215

For valour, virtue, science, all we love,
And all we praise; for worth, whose noon-tide beam,
Enabling us to think in higher style,
Mends our ideas of ethereal powers;
Dream we, that luftre 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,
And dawn the Deity, should snatch the draught,
With night eternal blot it out, and give
The skies alarm, left angels too might die?

If human souls, why not angelic too Extinguish'd? and a solitary God, O'er ghastly ruin, frowning from his throne ! Shall we this moment gaze on God in man? The next, lose man for ever in the duft? From duft we disengage, or man mistakes; And there, where least his judgment fears a flaw, 225 Wisdom and worth how boldly he commends ! Wisdom and worth are sacred names; rever'd, Where not embrac'd; applauded ! deify'd ! Why not compasion'd too? If spirits die, Both are calamities, inflicted both,

230 To make us but more wretched: Wisdom's eye. Acute, for what? To spy more miseries; And worth, fo recompens'd, new-points their stings. Or man surmounts the grave, or gain is loss, And worth exalted bumbles us the more.

220

Thou wilt not patronize a scheme that makes
Weakness and vice, the refuge of mankind.
« Has virtue, then, no joys?”-Yes, joys dear-bought.
Talk ne'er so long, in this imperfect state,
Virtue and vice are at eternal war.

240
Virtue's a combat; and who fights for nought?
Or for precarious, or for small reward ?
Who virtue's self-reward so loud resound,
Would take degrees angelic here below,
And virtue, while they compliment, betray, 245
By feeble motives, and unfaithful guards.
The crown, th' unfading crown, her soul inspires :
'Tis That, and That alone, can countervail
The body's treacheries, and the world's assaults :
On earth's poor pay our familh'd virtue dies.

2.50 Truth incontestable! In spite of all A Bayle has preach'd, or a Voltaire believ'a.

In man the more we dive, the more we fee Heaven's fignet stamping an immortal make. Dive to the bottom of his soul, the base

25$ Sustaining all ; what find we? Knowledge, Love. As light and heat, essential to the sun, These to the soul. And why, if souls expire ? How little lovely here? How little known? Small knowledge we dig up with endless toil ; 260 And love unfeign'd may purchase perfect hate. Why stary'd, on earth, our angel appetites; While brutal are indulg'd their fulsome fill? Were then capacities divine conferr'd, As a mock-diadem, in favage sport,

Rank

265

Rank insult of our pompous poverty,
Which reaps but pain, from seeming claims fo fair ?
In future age lies no redress ? And shuts
Eternity the door on our complaint ?
If so, for what strange ends were mortals made! 270
The worst to wallow, and the best to weep;
The man who merits most, muft. most complain:
Can we conceive a disregard in heaven,
What the worst perpetrate, or beft endure ?
This cannot be. To love, and know, in man

275
Is boundless appetite, and boundless power;
And these demonstrate boundless objects too.
Objects, powers, appetites, heaven suits in All ;
Nor, nature through, e'er violates this sweet,
Eternal concord, on her tuneful ftring.

2 80Is man the sole exception from her laws ? Eternity struck off from human hope, (I speak with truth, but veneration too) Man is a.monfter, the reproach of heaven, A stain, a dark impenetrable cloud:

285 On nature's beauteous aspect; and deforms, (Amazing blot !) deforms her with her lord. If such is man's allotment, what is heaven? Or own the soul immortal, or blaspheme. Or own the soul immortal, or invert

2go All order. Go, mock-majesty! go, man! And bow to thy superiors of the stall; Through every scene of sense superior far: They graze the turf untillid; they drink the stream Unbrew'd, and ever full, and un-embitter'd. 295

5

With doubts, fears, fruitless hopes, regrets, despairs;
Mankind's peculiar! reason's precious dower !
No foreign clime they ransack for their robes;
Nor brothers cite to the litigious bar;
Their good is good intire, unmixt, unmarr'd;

300
They find a paradise in every field,
On boughs forbidden where no curses hang :
Their ill no more than strikes the sense; unftretcht
By previous dread, or murmur in the rear.:
When the worst comes, it comes unfear’d; one stroke

305 Begins, and ends, their woe: they die but once; Bleft, incommunicable privilege! for which Proud man, who rules the globe, and reads the stars, Philosopher, or hero, fighs in vain. Account for this perogative in brutes.

310 No day, no glimpse of day, to solve the knot, But what beams on it from eternity. O sole, and sweet folution! That unties The difficult, and foftens the severe; The cloud on nature's beauteous face dispels; 315 Restores bright order ; casts the brute beneath; And re-inthrones us in supremacy Of joy, ev'n bere : admit immortal life, And virtue is knight-errantry no more; Each virtue brings in hand a golden dower,

320 Far richer in reverfion: Hope exults; And though much bitter in our cup is thrown, Predominates, and gives the taste of heaven. O wherefore is the Deity so kind ? Aftonishing beyond astonishment!

325

Heaven our reward for heaven enjoy'd below.
Still unsubdued thy stubborn heart?

-For there
The traitor lurks who doubts the truth I fing.
Reason is guiltless; will alone rebels.
What, in that stubborn heart, if I should find

330
New, unexpected witnesses against thee?
Ambition, pleasure, and the love of gain!
Canft thou suspect, that these, which make the soul
The save of earth, should own her heir of heaven?
Canst thou suspect what makes us difoelieve 335
Our immortality, should prove it sure ?

First, then, ambition summon to the bar. Ambition's shame, extravagance, disgust, And inextinguishable nature, speak. Each much deposes; hear them in their turn. 340

Thy soul, how paffionately fond of fame! How anxious, that fond passion to conceal ! We blush, detected in designs on praise,

Though for best deeds, and from the best of men ; And why? Because immortal. Art divine 345 Has made the body tutor to the soul; Heaven kindly gives our blood a moral flow; Bids it ascend the glowing cheek, and there Upbraid that little heart's inglorious aim, Which stoops to court a character from man; 350 While o'er us in tremendous judgment fit Far more than man, with endless praise, and blame.

Ambition's boundless appetite out-Speaks The verdict of its shame. When souls take fire At high presumptions of their own desert, 355

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