Why discontent for ever harbour'd there? Incurable consumption of our peace!

30

Resolve me why the cottager and king,

He whom sea-sever'd realms obey, and he

Who steals his whole dominion from the waste,

Repelling winter blasts with mud and straw,

Disquieted alike, draw sigh for sigh,

35

In fate so distant, in complaint so near?

Is it that things terrestrial can't content?

Deep in rich pasture, will thy flocks complain?
Not so; but to their master is denied

To share their sweet serene. Man, ill at ease

40

In this, not his own place, this foreign field,
Where Nature fodders him with other food
Than was ordain'd his cravings to suffice,
Poor in abundance, famish'd at a feast,

Sighs on for something more, when most enjoy'd. 45
Is Heaven then kinder to thy flocks than thee?
Not so; thy pasture richer, but remote;

In part remote; for that remoter part

Man bleats from instinct, though, perhaps, debauch'd
By sense, his reason sleeps, nor dreams the cause. 50
The cause how obvious, when his reason wakes'
His grief is but his grandeur in disguise,
And discontent is immortality!

Shall sons of Ether, shall the blood of Heaven,
Set up their hopes on earth, and stable here,
With brutal acquiescence in the mire?
Lorenzo! no; they shall be nobly pain'd:
The glorious foreigners, distress'd, shall sigh
On thrones, and thou congratulate the sigh.
Man's misery declares him born for bliss ;
His anxious heart asserts the truth I sing,
And gives the sceptic in his head--the lie.

55

60

Our heads, our hearts, our passions, and our powers, Speak the same language; call us to the skies :

Unripen'd these, in this inclement clime,

Scarce rise above conjecture and mistake;

65

And for this land of trifles those too strong
Tumultuous rise, and tempest human life.
What prize on earth can pay us for the storm?
Meet objects for our passions Heaven ordain'd,
Objects that challenge all their fire, and leave
No fault but in defect. Bless'd Heaven! avert
A bounded ardour for unbounded bliss!
O for a bliss unbounded! far beneath
A soul immortal is a mortal joy.
Nor are our powers to perish immature;
But after feeble effort here, beneath

A brighter sun, and in a nobler soil,
Transplanted from this sublunary bed,

Shall flourish fair, and put forth all their bloom.
Reason progressive, instinct is complete ;
Swift Instinct leaps; slow Reason feebly climbs
Brutes soon their zenith reach; their little all
Flows in at once; in ages they no more
Could know, or do, or covet, or enjoy.
Were man to live coeval with the Sun,

The patriarch-pupil would be learning still,
Yet, dying, leave his lesson half-unlearn'd.
Men perish in advance, as if the Sun

Should set ere noon, in eastern occans drown'd;

90

If fit, with dim, illustrious to compare,
The Sun's meridian with the soul of man.

To man why, stepdame Nature! so severe ?

Why thrown aside thy masterpiece half-wrought,
While meaner efforts thy last hand enjoy?
Or if, abortively, poor man must die,

95

Nor reach what reach he might, why die in dread?

Why cursed with foresight? wise to misery?

Why of his proud prerogative the prey?

Why less preeminent in rank than pain?
His immortality alone can tell ;

Full ample fund to balance all amiss,
And turn the scale in favour of the just!
His immortality alone can solve

100

That darkest of enigmas, human hope;
Of all the darkest, if at death we die.
Hope, eager Hope, the' assassin of our joy,
All present blessings treading under foot,
Is scarce a milder tyrant than Despair.
With no past toils content, still planning new,
Hope turns us o'er to Death alone for ease.
Possession, why more tasteless than pursuit ?
Why is a wish far dearer than a crown?

105

110

That wish accomplish'd, why the grave of bliss?—
Because in the great future buried deep,

115

Beyond our plans of empire and renown,

Lies all that man with ardour should pursue;

And He who made him bent him to the right.

Man's heart the' Almighty to the future sets, By secret and inviolable springs;

120

And makes his hope his sublunary joy.

Man's heart eats all things, and is hungry still;

'More, more!' the glutton cries: for something new So rages appetite; if man can't mount,

He will descend. He starves on the possess'd;
Hence, the world's master, from Ambition's spire,
In Caprea plunged, and dived beneath the brute.
In that rank sty why wallow'd Empire's son
Supreme? Because he could no higher fly :
His riot was Ambition in despair.

125

130

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 every thought that falcon sits,
To fly at all that rises in her sight:

135

And never stooping, but to mount again

Next moment, she betrays her aim's mistake,

And owns her quarry lodged 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? where its praise its being, fled`

140

Virtue 13 true self-interest pursued ;
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 sovereign good.
In self-applause is virtue's golden prize?
No self applause attends it on thy scheme

145

Whence self-applause? from conscience of the right; And what is right, but means of happiness?

151

Is weak, with rank knight-errantries o'errun.

Why beats thy bosom with illustrious dreams
Of self-exposure, laudable and great?

Of gallant enterprise, and glorious death?

160

Die for thy country?-thou romantic rool!

Seize, seize the plank thyself, and let her sink.

Thy country! what to thee?-the Godhead, what!
(I speak with awe!) though 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 the' Almighty's subsequent command,

165

His first command is this :- Man, love thyself.' 170
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; though nations, which consult
Their gain at thy expense, resound applause.
Since Virtue's recompense 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?

175

180

?

Why to be good in vain is man betray'd?
Betray'd by traitors lodged 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?

185

190

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.

195

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.

200

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

205

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 powers;

Dream we, that lustre of the moral world

210

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,

215

And dawn the Deity, should snatch the draught,

With night eternal blot it out, and give
The skies alarm, lest angels too might die?