And laugh to scorn the fools that aim at more.
How must a spirit, late escap'd from earth,
Suppose Philander's, Lucia's, or Narcissa's,
The truth of things new-blazing in its eye,
Look back, astonish'd on the ways of men,
Whose lives' whole drift is to forget their graves!
And when our present privilege is past,

To scourge us with due sense of its abuse,

The same astonishment will seize us all.
What then must pain us would preserve us now.
Lorenzo! 'tis not yet too late. Lorenzo!
Seize wisdom, ere 'tis torment to be wise;
That is, seize Wisdom ere she seizes thee.
For what, my small Philosopher! is hell?
"Tis nothing but full knowledge of the truth,
When Truth, resisted long, is sworn our foe,
And calls eternity to do her right.

Thus darkness aiding intellectual light,
And sacred Silence whisp'ring truths divine,
And truths divine converting pain to peace,
My song the midnight raven has outwing'd,
And shot, ambitious of unbounded scenes,
Beyond the flaming limits of the world
Her gloomy flight. But what avails the flight
Of fancy, when our hearts remain below?
Virtue abounds in flatterers and foes;

'Tis pride to praise her, penance to perform.

To more than words, to more than worth of tongue, Lorenzo! rise, at this auspicious hour,

An hour when heaven's most intimate with man;

When, like a falling star, the ray divine
Glides swift into the bosom of the just;
And just are all determin❜d to reclaim,
Which sets that title high within thy reach.
Awake then; thy Philander calls: awake!
Thou, who shalt wake when the Creation sleeps {
When, like a taper, all these suns expire;
When Time, like him of Gaza in his wrath,
Plucking the pillars that support the world,
In Nature's ample ruins lies entomb'd,
And midnight, universal midnight! reigns.