To put forth all his ardor, 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,
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!
Thy strength in man, like length of wing in birds,
When disengag'd from Earth, with greater ease,
And swifter flight, transports us to the skies;
By toys entangled, or in gilt bemir'd,

It turns a curse; it is our chain, and scourge,
In this dark dungeon, where confin'd 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,
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;
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!

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 fire;
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,
Earth were a rude, uncolor'd chaos, still.

Objects are but th' occasion; ours th' exploit ;
Ours is the cloth, the pencil, and the paint,
Which Nature's admirable picture draws;
And beautifies creation's ample dome.
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,
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, fir'd to form a fairer scene
Than sense surveys! In memory's firm record,
Which, should it perish, could this world recall
From the dark shadows of o'erwhelming years!
In colors fresh, originally bright,
Preserve its portrait, and report its fate!
What wealth in intellect, that sovereign power,
Which sense and fancy summons to the bar;
Interrogates, approves, or reprehends;
And from the mass those underlings import,
From their materials sifted, and refin'd,
And in truth's balance accurately weigh'd,
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

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
Th' 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!
Souls, that can grasp whate'er th' 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,
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.
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;
Then make a richer scramble for the throng?
Soon as this feeble pulse, which leaps so long
Almost by miracle, is tir'd with play,
Like rubbish from disploding engines thrown,
Our magazines of hoarded trifles fly;
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?
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-maker!) enjoins
New toils, succeeding toils, an endless train
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,
Outrageous want! both Indies cannot cure.
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.

O be content, where Heaven can give no more!
More, like a flash of water from a lock,
Quickens our spirits' movement for an hour;
But soon its force is spent, nor rise our joys
Above our native temper's common stream.
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;
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 amaz'd,
They fail to find what they so plainly see
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! 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, trembies at her power. The man of reason smiles at her, and death. O what a patrimony this! A being

Of such inherent strength and majesty.
Not worlds possest can rise it; worlds destroy'd
Can't injure; which holds on its glorions course,
When thine, O Nature! ends; too blest to moom
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!
Faturity for ever future! Life
Beginning still where computation ends!
'Tis the description of a Deity!

Tis the description of the meanest slave:
The meanest slave dares then Lorenzo scorn?
The meanest slave thy sovereign glory shares.
Proud youth! fastidions of the lower world!
Man's lawful pride includes humility:
Stoops to the lowest; is too great to find
Inferiors; all immortal! brothers all!
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;
Rous'd at the sound, th' 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.
Has not Lorenzo's bosom caught the flame!
Immortal! Were but one immortal, how
Would others envy! How would thrones adore!
Because 'tis common, is the blessing lost?
How this ties up the bounteous hand of Heaven!
O vain, vain, vain, all else! Eternity!
A glorious, and a needful refuge, that,
From vile imprisonment, in abject views.
Tis immortality, 'tis that alone,
Amid life's pains, abasement, emptiness,
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;
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,
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,
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 labors your belief?
If Earth's whole orb by some due distanc'd eye
Were seen at once, her towering Alps would sink,
And level'd Atlas leave an even sphere.
Thus Earth, and all that earthly minds admire,

Is swallow'd in Eternity's vast round.
To that stupendous view when souls awake,
So large of late, so moon nous to man,
Time's toys subside; and equal all below.
Enthusiastic, this? Then all are weak,

But rank enthusiasts. To this godlike height
Some souls have soard; 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,
Enraptur'd, ucetalted, unindam'd?
What slave unblest, who from to-morrow's dawn
Expects an empire! He forgets his chain.
And, thron'd in thought, his absent sceptre waves.
And what a sceptre waits us! what a throne!
Her own immense appointments to compute,
Or comprehend her high prerogatives,
In this her dark minority, how tolls,
How vainly pants, the human soul divine!
Too great the bounty seems for earthly joy;
What heart but trembles at so stringe a bliss!

In spite of all the truths the Mase has sung,
Ne'er to be priz'd enough! enough revolv'd!
Are there who wrap the world so close about them.
They see no further than the clouds; and dance
On heedless Vanity's fantastic toe,
Till, stumbling at a straw, in their career,
Headlong they plunge, where end both dance and
Are there, Lorenzo! Is it possible?

[song'

Are there on Earth (let me not call them men)
Who lodge a soul immortal in their breasts;
Unconscious as the mountain of its ore;
Or rock, of its inestimable gem?

When rocks shall melt, and mountains vanish, thes
Shall know their treasure; treasure, then, no more.
Are there (still more amazing who resist
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 revers'd ambition, strive to sink?
Who labor downwards through th' opposing powers
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,
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!
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.
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

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!
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
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.
Lorenzo, to this heavenly Delphos haste;
And come back all-immortal; all-divine:
Look Nature through, tis revolution all;

All change; no death. Day follows night, and night
The dying day; stars rise, and set, and rise;
Earth takes th' 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:
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 reascend :
Emblems of man, who passes, not expires.

With this minute distinction, emblems just,
Nature revolves, but man advances; both
Eternal, that a circle, this a line.
That gravitates, this soars. Th' aspiring soul,
Ardent, and tremulous, like flame, ascends,
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,
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,
No resurrection know? Shall man alone,
Imperial man! be sown in barren ground,
Less privileg'd than grain, on which he feeds?
Is man, in whom alone is power to prize
The bliss of being, or with previous pain
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, 'tis neat gradation all.
By what minute degrees her scale ascends!
Each middle nature join'd at each extreme,
To that above is join'd, to that beneath.
Parts, into parts reciprocally shot,
Abhor divorce: what love of union reigns!
Here, dormant matter waits a call to life;
Half-life, half-death, join'd there; here life and sense;
There, sense from reason steals a glimmering ray;
Reason shines out in man. But how preserv'd
The chain unbroken upward, to the realms
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.
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 pronounc'd so true;
Analogy, man's surest guide below.

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
The dust belov'd, 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, th' Almighty Will be done. 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; His charter, his inviolable rights, Well pleas'd 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. Other ambition than of crowns in air, And superlunary felicities, Thy bosom warm. And turn those glories that enchant, against thee. What ties thee to this life, proclaims the next. 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 see'st thou? Wondrous things!

I'll cool it, if I can ;

Terrestrial wonders, that eclipse the skies.
What lengths of labor'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.
Nor can th' eternal rocks his will withstand:
What level'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;
And Neptune holds a mirror to their charms.
Far greater still! (what cannot mortal might?)
Sec, wide dominions ravish'd from the deep!
The narrow'd deep with indignation foams.
Or southward turn; to delicate and grand,
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;

Whole rivers, there, laid by in basons, sleep.
Here, plains turn oceans; there, vast oceans join
Through kingdoms channel'd deep from shore to

shore!

And chang'd creation takes its face from man.
Beats thy brave breast for formidable scenes,
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.
Out-speaks the Deity, and says, "O main!
Thus far, nor farther; new restraints obey."
Earth's disembowel'd! measur'd are the skies!
Stars are detected in their deep recess!
Creation widens! vanquish'd Nature yields!
Her secrets are extorted! art prevails!
What monument of genius, spirit, power!

And now, Lorenzo! raptured at this scene, Whose glories render Heaven superfluous! say, Whose footsteps these?-Immortals have been here Could less than souls immortal this have done?