Of strange adventure, foreign to the sun,

Where what now charms, perhaps, whate'er existe 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,

516

520

5.25

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,

536

540

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

545

550

Holds out this world, and in her right the next
Religion the sole voucher man is man ;
Supporter sole of man above himself;

555

E'en in this night of frailty, change, and death,
She gives the soul a soul that acts a god.
Religion Providence! an after state!
Here is firm footing; here is solid rock;
This can support us; all is sea besides ;
Sinks under us; bestorms, and then devours.
His hand the good man fastens on the skies,
And bids earth roll, nor feels her idle whirl.
As when a wretch, from thick polluted air,
Darkness and stench, and suffocating damps,
And dungeon horrors, by kind Fate discharged, 565
Climbs some fair eminence, where ether pure
Surrounds him, and Elysian prospects rise;
His heart exults, his spirits cast their load,
As if newborn he triumphs in the change:
So joys the soul, when from inglorious aims
And sordid sweets, from feculence and froth
Of ties terrestrial set at large, she mounts
To Reason's region, her own element,
Breathes hopes immortal, and affects the skies
Religion! thou the soul of happiness,
And, groaning Calvary! of thee: there shine
"he noblest truths; there strongest motives sting;
There sacred violence assaults the soul;
There nothing but compulsion is forborne.
Can love allure us! or can terror awe?

570

575

580

He weeps!--the falling drop puts out the Sun:
He sighs!—the sigh earth's deep foundation shakes.
If in his love so terrible, what then

His wrath inflamed? his tenderness on fire?
Like soft, smooth oil, outblazing other fires?
Can prayer, can praise, avert it ?—Thou, my all ↓
My theme! my inspiration! and my crown?
My strength in age! my rise in low estate !
My soul's ambition, pleasure, wealth!-my world!

581

My light in darkness! and my life in death!
My boast through time! bliss through eternity!
Eternity, too short to speak thy praise,

Or fathom thy profound of love to man!

To man of men the meanest, e'en to me ;

590

My sacrifice! my God!-what things are these! 595
What then art Thou? by what name shall I call thee?
Knew I the name devout archangels use,

Devout archangels should the name enjoy,
By me unrival'd; thousands more sublime,
None half so dear as that which, though unspoke, 600
Still glows at heart. O how Omnipotence
Is lost in love! thou great Philanthropist !
Father of angels! but the friend of man!
Like Jacob, fondest of the younger born!

Thou who didst save him, snatch the smoking brand
From out the flames, and quench it in thy blood! 606
How art thou pleased by bounty to distress!
To make us groan beneath our gratitude,
Too big for birth! to favour and confound;

To challenge and to distance all return!
Of lavish love stupendous heights to soar,
And leave Praise panting in the distant vale!
Thy right, too great, defrauds thee of thy due;
And sacrilegious our sublimest song!
But since the naked will obtains thy smile,
Beneath this monument of praise unpaid,
And future life symphonious to my strain,
(That noblest hymn to Heaven!) for ever lie
Entomb'd my fear of death! and every fear,
The dread of every evil, but thy frown.

610

615

620

Whom see I yonder so demurely smile?
Laughter a labour, and might break their rest.
Ye Quietists! in homage to the skies!
Serene! of soft address! who mildly make
An unobtrusive tender of your hearts,

625

Abhorring violence! who halt indeed,

But, for the blessing, wrestle not with Hoaven!

Think you my song too turbulent ? too warm?
Aro passions, then, the pagans of the soul?
Reason alone baptized? alone ordain'd

630

035

To touch things sacred? Oh, for warmer still!
Guilt chills my zeal, and age benumbs my powers.
Oh, for an humbler heart and prouder song!
Thou, my much injured Theme! with that soft eye
Which melted o'er doom'd Salem, deign to look
Compassion to the colu..ess of my breast,
And pardon to the winter in my strain.
Oh, ye cold-hearted, frozen Formalists!
On such a theme 'tis impious to be calm:
Passion is reason, transport temper here.

Shall Heaven, which gave is ardour, and has shown
Her own for man so strongly, not disdain
What smooth emollients in theology,
Recumbent Virtue's downy doctors, preach;
That prose of piety, a lukewarm praise ?
Rise odours sweet from incense uninflamed ?
Devotion when lukewarm is undevout;

But when it glows, its heat is struck to Heaven,
To human hearts her golden harps are strung;
High Heaven's orchestra chants Amen to man.
Hear I, or dream I hear, their distant. strain,
Sweet to the soul, and tasting strong of Heaven,
Soft, wafted on celestial Pity's plume,
Through the vast spaces of the universe.
To cheer me in this melancholy gloom?
Oh, when will Death (now stingless) like a friend
Admit me of their choir? Oh, when will Death
This mouldering, old, partition wall throw down?
Give beings, one in nature, one abode?
Oh, Death divine! that givest us to the skies:
Great future! glorious patron of the past
And present! when shall I thy shrine adore?
From Nature's continent, immensely wide,
Immensely bless'd, this little isle of life,
This dark incarcerating colony

615

650

655

005

And made that choice which once was but my fate
"On argument alone my faith is built,'
Reason pursued is Faith; and unpursued,
Where proof invites, 'tis reason then no more:
And such our proof, that or our Faith is right,
Or Reason lies, and Heaven designed it wrong.
Absolve we this! what then is blasphemy?—

Fond as we are, and justly fond of Faith,
Reason, we grant, demands our first regard;
The mother honour'd, as the daughter dear.
Reason the root, fair Faith is but the flower:
The fading flower shall die, but Reason lives
Immortal, as her Father in the skies!

745

750

When Faith is virtue, Reason makes it so.

Wrong not the Christian; think not Reason yours; 'Tis Reason our great Master holds so dear; "Tis Reason's injured rights his wrath resents; "Tis Reason's voice obey'd his glories crown: To give lost Reason life he pour'd his own. Believe, and show the reason of a man; Believe, and taste the pleasure of a god; Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb.

756

760

Through Reason's wounds alone thy Faith can die,
Which dying, tenfold terror gives to Death,
And dips in venom his twice mortal sting.

765

Learn hence what honours, what loud peans, due

To those who push our antidote aside;

Those boasted friends to Reason and to man,
Whose fatal love stabs every joy, and leaves

Death's terror heighten'd, gnawing on his heart. 770
These pompous sons of Reason idolized,
And vilified at once; of Reason dead,

Then deified, as monarchs were of old;

What conduct plants proud laurels on their brow? While love of truth through all their camp resound They draw Pride's curtain o'er the noontide ray, 776 Spike up their inch of reason on the point