an; far nobler hope inflames;
If endless ages can outweigh an hour,
Let not the laurel, but the palm, inspire.
Thy nature, Immortality! who knows?
And yet who knows it not? It is but life
In stronger thread of brighter colour spun,
And spun for ever; dipp'd by cruel Fate
In Stygian dye, how black, how brittle here! 80
How short our correspondence with the sun!
And while it lasts, inglorious! Our best deeds,
How wanting in their weight! our highest joys
Small cordials to support us in our pain,
And give us strength to suffer. But how great
To mingle interests, converse, amities, 86
With all the sons of Reason, scatter'd wide
Through habitable space, wherever born,
Howe'er endow'd! to live free citizens
Of universal nature! to lay hold
By more than feeble faith on the Supreme!
To call heaven's rich unfathomable mines
(Mines, which support archangels in their state) 93
Our own! To rise in science, as in bliss,
Initiate in the secrets of the skies!
To read creation; read its mighty plan
In the bare bosom of the Deity!
The plan, and execution, to collate!
To see, before each glance of piercing thought,
All cloud, all shadow, blown remote; and leave 100
No mystery--but that of Love Divine,
Which lifts us on the seraph's flaming wing,
From earth's Aceldama, this field of blood,
Of inward anguish, and of outward ill,
From darkness, and from dust, to such a scene!
Love's element! true joy's illustrious home!
From earth's sad contrast (now deplored) more fair!
What exquisite vicissitude of fate!
Bless'd absolution of our blackest hour!
Lorenzo, these are thoughts that make man Man, 110
The wise illumine, aggrandize the great.
How great (while yet we tread the kindred clod,
And every moment fear to sink beneath
The clod we tread; soon trodden by our sons);
How great, in the wild whirl of Time's pursuits,
To stop, and pause, involved in high presage,
Through the long vista of a thousand years,
To stand contemplating our distant selves,
As in a magnifying mirror seen,
Enlarged, ennobled, elevate, divine! 120
To prophesy our own futurities;
To gaze in thought on what all thought transcends!
To talk, with fellow-candidates, of joys
As far beyond conception as desert,
Ourselves t