صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

Supreme? Because he could no higher fly;
His riot was ambition in despair.

Old Rome consulted birds; Lorenzo! thou
With more success the flight of Hope survey;
Of restless Hope, for ever on the wing.
High perch'd o'er ev'ry thought that falcon sits.
To fly at all that rises in her sight;
And never stooping, but to mount again
Next moment, she betrays her aim's mistake,
And owns her quarry lodg'd beyond the grave.
There should it fail us, (it must fail us there,
If being fails) more mournful riddles rise,
And Virtue vies with Hope in mystery.
Why Virtue? were its praise, its being, fled?
Virtue is true self-interest pursu❜d:
What true self-interest of quite-mortal man!
To close with all that makes him happy here.
If vice (as sometimes) is our friend on earth,
Then vice is virtue; 'tis our sovʼreign good.
In self applause is virtue's golden prize?
No self-applause attends it on thy scheme.

Whence self-applause? from conscience of the right;
And what is right but means of happiness?
No means of happiness when virtue yields;
That basis failing, falls the building too,
And lays in ruin ev'ry virtuous joy.

The rigid guardian of a blameless heart,
So long rever'd, so long reputed wise,

Is weak, with rank knight-errantries o'er-run.
Why beats thy bosom with illustrious dreams
Of self-exposure, laudable and great?
Of gallant enterprise, and glorious death?
Die for thy country?-thou romantic fool!
Seize, seize the plank thyself, and let her sink.
Thy country! what to thee?-the godhead, what?
(I speak with awe!) tho' he should bid thee bleed,
If, with thy blood, thy final hope is spilt,
Nor can Omnipotence reward the blow:
Be deaf; preserve thy being; disobey.

Nor is it disobedience. Know, Lorenzo!
Whate'er th' Almighty's subsequent command,
His first command is this:-" Man, love thyself."
In this alone free agents are not free.
Existence is the basis, bliss the prize;
If virtue costs existence, 'tis a crime,
Bold violation of our law supreme,
Black suicide, tho' nations, which consult
Their gain at thy expence, resound applause,
Since virtue's recompence is doubtful here,
If man dies wholly, well may we demand
Why is man suffer'd to be good in vain?
Why to be good in vain is man enjoin'd?

[blocks in formation]

Why to be good in vain is man betray'd?
Betray'd by traitors lodg'd in his own breast,
By sweet complacencies from virtue felt?
Why whispers Nature lies on Virtue's part;
Or if blind Instinct (which assumes the name
Of sacred Conscience) plays the fool in man,
Why Reason made accomplice in the cheat?
Why are the wisest loudest in her praise?
Can man by reason's beam be led astray?
Or, at his peril, imitate his God?

Since virtue sometimes ruins us on earth,
Or both are true, or man survives the grave.
Or man survives the grave, or own, Lorenzo,
Thy boast supreme a wild absurdity.
Dauntless thy spirit, cowards are thy scorn.
Grant man immortal, and thy scorn is just.
The man immortal, rationally brave,

Dares rush on death-because he cannot die :
But if man loses all when life is lost,
He lives a coward, or a fool expires.
A daring infidel, (and such there are,
From pride, example, lucre, rage, revenge,
Or pure heroical defect of thought)

Of all earth's madmen most deserves a chain.
When to the grave we follow the renown'd

For valour, virtue, science, all we love,

And all we praise; for worth whose noontide beam,

Enabling us to think in higher style,

Mends our ideas of ethereal pow'rs,

Dream we that lustre of the moral world
Goes out in stench, and rottenness the close?
Why was he wise to know, and warm to praise,
And strenuous to transcribe, in human life,
The Mind Almighty? Could it be that Fate,
Just when the lineaments began to shine,
And dawn the Deity, should snatch the draught,
With night eternal blot it out, and give
The skies alarm, lest angels too might die?
If human souls, why not angelic too,
Extinguish'd, and a solitary God,

O'er ghastly ruin, frowning from his throne?
Shall we this moment gaze on God in man,
The next lose man for ever in the dust?
From dust we disengage, or man mistakes,
And there, where least his judgment fears a flaw,
Wisdom and worth how boldly he commends!
Wisdom and worth are sacred names; rever'd
Where not embrac'd; applauded! deify'd!
Why not compassion'd too? If spirits die,
Both are calamities, inflicted both

To make us but more wretched. Wisdom's eye
Acute, for what? to spy more miseries;

And worth so recompens'd, new points their stings.
Or man surmounts the grave, or gain is loss,
And worth exalted humbles us the more.

Thou wilt not patronize a scheme that makes
Weakness and vice the refuge of mankind.

"Has virtue then no joys?"-Yes, joys dear bought.
Talk ne'er so long, in this imperfect state
Virtue and vice are at eternal war.
Virtue's a combat; and who fights for nought,
Or for precarious, or for small reward?
Who virtue's self-reward so loud resound,
Would take degrees angelic here below,
And virtue, while they compliment, betray,
By feeble motives and unfaithful guards.
The crown, th' unfading crown, her soul inspires:
"Tis that, and that alone, can countervail
The body's treach❜ries and the worlds assaults.
On earth's poor pay our famish'd virtue dies:
Truth incontestable! in spite of all

A Bayle has preach'd, or a Voltaire believ'd.
In man the more we dive, the more we see
Heav'n's signet stamping an immortal make.
Dive to the bottom of his soul, the base
Sustaining all, what find we? knowledge, love.
As light and heat, essential to the sun,
These to the soul: and why, if souls expire?

« السابقةمتابعة »