ish to live. 420
What spoke proud Passion?--"Wish my being lost?"[53]
Presumptuous! blasphemous! absurd! and false!
The triumph of my soul is,--that I am;
And therefore that I may be--what? Lorenzo!
Look inward, and look deep; and deeper still;
Unfathomably deep our treasure runs 426
In golden veins, through all eternity!
Ages, and ages, and succeeding still
New ages, where the phantom of an hour,
Which courts each night, dull slumber, for repair,
Shall wake, and wonder, and exult, and praise,
And fly through infinite, and all unlock;
And (if deserved) by Heaven's redundant love, 433
Made half adorable itself, adore;
And find, in adoration, endless joy!
Where thou, not master of a moment here,
Frail as the flower, and fleeting as the gale,
May'st boast a whole eternity, enrich'd
With all a kind Omnipotence can pour.
Since Adam fell, no mortal, uninspired, 440
Has ever yet conceived, or ever shall,
How kind is God, how great (if good) is Man.
No man too largely from Heaven's love can hope,
If what is hoped he labours to secure.
Ills?--there are none: All-gracious! none from thee;
From man full many! numerous is the race
Of blackest ills, and those immortal too,
Begot by Madness, on fair Liberty;
Heaven's daughter, hell-debauch'd! her hand alone
Unlocks destruction to the sons of men, 450
First barr'd by thine: high-wall'd with adamant,
Guarded with terrors reaching to this world,
And cover'd with the thunders of thy law;
Whose threats are mercies, whose injunctions, guides,
Assisting, not restraining, Reason's choice;
Whose sanctions, unavoidable results
From nature's course, indulgently reveal'd;
If unreveal'd, more dangerous, nor less sure.
Thus, an indulgent father warns his sons,
"Do this; fly that"--nor always tells the cause; 460
Pleased to reward, as duty to his will,
A conduct needful to their own repose.
Great God of wonders! (if, thy love survey'd,
Aught else the name of wonderful retains),
What rocks are these, on which to build our trust!
Thy ways admit no blemish; none I find;
Or this alone--"That none is to be found."
Not one, to soften Censure's hardy crime;
Not one, to palliate peevish Grief's Complaint,
Who, like a demon, murmuring from the dus