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Aud triumph in existence; and couldst know
No motive, but my bliss; and hast ordain'd
A rise in blessing! with the Patriarch's joy,
Thy call I follow to the land unknown;
I trust in Thee, and know in whom I trust;
Or life, or death, is equal; neither weighs:
All weight in this O let me live to Thee!

Though Nature's terrors, thus, may be represt; Still frowns grim death; guilt points the tyrant's spear.

And whence all human guilt? From death forgot.
Ah me! too long I set at nought the swarm

Of friendly warnings, which around me flew ;
And smil'd, unsmitten: Small my cause to smile!
Death's admonitions, like shafts upward shot,
More dreadful by delay: the longer ere
They strike our hearts, the deeper is their wound.
O think how deep, LORENZO! here it stings:
Who can appease its anguish? How it burns!
What hand the barb'd, envenom'd, thought can draw?
What healing hand can pour the balm of peace,
And turn my sight undaunted on the tomb?
With joy-with grief, that healing hand I see;
Ah! too conspicuous! It is fix'd on high.

On high? What means my frenzy? I blaspheme;
Alas! how low! how far beneath the skies!
The skies it form'd; and now it bleeds for me-
But bleeds the balm I want-yet still it bleeds.
Draw the dire steel-Ah no!-the dreadful blessing
What heart or can sustain, or dares forego?
There hangs all human hope; that nail supports
Her falling universe: That gone, we drop!
Horror receives us, and the dismal wish

Creation had been smother'd in her birth
Darkness his curtain, and his bed the dust;
When stars and sun are dust beneath his throne!
In heav'n itself can such indulgence dwell?
O what a groan was there! a groan not his.
He seiz❜d our dreadful right; the load sustain'd;
And heav'd the mountain from a guilty world.

A thousand worlds, so bought, were bought too dear. Sensations new in angels' bosoms rise;

Suspend their song, and make a pause in bliss. O for their song to reach my lofty theme! Inspire me, night! with all thy tuneful spheres! [Much rather thou! who dost these spheres in spire !]*

Whilst I with seraphs share seraphic themes,

And shew to men the dignity of Man;
Lest I blaspheme my subject with my song.
Shall Pagan pages glow celestial flame,

And Christian, languish? On our hearts, not heads,
Falls the foul infamy: My heart! awake.
What can awake thee, unawak'd by this,
"Expended Deity on human weal?”

Feel the great truths, which burst the tenfold night
Of Heathen error, with a golden flood

Of endless day: To feel, is to be fir'd;
And to believe, LORENZO! is to feel.

Thou most indulgent, most tremendous Pow'r! Still more tremendous for thy wond'rous love! That arms, with awe more awful, thy commands; And foul transgression dips in sev❜nfold night;

• This line is found in only one edition that has been examined.

How our hearts tremble at thy love immense !
In love immense, inviolably just,

Thou, rather than thy justice should be stain❜d,
Didst stain the cross; and, work of wonders far
The greatest! that thy dearest far might bleed.
Bold thought! shall I dare speak it, or repress?
Should Man more execrate, or boast the guilt
Which rous'd such vengeance? which such love in-
flam'd?

O'er guilt (how mountainous!) with out-stretch'd

arms,

Stern justice and soft-smiling love, embrace,
Supporting, in full majesty, thy throne,
When seem'd its majesty to need support,
Or that, or man, inevitably lost.

What, but the fathomless of thought divine,
Could labour such expedient from despair,
And rescue both? Both rescue! Both exalt!
O how are both exalted by the deed!
The wond'rous deed! or shall I call it more?
A wonder in Omnipotence itself!

A mystery, no less to gods than men !

Not thus, our Infidels th' Eternal draw,
A God all o'er consummate, absolute,
Full-orb'd, in his whole round of rays complete:
They set at odds Heav'n's jarring attributes;
And, with one excellence, another wound ;
Maim Heav'n's perfection, break its equal beams,
Bid mercy triumph overGod himself,
Undeify'd by their opprobrious praise :
A God all mercy, is a God unjust.

Ye brainless wits! ye baptis'd infidels!
Ye worse for mending! wash'd to fouler stains!

The ransom was paid down! the fund of Heav'n,
Heav'n's inexhaustible exhausted fund,

Amazing, and amaz'd, pour'd forth the price,
All price beyond: Though curious to compute,
Archangels fail'd to cast the mighty sum :
Its value vast ungrasp'd by minds create,
For ever hides, and glows, in the Supreme.
And was the ransom paid? It was: and paid
(What can exalt the bounty more?) for you.
The sun beheld it-No, the shocking scene
Drove back his chariot: Midnight veil'd his face;
Not such as this; not such as nature makes;
A midnight, Nature shudder'd to behold;
À midnight new! a dread eclipse (without
Opposing spheres) from her Creator's frown!
Sun! didst thou fly thy Maker's pain? Or start
At that enormous load of human guilt,

Which bow'd his blessed head; o'erwhelm'd his

cross;

Made groan the centre; burst earth's marble womb, With pangs, strange pangs! deliver'd of her dead? Hell howl'd; and Heav'n that hour let fall a tear; Heav'n wept, that men might smile! Heav'n bled,

that man

Might never die !—

And is devotion virtue? "Tis compell'd :

What heart of stone, but glows at thoughts like these?

Such contemplations mount us; and should mount
The mind still high'r; nor ever glance on man,
Unraptur'd, uninflam'd.—Where roll my thoughts
To rest from wonders? Other wonders rise !
And strike where'er they roll: My soul is caught :

Heav'n's sov'reign blessings, clust'ring from the

cross,

Rush on her, in a throng, and close her round,
The pris❜ner of amaze !-In his blest life,
I see the path, and, in his death, the price,
And in his great ascent, the proof supreme
Of immortality.-And did he rise?

Hear, O ye nations! hear it, O ye dead!
He rose! He rose! He burst the bars of death.
Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates!
And give the King of Glory to come in.
Who is the King of Glory? He who left
His Throne of Glory, for the pang of death:
Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates!
And give the King of Glory to come in.
Who is the King of Glory? He who slew
The rav'nous foe, that gorg'd all human race!
The King of Glory, He, whose glory fill'd
Heav'n with amazement at his love to man;
And with divine complacency beheld

Pow'rs most illumin'd, wilder'd in the theme.

The theme, the joy, how then shall man sustain ? Oh the burst gates! crush'd sting! demolish'd Throne !

Last gasp! of vanquish'd death, shout Earth and
Heav'n!

This sum of good to man: Whose nature, then,
Took wing, and mounted with Him from the tomb!
Then, then I rose; then first humanity
Triumphant past the crystal ports of light,
(Stupendous guest!) and seiz'd eternal youth,
Seiz❜d in our name. E'er since, 'tis blasphemous
To call man mortal. Man's mortality

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