Who long have buried what gives life to live,
Firmness of nerve, and energy of thought.
Life's lee is not more shallow than impure
And vapid: sense and reason show the door,
Call for my bier, and point me to the dust.
O thou great Arbiter of life and death!
Nature's immortal, immaterial sun!
Whose all-prolific beam late call'd me forth
From darkness, teeming darkness, where I lay
The worm's inferior; and, in rank, beneath
The dust I tread on; high to bear my brow,
To drink the spirit of the golden day,
And triumphin existence; and couldst know
No motive but my bliss; and hast ordain'd
A rise in blessing with the Patriarch's joy
Thy call I follow to the land unknown :
I trust in thee, and know in whom I trust:
Or life or death is equal; neither weighs ;
All weight in this- O let me live to thee.

Though Nature's terrors thus may be represt,
Still frowns grim death; guilt points the tyrant's

spear.

And whence all human guilt? From death forgot.
Ah me! too long I set at nought the swarm
Of friendly warnings which around me few,
And smiled unsmitten. Small my cause to smile;
Death's admonitions, like shafts upwards shot,
More dreadful by delay, the longer ere

They strike our hearts, the deeper is their wound.
O think how deep, Lorenzo! here it stings;
Who can appease its anguish ? how it burns!

What hand the barb'd, envenom'd thought can draw
What healing hand can pour the balm of peace,
And turn my sight undaunted on the tomb?

With joy,with grief, that healing hand I see ⚫
Ah! too conspicuous! it is fix'd on high.

On high what means my phrenzy! I blaspheme;
Alas! how low! how far beneath the skies!
The skies it form'd, and now it bleeds for me---
But bleeds the balm I waut---yet still it bleeds!
Draw the dire steel---al no! the dreadful blessing
What heart or can sustain, or dares forego ?
There hangs all human hope; that nail supports
The falling universe: that gone, we drop;
Horror receives us, and the dismal wish
Creation had been smother'd in her birth---
Darkness his curtain, and his bed the dust;
When stars and sun are dust beneath his throne t
In heav'n itself can such indulgence dwell?
O what a groan was there! a groan not his :
He seized our dreadful right, the load sustain'd,
And heared the mountain from a guilty world.

A thousand worlds so bought, were bought too dear;
Sensations new in angels bosoms rise,

Suspend their song, and make a pause in bliss.
O for their song to reach my lofty theme!
Inspire me, Night! with all thy tuneful spheres,
Mach rather thou who dost these spheres inspire!
Whilst I with seraphs share seraphic themes,
And show to men the dignity of man,

Lest I blaspheme my subject with my song.
Shall Pagan pages glow celestial flame,

And Christian languish? On our hearts, not heads
Falls the foul infamy. My heart, awake:
What can awake thee, unawaked by this,
Expended Deity on human weal?'

Feel the great truths which burst the tenfold night
Of heathen error, with a golden flood
Of endless day. To feel is to be fired;
And to believe, Lorenzo, is to feel.

Thou most indulgent, most tremendous Pow'r !
Still more tremendous for thy wondrous love;
That arms with awe more awful thy commands,
And foul transgression dips in sevenfold guilt;
How our hearts tremble at thy love immense !
In love immense, inviolably just!

Thou, rather than thy justice should be stain'd,
Didst stain the cross; and, work of wonders far
The greatest, that thy dearest far might bleed.

+

Bold thought! shall I dare speak it or repress?
Should man more execrate or boast the guilt
Which roused such vengeance? which such love in-
Baned?

O'er guilt (how mountainous) with outstretch'd arms
Stern Justice, and soft-smiling Love, embrace,
Supporting, in full majesty, thy throne,
When seem'd its majesty to need support,
Or that, or man, inevitably lost :

What but the fathomless of thought divine
Could labour such expedient from despair,
And rescue both? Both rescue! both exalt!
O how are both exalted by the deed!
The wondrous deed I or shall I call it more?
A wonder in Omnipotence itself!

A mystery, no less to gods than men !

Not thus our infidels th' Eternal draw,

A God all o'er consummate, absolute,

Full orb'd, in his whole round of rays complete :
They set at odds Heav'n's jarring attributes,
And with one excellence another wound

Maim heav'n's perfection, break its equal beams,
Bid mercy triumph over God himself,
Undeified by their opprobrious praise

A God all mercy is a God unjust,
D

Ye brainless wits! ye haptized infidels !
Ye worse for mending wash'd to fouler staius !
The ransom was paid down; the fund of heav'n,
Heaven's inexhaustible, exhausted fund,

:

Amazing and amazed, pour'd forth the price,
All price beyond though curious to compute,
Archangels fail'd to cast the mighty sum:
Its value vast ungrasp'd by minds create,
For ever hides and glows in the Supreme.
And was the ransom paid? It was; and paid
(What can exalt the bounty more?) for you,
The sun beheld it---No, the shocking scene
Drove back his chariot: Midnight vell'd his face;
Not such as this, not such as Nature makes:
A midnight Nature shudder'd to behold;
A midnight new! a dread eclipse (without
Opposing spheres) from her Creator's frown!
Sun didst thou By thy Maker's pain? or start
At that enormous load of human guilt

Which how'd his blessed head, o'erwhelm'd his cross.
Made groan the centre, burst earth's marble womb
With pangs, strange pangs! deliver'd of her dead?
Hell howl'd; and heav'n that hour let fall a tear:
Heav'n wept, that man might smile Heav'n bled,
that man

Might never die !-----

And is devotion virtue? 'l'is compell'd.

What heart of stone hut glows at thoughts like these
Such contemplations mount us, and should mount
The mind still higher, nor e'er glance on man
Unraptured, uninflamed. Where roll my thoughts
To rest from wonders! other wonders rise,

And strike where'er they roll: my soul is caught:
Heav'n's sov'reign blessings clust'ring from the cross,
Rush on her in a throng, and close her round
The pris'ner of amaze! In his blest life
I see the path, and in his death the price,
And in his great ascent the proof supreme
Of immortality.---And did he rise?
Hear, O ye nations! hear it, O ye dead!
He rose, he rose ! be burst the hars of death.
Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates,
And give the King of Glory to come in.
Who is the King of Glory? He who left
His throne of glory for the pangs of death.
Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates,
And give the King of Glory to come in.
Who is the King of Glory? He who slew
The ray'nous foe that gorged all human race!
The King of Glory he, whose glory fill'd
Heav'n with amazement at his love to man ;.
And with divine complacency beheld

Pow'rs most illumined wilder'd in the theme.

The theme, the joy, how then shall man sustain ?
O the burst gates! crush'd sting I demolish'd throne!
Last gasp! of vanquish'd death. Shout, earth and
heav'n,

This sum of good to man! whose nature then
Took wing, and mounted with him from the tomb.
Then, then, I rose; then first humanity
Triumphant past the crystal ports of light,
(Stupendous guest !) and seized eternal youth,

Seized in our name. E'er since 'tis blasphemous
To call man mortal. Man's mortality

Was then transferr'd to death; and heav'n's duration
Unalienably seal'd to this frail frame,

This child of dust---Man, all-immortal, hail !
Hail, Heav'n, all-lavish of strange gifts to man!
Thine all the glory, man's the boundless bliss.
Where am I wrapt by this triumphant theme,
On Christian joy's exulting wing, above
Th' Aonian mount ---Alas! small cause of joy!
What if to pain immortal? if extent
Of being, to preclude a close of woe!
Where, then, my boast of immortality?

I boast it still, though cover'd o'er with guilt;
For guilt, not innocence, his life he pour'd;
Tis guilt alone can justify his death
Not that, unless his death can justify
Relenting guilt in heav'n's indulgent sight.
If, sick of folly, I relent, he writes

My name in heav'n with that inverted spear

(A spear deep dipt in blood !) which pierced his side, And open'd there a font for all mankind,

Who strive, who combat crimes, to drink and live
This, only this, subdues the fear of death.

And what is this ?---survey the wondrous cure,
And at each step let higher wonder rise !
'Pardon for infinite offence and pardon
Through means that speak its value infinite!
A pardon bought with blood! with blood divine !
With blood divine of him I made my foe!
Persisted to provoke though wooed and awed,
Blest and chastised, a flagrant rebel still;
A rebel 'midst the thunders of his throne!
Nor I alone a rebel universe!

My species up in arms! not one exempt!
Yet for the foulest of the foul he dies!
Mostjoy'd for the redeem'd from deepest guilt!
As if our race were held of highest rank,
And Godhead dearer as more kind to man!'
Bound ev'ry heart; and ev'ry busom burn!
O what a scale of mracles is here!

Its lowest round high planted on the skies:

Its tow'ring summit lost beyond the thought
Of man or angel! O that I could climb
The wonderful ascent with equal praise !
Praise flow for ever (if astonishment

Will give thee leave) my praise; for ever flow;
Praise ardent, cordial, constant, to high heav'n
More fragrant than Arabia sacrificed,"

And all her spicy mountains in a flame.

So dear, so due to heav'n, shall praise descend
With her soft plume (from plausive angels' wing
First pluck'd by man) to tickle mortal ears,
Thus diving in the pockets of the great!

Is praise the perquisite of ev'ry paw,

Though black as hell, that grapples well for gold!
O love of gold, thou meanest of amours!

Shall praise her odours waste on virtue's dead;
Embalm the base, perfume the stench of guilt,
Earn dirty bread by washing Ethiops fair;
Removing filth, or sinking it from sight,
A scavenger in scenes, where vacant posts,
Like gibbels yet untenanted, expect

Their future ornaments? From courts and thrones
Return, apostate Praise! thou vagabond!
Thou prostitute! to thy first love return;
Thy first, thy greatest, once unrivall'd theme.
There flow redundant, like Meander flow,
Back to thy fountain, to that parent pow'r
Who gives the tongue to sound, the thought to soar,
The soul to be. Men homage pay to meu:
Thoughtless beneath whose dreadful eye they bow,
In mutual awe profound, of clay to clay,
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 heav'n's meridian glory but thy smile?
And shall not praise be thine, not human praise,
While heav'n'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

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

Where shall that praise begin which ne'er shall er d ?
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!

W but wisdom shines! what love! This midnight pomp,