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Why this illustrious canopy display'd?

Why so magnificently lodged, Despair?
At stated periods, sure-returning, roll

These glorious orbs, that mortals may compute
Their length of labours and of pains, nor lose

790

Their misery's full measure?-Smiles with flowers
And fruits, promiscuous, ever teeming earth,
That man may languish in luxurious scenes,
And in an Eden mourn his wither'd joys?
Claim earth and skies man's admiration, due
For such delights? bless'd animals! too wise
To wonder, and too happy to complain !

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
As congruous as for man this lofty dome,

Which prompts proud thought, and kindles high desire If, from her humble chamber in the dust,

While proud thought swells, and high desire inflames
The poor worm calls us for her inmates there,
And round us Death's inexorable hand

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.
Annihilation! how it yawns before me;

Next moment I may drop from thought, from sense,
The privilege of angels and of worms,

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,
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
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,

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!
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,
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.

850

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,
They lately proved,* thy soul's supreme desire !
What art thou made of? rather, how unmade?

* 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;
And shall it then strike off the list of life
A being bless'd, or worthy so iu be?
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.
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,

885

A monstrous wish, unborn till Virtue dies,
And, oh! what depth of horror lies enclosed '
For nonexistence no man ever wish'd,
But first he wish'd the Deity destroy'd.

890

If so what words are dark enough to draw
Thy picture true the darkest are too fair.
Beneath what baleful planet, in what hour
Uf desperation, by what fury's aid,
In what infernal posture of the soul,

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
Of hopes abortive, faculties half-blown,

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
Can rest from terror, dare his fate survey,
And boldly think it something to be born?
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?
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,

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,
That ever animated human clay,

Now wakes, is on the wing: and where, O where
Will the swarm settle?-When the trumpet's call,

941

As sounding brass, collects us round Heaven's throne
Conglobed, we bask in everlasting day,
(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!
How in the pangs of famish'd hope expire!

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 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?
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.

955

A world so far from great, (and yet how great
It shines to thee !) there's nothing real in it;
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,
Midst upper, nether, and surrounding night,
His sad, sure, sudden, and eternal tomb!

960

965

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

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