vel left us much to ride;
Gazing on miracles by mortals wrought,
Arches triumphal, theatres immense,
Or nodding gardens pendent in mid-air!
Or temples proud to meet their gods half-way!
Yet these affect us in no common kind. 930
What then the force of such superior scenes?
Enter a temple, it will strike an awe: 932
What awe from this the Deity has built!
A good man seen, though silent, counsel gives:
The touch'd spectator wishes to be wise:
In a bright mirror His own hands have made,
Here we see something like the face of God.
Seems it not then enough, to say, Lorenzo!
To man abandon'd, "Hast thou seen the skies?"
And yet, so thwarted Nature's kind design 940
By daring man, he makes her sacred awe
(That guard from ill) his shelter, his temptation
To more than common guilt, and quite inverts
Celestial art's intent. The trembling stars
See crimes gigantic, stalking through the gloom
With front erect, that hide their head by day,
And making night still darker by their deeds.
Slumbering in covert, till the shades descend,
Rapine and Murder, link'd, now prowl for prey.
The miser earths his treasure; and the thief, 950
Watching the mole, half beggars him ere morn.
Now plots, and foul conspiracies, awake;
And, muffling up their horrors from the moon,
Havoc and devastation they prepare,
And kingdoms tottering in the field of blood.
Now sons of riot in mid-revel rage.
What shall I do?--suppress it? or proclaim?--
Why sleeps the thunder? Now, Lorenzo! now,
His best friend's couch the rank adulterer
Ascends secure; and laughs at gods and men. 960
Preposterous madmen, void of fear or shame,
Lay their crimes bare to these chaste eyes of Heaven;
Yet shrink, and shudder, at a mortal's sight.
Were moon, and stars, for villains only made?
To guide, yet screen them, with tenebrious[62] light?
No; they were made to fashion the sublime 966
Of human hearts, and wiser make the wise.
Those ends were answer'd once; when mortals lived
Of stronger wing, of aquiline ascent
In theory sublime. O how unlike
Those vermin of the night, this moment sung,
Who crawl on earth, and on her venom feed! 972
Those ancient sages, human stars! They met
Their brothers of the skies,