s joy a duty to the wise;
'Tis impious in a good man to be sad.
See thou, Lorenzo! where hangs all our hope?
Touch'd by the Cross, we live; or, more than die;
That touch which touch'd not angels; more divine
Than that which touch'd confusion into form,
And darkness into glory; partial touch! 680
Ineffably pre-eminent regard!
Sacred to man, and sovereign through the whole
Long golden chain of miracles, which hangs
From heaven through all duration, and supports
In one illustrious and amazing plan,
Thy welfare, nature! and thy God's renown.
That touch, with charm celestial, heals the soul
Diseased, drives pain from guilt, lights life in death,
Turns earth to heaven, to heavenly thrones transforms
The ghastly ruins of the mouldering tomb. 690
Dost ask me when? When He who died returns;
Returns, how changed! Where then the man of woe?
In glory's terrors all the Godhead burns;
And all his courts, exhausted by the tide
Of deities triumphant in his train,
Leave a stupendous solitude in heaven;
Replenish'd soon, replenish'd with increase
Of pomp, and multitude; a radiant band 698
Of angels new; of angels from the tomb.
Is this by fancy thrown remote? and rise
Dark doubts between the promise and event?
I send thee not to volumes for thy cure;
Read nature; nature is a friend to truth;
Nature is Christian; preaches to mankind;
And bids dead matter aid us in our creed.
Hast thou ne'er seen the comet's flaming flight?
Th' illustrious stranger passing, terror sheds
On gazing nations; from his fiery train
Of length enormous, takes his ample round 709
Through depths of ether; coasts unnumber'd worlds,
Of more than solar glory; doubles wide
Heaven's mighty cape; and then revisits earth,
From the long travel of a thousand years.
Thus, at the destined period, shall return
He, once on earth, who bids the comet blaze:
And, with him, all our triumph o'er the tomb.
Nature is dumb on this important point;
Or hope precarious in low whisper breathes;
Faith speaks aloud, distinct; even adders hear;
But turn, and dart into the dark again. 720
Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death,
To break the shock blind nature cannot shun,
And lands thought smoothly on the farther shore.
Death's terror is