Religion's all. Descending from the skies
To wretched man, the goddess in her left

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