The Complaint,

or Night Thoughts

on Life, Time, Friendship,

Death, and Immortality:

In Nine Nights

______________________________________________________________________________

Night VI.

The Infidel Reclaimed.

In two Parts.

Containing the nature, proof, and

importance of immortality.

____________

Part I.

Where, among other things, glory

and riches are particularly considered.

Humbly inscribed to the Right Honourable Henry Pelham,

First Lord-Commissioner of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Preface.

Few ages have been deeper in dispute about religion than this. The dispute about religion, and the practice of it, seldom go together. The shorter, therefore, the dispute, the better. I think it may be reduced to this single question, “Is man immortal, or is he not?” If he is not, all our disputes are mere amusements, or trials of skill. In this case, truth, reason, religion, which give our discourses such pomp and solemnity, are (as will be shown) mere empty sounds, without any meaning in them. But if man is immortal, it will behove him to be very serious about eternal consequences; or, in other words, to be truly religious. And this great fundamental truth unestablished, or unawakened, in the minds of men, is, I conceive, the real source and support of all our infidelity; how remote soever the particular objections advanced may seem to be from it.

Sensible appearances affect most men much more than abstract reasonings; and we daily see bodies drop around us, but the soul is invisible. The power which inclination has over the judgment, is greater than can be well conceived by those that have not had an experience of it; and of what numbers is it the sad interest, that souls should not survive! The Heathen world confessed that they rather hoped than firmly believed immortality: and how many Heathens have we still amongst us! The sacred page assures us, that life and immortality is brought to light by the gospel: but by how many is the gospel rejected or overlooked! From these considerations, and from my being, accidentally, privy to the sentiments of some particular persons, I have been long persuaded, that most, if not all, our infidels (whatever name they take, and whatever scheme, for argument's sake, and to keep themselves in countenance, they patronize) are supported in their deplorable error by some doubt of their immortality at the bottom. And I am satisfied that men, once thoroughly convinced of their immortality, are not far from being Christians. For it is hard to conceive that a man fully conscious eternal pain or happiness will certainly be his lot, should not earnestly and impartially inquire after the surest means of escaping one and securing the other. And of such an earnest and impartial inquiry I well know the consequence.

Here, therefore, in proof of this most fundamental truth, some plain arguments are offered; arguments derived from principles which infidels admit in common with believers; arguments which appear to me altogether irresistible; and such as, I am satisfied, will have great weight with all who give themselves the small trouble of looking seriously into their own bosoms, and of observing, with any tolerable degree of attention, what daily passes round about them in the world. If some arguments shall here occur which others have declined, they are submitted, with all deference, to better judgments in this, of all points the most important. For as to the being of a God, that is no longer disputed; but it is undisputed for this reason only, viz., because, where the least pretence to reason is admitted, it must for ever be indisputable. And, of consequence, no man can be betrayed into a dispute of that nature by vanity, which has a principal share in animating our modern combatants against other articles of our belief.

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She (for I know not yet her name in heaven)

Not early, like Narcissa, left the scene;

Nor sudden, like Philander. What avail?

This seeming mitigation but inflames;

5

This fancied medicine heightens the disease.

The longer known, the closer still she grew;

And gradual parting is a gradual death.

'T is the grim tyrant's engine, which extorts

By tardy pressure's still-increasing weight,

10

From hardest hearts, confession of distress.

O the long, dark approach through years of pain,

Death's gallery, (might I dare to call it so,)

With dismal doubt and sable terror hung;

Sick Hope's pale lamp its only glimmering ray!

15

There Fate my melancholy walk ordain'd,

Forbid Self-love itself to flatter there.

How oft I gazed, prophetically sad!

How oft I saw her dead, while yet in smiles!

In smiles she sunk her grief, to lessen mine.

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She spoke me comfort, and increased my pain.

Like powerful armies trenching at a town,

By slow and silent, but resistless, sap,

In his pale progress gently gaining ground,

Death urged his deadly siege; in spite of Art,

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Of all the balmy blessings Nature lends

To succour frail humanity. Ye stars,

(Not now first made familiar to my sight,)

And thou, O Moon, bear witness! many a night

He tore the pillow from beneath my head,

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Tied down my sore attention to the shock,

By ceaseless depredations on a life

Dearer than that he left me. Dreadful post

Of observation, darker every hour!

Less dread the day that drove me to the brink,

35

And pointed at Eternity below;

When my soul shudder'd at futurity;

When, on a moment's point, the' important die

Of life and death spun doubtful, ere it fell,

And turn'd up life; my title to more woe.

40

But why more woe? More comfort let it be.

Nothing is dead but that which wish'd to die;

Nothing is dead but wretchedness and pain;

Nothing is dead but what encumber'd, gall'd,

Block'd up the pass, and barr'd from real life.

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Where dwells that wish most ardent of the wise?

Too dark the sun to see it; highest stars

Too low to reach it; Death, great Death alone,

O'er stars and sun triumphant, lands us there.

Nor dreadful our transition; though the mind,

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An artist at creating self-alarms,

Rich in expedients for inquietude,

Is prone to paint it dreadful. Who can take

Death's portrait true? The tyrant never sat.

Our sketch all random strokes, conjecture all;

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Close shuts the Grave, nor tells one single tale.

Death, and his image rising in the brain,

Bear faint resemblance; never are alike:

Fear shakes the pencil; Fancy loves excess;

Dark Ignorance is lavish of her shades:

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And these the formidable picture draw.

But grant the worst; 't is past; new prospects rise,

And drop a veil eternal o'er her tomb.

Far other views our contemplation claim;

Views that o'erpay the rigours of our life,

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Views that suspend our agonies in death.

Wrapt in the thought of immortality,

Wrapt in the single, the triumphant thought,

Long life might lapse, age unperceived come on,

And find the soul unsated with her theme.

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Its nature, proof, importance, fire my song.

O that my song could emulate my soul!

Like her, immortal. No!—the soul disdains

A mark so mean; far nobler hope inflames;

If endless ages can outweigh an hour,

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Let not the laurel, but the palm, inspire.

Thy nature, Immortality, who knows?

And yet who knows it not? It is but life

In stronger thread of brighter colour spun,

And spun for ever; dipp'd by cruel Fate

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In Stygian dye, how black, how brittle here!

How short our correspondence with the sun,

And, while it lasts, inglorious! Our best deeds,

How wanting in their weight! Our highest joys,

Small cordials to support us in our pain,

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And give us strength to suffer. But how great

To mingle interests, converse, amities,

With all the sons of Reason, scatter'd wide

Through habitable space, wherever born,

Howe'er endow'd; to live free citizens

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Of universal nature; to lay hold,

By more than feeble faith, on the Supreme!

To call Heaven's rich unfathomable mines

(Mines which support archangels in their state)

Our own! to rise in science as in bliss,

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Initiate in the secrets of the skies!

To read Creation, read its mighty plan

In the bare bosom of the Deity!

The plan and execution to collate!

To see, before each glance of piercing thought,

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All cloud, all shadow, blown remote, and leave

No mystery—but that of love Divine,

Which lifts us on the seraph's flaming wing,

From earth's Aceldama, this field of blood,

Of inward anguish, and of outward ill,

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From darkness and from dust, to such a scene;

Love's element, true joy's illustrious home,

From earth's sad contrast (now deplored) more fair!

What exquisite vicissitude of fate!

Bless'd absolution of our blackest hour!

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Lorenzo, these are thoughts that make man Man,

The wise illumine, aggrandize the great.

How great, (while yet we tread the kindred clod,

And every moment fear to sink beneath

The clod we tread, soon trodden by our sons,)

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How great, in the wild whirl of Time's pursuits,

To stop, and pause; involved in high presage,

Through the long vista of a thousand years,

To stand contemplating our distant selves,

As in a magnifying mirror seen,

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Enlarged, ennobled, elevate, Divine!

To prophesy our own futurities,

To gaze in thought on what all thought transcends!

To talk, with fellow-candidates, of joys

As far beyond conception as desert,

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Ourselves the' astonish'd talkers, and the tale!

Lorenzo, swells thy bosom at the thought?

The swell becomes thee; 't is an honest pride.

Revere thyself,—and yet thyself despise.

His nature no man can o'er-rate, and none

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Can under-rate his merit. Take good heed,

Nor there be modest where thou shouldst be proud;

That almost universal error shun.

How just our pride, when we behold those heights!

Not those Ambition paints in air, but those

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Reason points out, and ardent Virtue gains,

And angels emulate. Our pride, how just!

When mount we? when these shackles cast? when quit

This cell of the creation? this small nest,

Stuck in a corner of the universe,

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Wrapp'd up in fleecy cloud and fine-spun air?

Fine-spun to sense, but gross and feculent

To souls celestial; souls ordain'd to breathe

Ambrosial gales, and drink a purer sky;

Greatly triumphant on Time's farther shore,

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Where Virtue reigns, enrich'd with full arrears,

While Pomp imperial begs an alms of Peace.

In empire high, or in proud science deep,

Ye born of earth, on what can you confer,

With half the dignity, with half the gain,

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The gust, the glow of rational delight,

As on this theme, which angels praise and share?

Man's fates and favours are a theme in heaven.

What wretched repetition cloys us here!

What periodic potions for the sick,

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Distemper'd bodies, and distemper'd minds!

In an eternity what scenes shall strike,

Adventures thicken, novelties surprise!

What webs of wonder shall unravel there!

What full day pour on all the paths of Heaven,

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And light the' Almighty's footsteps in the deep!

How shall the blessed day of our discharge

Unwind, at once, the labyrinths of Fate,

And straighten its inextricable maze!

If inextinguishable thirst in man

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To know, how rich, how full, our banquet there!

There, not the moral world alone unfolds;

The world material, lately seen in shades,

And in those shades by fragments only seen,

And seen those fragments by the labouring eye,

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Unbroken, then, illustrious and entire,

Its ample sphere, its universal frame,

In full dimensions, swells to the survey,

And enters, at one glance, the ravish'd sight.

From some superior point, (where, who can tell?

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Suffice it, 't is a point where gods reside,)

How shall the stranger man's illumined eye,

In the vast ocean of unbounded space,

Behold an infinite of floating worlds

Divide the crystal waves of ether pure,

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In endless voyage, without port! The least

Of these disseminated orbs, how great!

Great as they are, what numbers these surpass,

Huge as Leviathan to that small race,

Those twinkling multitudes of little life,

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He swallows unperceived! Stupendous these!

Yet what are these stupendous to the whole?

As particles, as atoms ill-perceived;

As circulating globules in our veins;

So vast the plan. Fecundity Divine!

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Exuberant Source! perhaps I wrong thee still.

If admiration is a source of joy,

What transport hence! yet this the least in heaven.

What this to that illustrious robe He wears

Who toss'd this mass of wonders from His hand,

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A specimen, an earnest of His power?

Tis to that glory, whence all glory flows,

As the mead's meanest floweret to the sun

Which gave it birth. But what this Sun of heaven?

This bliss supreme of the supremely bless'd?

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Death, only Death, the question can resolve.

By Death, cheap-bought the' ideas of our joy;

The bare ideas! solid happiness

So distant from its shadow chased below.

And chase we still the phantom through the fire,

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O'er bog, and brake, and precipice, till death?

And toil we still for sublunary pay,

Defy the dangers of the field and flood?

Or, spider-like, spin out our precious all,

Our more than vitals spin (if no regard

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To great futurity) in curious webs

Of subtle thought, and exquisite design,

(Fine net-work of the brain!) to catch a fly,

The momentary buzz of vain renown,

A name, a mortal immortality?

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Or, (meaner still,) instead of grasping air,

For sordid lucre plunge we in the mire?

Drudge, sweat, through every shame, for every gain,

For vile contaminating trash; throw up

Our hope in heaven, our dignity with man,

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And deify the dirt, matured to gold?

Ambition, Avarice! the two demons these,

Which goad through every slough our human herd,

Hard travell'd from the cradle to the grave.

How low the wretches stoop! how steep they climb!

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These demons burn mankind; but most possess

Lorenzo's bosom, and turn out the skies.

Is it in Time to hide Eternity?

And why not in an atom on the shore

To cover ocean? or a mote, the sun?

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Glory and wealth! have they this blinding power?

What, if to them I prove Lorenzo blind?

Would it surprise thee? Be thou then surprised:

Thou neither know'st: their nature learn from me.

Mark well, as foreign as these subjects seem,

235

What close connexion ties them to my theme.

First, what is true ambition? The pursuit

Of glory, nothing less than man can share.

Were they as vain as gaudy-minded man,

As flatulent with fumes of self-applause,

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Their arts and conquests animals might boast,

And claim their laurel crowns as well as we;

But not celestial. Here we stand alone;

As in our form, distinct, pre-eminent:

If prone in thought, our stature is our shame,

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And man should blush his forehead meets the skies.

The Visible and Present are for brutes,

A slender portion, and a narrow bound!

These Reason, with an energy Divine,

O'erleaps, and claims the Future and Unseen;

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The vast Unseen, the Future fathomless!

When the great soul buoys up to this high point,

Leaving gross Nature's sediments below,

Then, and then only, Adam's offspring quits

The sage and hero of the fields and woods,

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Asserts his rank, and rises into man.

This is ambition: this is human fire.

Can Parts or Place (two bold pretenders!) make

Lorenzo great, and pluck him from the throng?

Genius and Art, Ambition's boasted wings,

260

Our boast but ill deserve. A feeble aid!

Daedalian engin'ry! if these alone

Assist our flight, Fame's flight is Glory's fall.

Heart-merit wanting, mount we ne'er so high,

Our height is but the gibbet of our name.

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A celebrated wretch when I behold,

When I behold a genius bright and base,

Of towering talents, and terrestrial aims;

Methinks I see, as thrown from her high sphere,

The glorious fragments of a soul immortal,

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With rubbish mix'd, and glittering in the dust.

Struck at the splendid, melancholy sight

At once compassion soft, and envy, rise—

But wherefore envy? Talents angel-bright,

If wanting worth, are shining instruments

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In false Ambition's hand, to finish faults

Illustrious, and give Infamy renown.

Great ill is an achievement of great powers:

Plain Sense but rarely leads us far astray.

Reason the means, Affections choose our end;

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Means have no merit, if our end amiss.

If wrong our hearts, our heads are right in vain;

What is a Pelham's head to Pelham's heart?

Hearts are proprietors of all applause.

Right ends and means make wisdom; worldly-wise

285

Is but half-witted, at its highest praise.

Let Genius then despair to make thee great;

Nor flatter Station. What is Station high?

Tis a proud mendicant; it boasts, and begs;

It begs an alms of homage from the throng,

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And oft the throng denies its charity.

Monarchs and ministers are awful names;

Whoever wear them, challenge our devoir.

Religion, public order, both exact

External homage, and a supple knee,

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To beings pompously set up, to serve

The meanest slave: all more is Merit's due,

Her sacred and inviolable right;

Nor ever paid the monarch, but the man.

Our hearts ne'er bow but to superior worth,

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Nor ever fail of their allegiance there.

Fools, indeed, drop the man in their account,

And vote the mantle into majesty.

Let the small savage boast his silver fur;

His royal robe unborrow'd and unbought,

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His own, descending fairly from his sires.

Shall man be proud to wear his livery,

And souls in ermine scorn a soul without?

Can place or lessen us or aggrandize?

Pigmies are pigmies still, though perch'd on Alps;

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And pyramids are pyramids in vales.

Each man makes his own stature, builds himself:

Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids;

Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall.

Of these sure truths dost thou demand the cause?

315

The cause is lodged in immortality.

Hear, and assent. Thy bosom burns for power;

What station charms thee? I'll install thee there;

'T is thine. And art thou greater than before?

Then thou before wast something less than man.

320

Has thy new post betray'd thee into pride?

That treacherous pride betrays thy dignity;

That pride defames humanity, and calls

The being mean which staffs or strings can raise.

That pride, like hooded hawks, in darkness soars,

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From blindness bold, and towering to the skies.

'T is born of Ignorance, which knows not man

An angel's second; nor his second long.

A Nero, quitting his imperial throne,

And courting glory from the tinkling string,

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But faintly shadows an immortal soul,

With empire's self, to pride or rapture fired.

If nobler motives minister no cure,

E'en Vanity forbids thee to be vain.

High worth is elevated place: 't is more;

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It makes the post stand candidate for thee;

Makes more than monarchs, makes an honest man;

Though no exchequer it commands, 't is wealth;

And though it wears no riband, 't is renown;

Renown, that would not quit thee, though disgraced,

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Nor leave thee pendent on a master's smile.

Other ambition Nature interdicts;

Nature proclaims it most absurd in man,

By pointing at his origin and end;

Milk and a swathe, at first, his whole demand;

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His whole domain, at last, a turf or stone;

To whom, between, a world may seem too small.

Souls truly great dart forward, on the wing

Of just Ambition, to the grand result,

The curtain's fall; there see the buskin'd chief

350

Unshod behind this momentary scene,

Reduced to his own stature, low or high,

As vice, or virtue, sinks him, or sublimes;

And laugh at this fantastic mummery,

This antic prelude of grotesque events,

355

Where dwarfs are often stilted, and betray

A littleness of soul by worlds o'er-run,

And nations laid in blood. Dread sacrifice

To Christian pride! which had with horror shock'd

The darkest Pagans, offer'd to their gods.

360

O thou most Christian enemy to peace!

Again in arms? again provoking Fate?

That prince, and that alone, is truly great,

Who draws the sword reluctant, gladly sheathes;

On empire builds what empire far outweighs,

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And makes his throne a scaffold to the skies.

Why this so rare? Because forgot of all

The day of death; that venerable day,

Which sits as judge; that day which shall pronounce

On all our days, absolve them or condemn.

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Lorenzo, never shut thy thought against it;

Be levees ne'er so full, afford it room,

And give it audience in the cabinet.

That friend consulted (flatteries apart)

Will tell thee fair if thou art great or mean.

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To dote on aught may leave us, or be left,—

Is that ambition? Then let flames descend,

Point to the centre their inverted spires,

And learn humiliation from a soul

Which boasts her lineage from celestial fire.

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Yet these are they the world pronounces wise;

The world which cancels Nature's right and wrong,

And casts new wisdom: e'en the grave man lends

His solemn face to countenance the coin.

Wisdom for parts is madness for the whole.

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This stamps the paradox, and gives us leave

To call the wisest weak, the richest poor,

The most ambitious unambitious, mean;

In triumph mean, and abject on a throne.

Nothing can make it less than mad in man,

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To put forth all his ardour, all his art,

And give his soul her full unbounded flight,

But reaching Him who gave her wings to fly.

When blind Ambition quite mistakes her road,

And downward pores for that which shines above,

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Substantial happiness, and true renown;

Then, like an idiot, gazing on the brook,

We leap at stars, and fasten in the mud;

At glory grasp, and sink in infamy.

Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!

400

Thy strength in man, like length of wing in birds,

When disengaged from earth, with greater ease

And swifter flight, transports us to the skies:

By toys entangled, or in guilt bemired,

It turns a curse; it is our chain and scourge

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In this dark dungeon, where confined we lie,

Close-grated by the sordid bars of sense;

All prospect of eternity shut out;

And, but for execution, ne'er set free.

With error in ambition justly charged,

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Find we Lorenzo wiser in his wealth?

What, if thy rental I reform, and draw

An inventory new to set thee right?

Where thy true treasure? Gold says, “Not in me;”

And, “Not in me,” the diamond. Gold is poor;

415

India's insolvent: seek it in thyself;

Seek in thy naked self, and find it there;

In being so descended, form'd, endow'd;

Sky-born, sky-guided, sky-returning race!

Erect, immortal, rational, Divine!

420

In senses, which inherit earth and heavens;

Enjoy the various riches Nature yields;

Far nobler! give the riches they enjoy;

Give taste to fruits, and harmony to groves,

Their radiant beams to gold, and gold's bright sire;

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Take-in, at once, the landscape of the world,

At a small inlet, which a grain might close,

And half-create the wondrous world they see.

Our senses, as our reason, are Divine.

But for the magic organ's powerful charm,

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Earth were a rude, uncolour'd chaos still.

Objects are but the' occasion: ours the' exploit;

Ours is the cloth, the pencil, and the paint,

Which Nature's admirable picture draws,

And beautifies Creation's ample dome.

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Like Milton's Eve, when gazing on the lake,

Man makes the matchless image man admires.

Say then, shall man, his thoughts all sent abroad,

(Superior wonders in himself forgot,)

His admiration waste on objects round,

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When Heaven makes him the soul of all he sees?

Absurd, not rare! so great, so mean, is man!

What wealth in senses such as these! What wealth

In Fancy fired to form a fairer scene

Than Sense surveys! in Memory's firm record!

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Which, should it perish, could this world recall

From the dark shadows of o'erwhelming years,

In colours fresh, originally bright,

Preserve its portrait, and report its fate!

What wealth in Intellect, that sovereign power,

450

Which Sense and Fancy summons to the bar;

Interrogates, approves, or reprehends;

And from the mass those underlings import,

From their materials sifted, and refined,

And in Truth's balance accurately weigh'd,

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Forms art and science, government and law;

The solid basis and the beauteous frame,

The vitals and the grace, of civil life;

And, manners (sad exception!) set aside,

Strikes out, with master-hand, a copy fair

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Of His idea, whose indulgent thought,

Long, long ere Chaos teem'd, plann'd human bliss!

What wealth in souls that soar, dive, range around,

Disdaining limit or from place or time:

And hear at once, in thought extensive, hear

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The' Almighty fiat, and the trumpet's sound!

Bold on Creation's outside walk, and view

What was, and is, and more than e'er shall be;

Commanding, with omnipotence of thought,

Creations new in Fancy's field to rise!

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Souls, that can grasp whate'er the' Almighty made,

And wander wild through things impossible!

What wealth in faculties of endless growth,

In quenchless passions violent to crave,

In liberty to choose, in power to reach,

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And in duration, (how thy riches rise!)

Duration to perpetuate—boundless bliss!

Ask you, what power resides in feeble man

That bliss to gain? Is Virtue's, then, unknown?

Virtue, our present peace, our future prize!

480

Man's unprecarious, natural estate,

Improvable at will, in Virtue lies;

Its tenure sure; its income is Divine.

High-built abundance, heap on heap! for what?

To breed new wants, and beggar us the more!

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Then, make a richer scramble for the throng.

Soon as this feeble pulse, which leaps so long

Almost by miracle, is tired with play,

Like rubbish from disploding engines thrown,

Our magazines of hoarded trifles fly;

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Fly diverse; fly to foreigners, to foes;

New masters court, and call the former fool

(How justly!) for dependence on their stay.

Wide scatter, first, our playthings; then our dust.

Dost court abundance for the sake of peace?

495

Learn, and lament thy self-defeated scheme:

Riches enable to be richer still;

And richer still what mortal can resist?

Thus Wealth (a cruel task-master) enjoins

New toils, succeeding toils, an endless train!

500

And murders Peace, which taught it first to shine.

The poor are half as wretched as the rich,

Whose proud and painful privilege it is

At once to bear a double load of woe;

To feel the stings of Envy and of Want,

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Outrageous Want, both Indies cannot cure.

A competence is vital to content.

Much wealth is corpulence, if not disease:

Sick, or encumber'd, is our happiness.

A competence is all we can enjoy.

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O be content where Heaven can give no more!

More, like a flash of water from a lock,

Quickens our spirit's movement for an hour;

But soon its force is spent, nor rise our joys

Above our native temper's common stream.

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Hence Disappointment lurks in every prize,

As bees in flowers, and stings us with success.

The rich man who denies it, proudly feigns,

Nor knows the wise are privy to the lie.

Much learning shows how little mortals know;

520

Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy:

At best it babies us with endless toys,

And keeps us children till we drop to dust.

As monkeys at a mirror stand amazed,

They fail to find what they so plainly see:

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Thus men, in shining riches, see the face

Of Happiness, nor know it is a shade;

But gaze, and touch, and peep, and peep again

And wish, and wonder it is absent still.

How few can rescue opulence from want!

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Who lives to Nature rarely can be poor;

Who lives to Fancy never can be rich.

Poor is the man in debt; the man of gold,

In debt to Fortune, trembles at her power:

The man of Reason smiles at her and Death.

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O what a patrimony this! A being

Of such inherent strength and majesty,

Not worlds possess'd can raise it; worlds destroy'd

Can't injure; which holds on its glorious course,

When thine, O Nature! ends; too bless'd to mourn

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Creation's obsequies. What treasure this!

The monarch is a beggar to the man.

IMMORTAL! Ages past, yet nothing gone!

Morn without eve! a race without a goal,

Unshorten'd by progression infinite!

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Futurity for ever future! life

Beginning still where computation ends!

'T is the description of a Deity!

'T is the description of the meanest slave:

The meanest slave dares, then, Lorenzo scorn?

550

The meanest slave thy sovereign glory shares.

Proud youth, fastidious of the lower world!

Man's lawful pride includes humility;

Stoops to the lowest; is too great to find

Inferiors: all immortal! brothers all!

555

Proprietors eternal of thy love!

IMMORTAL! What can strike the sense so strong,

As this the soul? It thunders to the thought;

Reason amazes; gratitude o'erwhelms.

No more we slumber on the brink of fate;

560

Roused at the sound, the' exulting soul ascends,

And breathes her native air; an air that feeds

Ambitions high, and fans ethereal fires;

Quick kindles all that is Divine within us,

Nor leaves one loitering thought beneath the stars.

565

Has not Lorenzo's bosom caught the flame?

Immortal! Were but one immortal, how

Would others envy! how would thrones adore!

Because 't is common, is the blessing lost?

How this ties up the bounteous hand of Heaven!

570

O vain, vain, vain, all else! Eternity!

A glorious and a needful refuge, that,

From vile imprisonment in abject views.

'T is immortality, 't is that alone,

Amid Life's pains, abasements, emptiness,

575

The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill.

That only, and that amply, this performs,

Lifts us above Life's pains, her joys above;

Their terror those, and these their lustre, lose:

Eternity depending covers all;

580

Eternity depending all achieves;

Sets Earth at distance; casts her into shades;

Blends her distinctions; abrogates her powers:

The low, the lofty, joyous, and severe,

Fortune's dread frowns and fascinating smiles,

585

Make one promiscuous and neglected heap,

The man beneath; if I may call him man,

Whom immortality's full force inspires.

Nothing terrestrial touches his high thought:

Suns shine unseen, and thunders roll unheard,

590

By minds quite conscious of their high descent,

Their present province, and their future prize;

Divinely darting upward every wish,

Warm on the wing, in glorious absence lost!

Doubt you this truth? Why labours your belief?

595

If Earth's whole orb, by some due-distanced eye,

Were seen at once, her towering Alps would sink,

And levell'd Atlas leave an even sphere.

Thus Earth, and all that earthly minds admire,

Is swallow'd in Eternity's vast round.

600

To that stupendous view when souls awake,

So large of late, so mountainous to man,

Time's toys subside; and equal all below.

Enthusiastic this? then all are weak,

But rank enthusiasts. To this godlike height

605

Some souls have soar'd, or martyrs ne'er had bled:

And all may do what has by man been done.

Who, beaten by these sublunary storms,

Boundless, interminable joys can weigh,

Unraptured, unexalted, uninflamed?

610

What slave, unbless'd, who from to-morrow's dawn

Expects an empire? He forgets his chain,

And, throned in thought, his absent sceptre waves.

And what a sceptre waits us! what a throne!

Her own immense appointments to compute,

615

Or comprehend her high prerogatives,

In this her dark minority, how toils,

How vainly pants, the human soul Divine!

Too great the bounty seems for earthly joy.

What heart but trembles at so strange a bliss?

620

In spite of all the truths the Muse has sung,

Ne'er to be prized enough, enough revolved!

Are there who wrap the world so close about them,

They see no farther than the clouds; and dance

On heedless Vanity's fantastic toe,

625

Till, stumbling at a straw, in their career,

Headlong they plunge, where end both dance and song?

Are there, Lorenzo? is it possible?

Are there on earth (let me not call them men)

Who lodge a soul immortal in their breasts;

630

Unconscious as the mountain of its ore;

Or rock, of its inestimable gem?

When rocks shall melt, and mountains vanish, these

Shall know their treasure; treasure then no more.

Are there (still more amazing!) who resist

635

The rising thought? who smother, in its birth,

The glorious truth? who struggle to be brutes?

Who through this bosom-barrier burst their way;

And, with reversed ambition, strive to sink?

Who labour downwards through the' opposing powers

640

Of Instinct, Reason, and the World against them,

To dismal hopes, and shelter in the shock

Of endless night, night darker than the grave's?

Who fight the proofs of immortality?

With horrid zeal and execrable arts,

645

Work all their engines, level their black fires,

To blot from man this attribute Divine,

(Than vital blood far dearer to the wise,)

Blasphemers, and rank atheists to themselves?

To contradict them, see all Nature rise!

650

What object, what event, the moon beneath,

But argues, or endears, an after-scene?

To Reason proves, or weds it to Desire?

All things proclaim it needful; some advance

One precious step beyond, and prove it sure.

655

A thousand arguments swarm round my pen,

From Heaven, and Earth, and Man. Indulge a few,

By nature, as her common habit, worn;

So pressing Providence a truth to teach,

Which truth untaught, all other truths were vain.

660

THOU! whose all-providential eye surveys,

Whose hand directs, whose Spirit fills and warms

Creation, and holds empire far beyond!

Eternity's Inhabitant august;

Of two eternities amazing Lord!

665

One past, ere man's or angel's had begun:

Aid! while I rescue from the foe's assault

Thy glorious immortality in man:

A theme for ever, and for all, of weight,

Of moment infinite! but relish'd most

670

By those who love Thee most, who most adore.

Nature, Thy daughter, ever-changing birth

Of Thee the great Immutable, to man

Speaks wisdom; is his oracle supreme;

And he who most consults her is most wise.

675

Lorenzo, to this heavenly Delphos haste;

And come back all-immortal, all-Divine:

Look Nature through, 't is revolution all;

All change, no death. Day follows night; and night,

The dying day; stars rise, and set, and rise;

680

Earth takes the' example. See, the Summer gay,

With her green chaplet and ambrosial flowers,

Droops into pallid Autumn: Winter grey,

Horrid with frost, and turbulent with storm,

Blows Autumn and his golden fruits away;

685

Then melts into the Spring: soft Spring, with breath

Favonian, from warm chambers of the south

Recalls the first. All, to re-flourish, fades;

As in a wheel, all sinks, to re-ascend:

Emblems of man, who passes, not expires.

690

With this minute distinction, emblems just,—

Nature revolves, but man advances: both

Eternal; that a circle, this a line;

That gravitates, this soars. The' aspiring Soul,

Ardent and tremulous, like flame, ascends;

695

Zeal and Humility her wings to heaven.

The world of matter, with its various forms,

All dies into new life. Life, born from Death,

Rolls the vast mass, and shall for ever roll.

No single atom, once in being, lost,

700

With change of counsel charges the Most High.

What hence infers Lorenzo? Can it be?

Matter immortal? And shall spirit die?

Above the nobler, shall less noble rise?

Shall man alone, for whom all else revives,

705

No resurrection know? Shall man alone,

Imperial man! be sown in barren ground,

Less privileged than grain on which he feeds?

Is man, in whom alone is power to prize

The bliss of being, or with previous pain

710

Deplore its period, by the spleen of Fate,

Severely doom'd Death's single unredeem'd?

If Nature's revolution speaks aloud,

In her gradation hear her louder still.

Look Nature through; 't is neat gradation all.

715

By what minute degrees her scale ascends!

Each middle nature join'd at each extreme,

To that above it join'd, to that beneath.

Parts into parts reciprocally shot

Abhor divorce. What love of union reigns!

720

Here, dormant matter waits a call to life;

Half-life, half-death, join there: here, life and sense;

There, sense from reason steals a glimmering ray;

Reason shines out in man. But how preserved

The chain unbroken upward, to the realms

725

Of incorporeal life? those realms of bliss

Where Death hath no dominion? Grant a make

Half-mortal, half-immortal; earthy part,

And part ethereal: grant the soul of man

Eternal; or in man the series ends.

730

Wide yawns the gap; connexion is no more;

Check'd Reason halts; her next step wants support;

Striving to climb, she tumbles from her scheme;

A scheme Analogy pronounced so true:

Analogy, man's surest guide below.

735

Thus far all Nature calls on thy belief.

And will Lorenzo, careless of the call,

False attestation on all Nature charge,

Rather than violate his league with Death?

Renounce his reason, rather than renounce

740

The dust beloved, and run the risk of heaven?

O what indignity to deathless souls!

What treason to the majesty of man,

Of man immortal hear the lofty style:—

“If so decreed, the' almighty will be done.

745

Let earth dissolve, yon ponderous orbs descend,

And grind us into dust: the soul is safe;

The man emerges; mounts above the wreck.

As towering flame from Nature's funeral pyre;

O'er Devastation, as a gainer, smiles;

750

His charter, his inviolable rights,

Well-pleased to learn from Thunder's impotence,

Death's pointless darts, and Hell's defeated storms.”

But these chimeras touch not thee, Lorenzo!

The glories of the world thy sevenfold shield.

755

Other ambition than of crowns in air,

And superlunary felicities,

Thy bosom warms. I'll cool it, if I can;

And turn those glories that enchant, against thee.

What ties thee to this life proclaims the next.

760

If wise, the cause that wounds thee is thy cure.

Come, my ambitious! let us mount together,

(To mount, Lorenzo never can refuse,)

And from the clouds, where Pride delights to dwell,

Look down on Earth.—What seest thou? Wondrous things!

765

Terrestrial wonders, that eclipse the skies.

What lengths of labour'd lands! what loaded seas!

Loaded by man for pleasure, wealth, or war!

Seas, winds, and planets, into service brought,

His art acknowledge, and promote his ends.

770

Nor can the' eternal rocks his will withstand:

What levell'd mountains, and what lifted vales!

O'er vales and mountains sumptuous cities swell,

And gild our landscape with their glittering spires.

Some 'mid the wondering waves majestic rise;

775

And Neptune holds a mirror to their charms.

Far greater still! (what cannot mortal might?)

See wide dominions ravish'd from the deep:

The narrow'd deep with indignation foams.

Or southward turn: to delicate and grand

780

The finer arts there ripen in the sun.

How the tall temples, as to meet their gods,

Ascend the skies! The proud triumphal arch

Shows us half heaven beneath its ample bend.

High through mid-air, here streams are taught to flow;

785

Whole rivers, there, laid by in basins, sleep.

Here, plains turn oceans; there, vast oceans join

Through kingdoms channell'd deep from shore to shore,

And changed Creation takes its face from man.

Beats thy brave breast for formidable scenes.

790

Where fame and empire wait upon the sword?

See fields in blood; hear naval thunders rise,—

Britannia's voice, that awes the world to peace!

How yon enormous mole projecting breaks

The mid-sea furious waves! Their roar amidst,

795

Out-speaks the Deity, and says, “O main!

Thus far, nor farther! new restraints obey.”

Earth's disembowell'd! measured are the skies!

Stars are detected in their deep recess!

Creation widens! vanquish'd Nature yields!

800

Her secrets are extorted! Art prevails!

What monuments of genius, spirit, power!

And now, Lorenzo, raptured at this scene,

Whose glories render heaven superfluous! say,

Whose footsteps these?—Immortals have been here.

805

Could less than souls immortal this have done?

Earth's cover'd o'er with proofs of souls immortal,

And proofs of immortality forgot.

To flatter thy grand foible, I confess,

These are Ambition's works; and these are great:

810

But this the least immortal souls can do:

Transcend them all.—“But what can these transcend?”

Dost ask me, what?—One sigh for the distress'd.

“What then for infidels?”—A deeper sigh.

'T is moral grandeur makes the mighty man:

815

How little they who think aught great below!

All our ambitions Death defeats, but one;

And that it crowns.—Here cease we; but, ere long,

More powerful proof shall take the field against thee,

Stronger than Death, and smiling at the tomb.