Alive by miracle! if still alive, Who long have buried what gives life to live, Firmness of nerve, and energy of thought. Life's lee is not more shallow, than impure And vapid; sense and reason show the door, Call for my bier, and point me to the dust. § 163. Address to the Deity. O THOU great arbiter of life and death! Nature's immortal, immaterial sun! Whose all-prolific beam late call'd me forth From darkness, teeming darkness, where I lay The worm's inferior, and, in rank, beneath The dust I tread on, high to bear my brow, To drink the spirit of the golden day, And triumph in existence; and couldst know No motive but my bliss; with Abraham'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! § 164. Fears of Death extinguished by Man's Redemption.
THOUGH nature's terrors, thus, may be represt; Still frowns grim death; guilt points the tyrant's spear.
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 Ah! too conspicuous! it is fix'd on high! [see; On high? What means my phrensy? 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 Our 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 heaven itself can such indulgence dwell? O what a groan was there! A groan not his. He seis'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 Sensations new in angels' bosoms rise! [dear. Suspend their song; and silence is in heaven.
O for their song to reach my lofty theme! Inspire me, Night, with all thy tuneful spheres! Much rather, Thou! who dost those spheres inspire;
Lest I blaspheine my subject with my song. Thou most indulgent, most tremendous, power! Still more tremendous for thy wondrous love! That arms, with awe more awful, thy commands;
And foul transgression dips in sevenfold night;
How our hearts tremble at thy love immense ! In love immense, inviolably just!
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 labor such expedient from despair, And rescue both? Both rescue! both exalt! O how are both exalted by the deed! 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 heaven's jarring attributes; And with one excellence another wound; Maim heaven's perfection, break its equal beams, Bid mercy triumph over-God himself, Undeify'd by their opprobrious praise; A God all mercy, is a God unjust.
Ye brainless wits, ye baptiz'd infidels, The ransom was paid down; the fund of heaven 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 inidnight, nature shudder'd to behold; A midnight new! from her Creator's frown! Sun! didst thou fly thy Maker's pain? or start At that enormous load of human guilt, [cross; Which bow'd his blessed head; o'erwhelm'd his 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 man might smile! heaven bled That man might never die—
What heart of stone but glows at thoughts like these? [mount Such contemplations mount us and should The mind still higher; nor ever glance on man, Unraptur'd, uninflam'd; where rell my thoughts To rest from wonders? How my soul is caught! Heav'n's sov'reign blessings clust'ring from the
Rush on her, in a throng, and close her round, The prisoner 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 ravenous 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 Powers most illumin'd wilder'd in the theme. The theme, the joy, how then shall man sus- tain? [throne! Oh the burst gates! crush'd sting! demolish'd Last gasp of vanquish'd death. Shout, earth and heaven,
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 pass'd the crystal ports of light, And seis'd eternal youth. Mortality Was then transferr'd to death; and heaven's du- Unalienably seal'd to this frail frame, [ration This child of dust.—Man, all-immortal! hail; Hail, heaven! all lavish of strange gifts to man! Thine all the glory! man's the boundless bliss. Where am I rapt by this triumphant theme, On christian joy's exulting wing, above Th' Aonian mount?-Alas! small cause for What if to pain, immortal? if extent Of being, to preclude a close of woe? Where, then, my boast of immortality? I boast it still, though cover'd o'er with guilt; For guilt, not innocence, his life he pour'd. Tis guilt alone can justify his death; Nor that, unless his death can justify Relenting guilt in heaven's indulgent sight. If sick of folly, I relent; he writes My name in heaven, with that inverted spear (A spear deep dipt in blood!) which piere'd his And open'd there a font for all mankind [side, Who strive, who combat crimes, to drink, and
The wonderful ascent with equal praise! Praise ardent, cordial, constant, to high heaven More fragrant than Arabia sacrific'd; And all her spicy mountains in a flame.
§ 166. Praise, bestowed on Men, due to Heaven.
FROM Courts and thrones return, apostate praise! Thou prostitute! to thy first love return. Thy first, thy greatest, once, unrivall'd theme. Back to thy fountain! to that parent power, Who gives the tongue to sound, the thought to
The soul to be. Men homage pay to men, Thoughtless beneath whose dreadful eye they In mutual awe profound of clay to clay, [bow, Of guilt to guilt, and turn their backs on thee, Great sire! whom thrones celestial ceaseless sing. Oh the presumption, of man's awe for man! Man's author! end! restorer! law! and judge! Thine, all; day thine, and thine this gloom of night,
With all her wealth, with all her radiant worlds: What night eternal, but a frown from thee? What heav'n's meridian glory, but thy smile? And shall not praise be thine? not human praise, While heav'n's high host on Hallelujahs live?
§ 167. Magnificence and Omnipresence of the Deity.
Он may I breathe no longer, than I breathe My soul in praise to him who gave me soul, And all her infinite of prospect fair, [thee! Cut through the shades of hell, great love! by Where shall that praise begin, which ne'er
Where'er I turn, what claim on all applause! How is night's sable mantle labor'd o'er! How richly wrought, with attributes divine! What wisdom shines! what love! This mid- night pomp,
This gorgeous arch, with golden worlds inlay'd, Built with divine ambition! nought to thee: For others this profusion: thou apart, Above, beyond! oh tell me, mighty mind, Where art thou? shall I dive into the deep? Call to the sun, or ask the roaring winds, For their Creator? shall I question loud The thunder, if in that th' Almighty dwells? Or holds the furious storms in straiten'd reins, And bids fierce whirlwinds wheel his rapid car? What mean these questions?-trembling I
My prostrate soul adores the present God: Praise I a distant Deity? he tunes My voice (if tun'd); the nerve, that writes, sus- Wrapp'd in his being, I resound his praise: But though past all diffus'd, without a shore, His essence: local is his throne (as meet), To gather the disperst, to fix a point, A central point, collective of his sons, Since finite every nature but his own.
The nameless He, whose nod is nature's birth; And nature's shield, the shadow of his hand,
Great! good! wise! wonderful! eternal King? If to those conscious stars thy throne around, Praise ever-pouring, and imbibing bliss, I ask their strain; they want it, more they want; Languid their energy, their ardor cold, Indebted still, their highest rapture burns; Short of its mark, defective, though divine. Still more This theme is man's, and man's alone :
Their vast appointments reach it not; they see On earth a bounty, not indulg'd on high; And downward look for heaven's superior praise! First-born of ether! high in fields of light! View man, to see the glory of your God! You sung creation (for in that you shar'd); How rose in melody, the child of love! Creation's great superior, man! is thine; Thine is redemption; eternize the song! Redemption! 'twas creation more sublime; Redemption! 'twas the labor of the skies; Far more than labor-It was death in heaven. Here pause and ponder; was there death in
What then on earth? on earth which struck the blow?
Who struck it? Who?-O how is man enlarg'd, Seen through this medium! How the pigmy
How counterpois'd his origin from dust! How counterpois'd to dust his sad return! How voided his vast distance from the skies! How near he presses on the seraph's wing! How this demonstrates through the thickest cloud Of guilt, and clay condens'd, the son of heav'n! The double son; the made, and the re-made! And shall heaven's double property be lost? Man's double madness only can destroy him. To man the bleeding cross has promis'd all; The bleeding cross has sworn eternal grace: Who gave his life, what grace shall he deny? O ye, who from this Rock of Ages leap Disdainful, plunging headlong in th' abyss ! What cordial joy, what consolation strong, Whatever winds arise, or billows roll, Our interest in the master of the storm? Cling there, and in wreck'd nature's ruins smile;
While vile apostates tremble in a calm.
§ 169. Man. MAN! know thyself; all wisdom centres there, To none man seems ignoble, but to man; Angels that grandeur, men o'erlook, admire : How long shall human nature be their book, Degenerate mortal! and unread by thee? The beam dim reason sheds shows wonders there; What high contents! illustrious faculties! But the grand comment which displays at full Our human height, scarce sever'd from divine, By heaven compos'd, was publish'd on the cross! Who looks on that, and sees not in himself An awful stranger, a terrestrial god? In that high attribute, immortal life! A glorious partner with the Deity
Catches strange fire! eternity! at thee. and as I gaze, my mounting soul
He, the great father! kindled at one flame The world of rationals; one spirit pour'd From spirit's awful fountain: pour'd himself Through all their souls; but not in equal stream Profuse, or frugal of th' inspiring God, Their various trials in their various spheres, As his wise plan demanded: and when past If they continue rational, as made, Resorbs them all into himself again; [crown. His throne their centre, and his smile their Why doubt we then the glorious truth to Angels are men of a superior kind; [sing? Angels are men in lighter habit clad, High o'er celestial mountains wing'd in flight : And men are angels, loaded for an hour, Who wade this iniry vale, and climb with pain, And slippery step, the bottom of the steep: Yet summon'd to the glorious standard soon, Which flames eternal crimson through the skies.
RELIGION's all. Descending from its sire To wretched man, the goddess in her left Holds out this world, and in her right, the next : Religion! the sole voucher man is man: Supporter sole of man above himself.
Religion! providence! an after state! Here is firm footing; here is solid rock; This can support us; all is sea besides; Sinks under us; bestorms, and then devours. His hand the good man fastens on the skies, And bids earth roll, nor feels her idle whirl. Religion! thou the soul of happiness; And groaning Calvary of thee! There shine The noble truths; there strongest motives sting! Can love allure us? or can terror awe? He weeps!-the falling drop puts out the sun; He sighs the sigh earth's deep foundation If, in his love, so terrible, what then [shakes. His wrath inflam'd? his tenderness on fire ? Can prayer, can praise avert it?-Thou, my all! My theme! my inspiration! and my crown! My strength in age! my rise in low estate ! My soul's ambition, pleasure, wealth! my world! My light in darkness! and my life in death! My boast through time! bliss through eternity!
From out the flames, and quench it in thy blood! How art thou pleas'd by bounty to distress! To make us groan beneath our gratitude, To challenge, and to distance, all return! Of lavish love stupendous heights to soar, And leave praise panting in the distant vale! But since the naked will obtains thy smile, Beneath this monument of praise unpaid, For ever lie entomb'd my fear of death, And dread of ev'ry evil, but thy frown.
O for an humbler heart and loftier song! Thou, my much-injur'd theme! with that soft eye Which melted o'er doom'd Salem, deign to look Compassion to the coldness of my breast, And pardon to the winter in my strain.
§ 172. Lukewarm Devotion.
Он ye cold hearted, frozen formalists! On such a theme 'tis impious to be calm; Shall Heaven which gave us ardor, and has shown Its own for man so strongly, not disdain What smooth emollients in theology, Recumbent virtue's downy doctors preach, That prose of piety, a lukewarm praise? Rise odors sweet from incense uninflam'd? Devotion, when lukewarm, is undevout.
§ 173. Death, where is thy Sting? Ou when will death (now stingless), like a friend,
Admit me of that choir? Oh when will death, This mould'ring, old partition-wall thrown Give beings, one in nature, one abode? [down, Oh death divine, that gives us to the skies! Great future! glorious patron of the past, And present, when shall I thy shrine adore? From Nature's continent immensely wide, Immensely blest, this little isle of life Divides us. Happy day, that breaks our chain; That re-adinits us, through the guardian hand Of elder brothers, to our Father's throne; Who hears our Advocate, and through his wounds
Beholding man, allows that tender name. 'Tis this makes Christian triumph a command: Tis this makes joy a duty to the wise. Hast thou ne'er seen the comet's flaming flight? Th' illustrious stranger passing, terror sheds On gazing nations, from this fiery train Of length enormous, takes his ample round Through depths of ether, coasts unnumber'd worlds,
Of more than solar glory; doubles wide Heav'n's mighty cape, and then revisits earth, From the long travel of a thousand years. Thus, at the destin'd period, shall return
He, once on earth, who bids the comet blaze; And with him all our triumph o'er the tomb.
§174. Faith enforced by our Reason. 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. Faith builds a bridge across the bridge of death, To break the shock blind nature cannot shun, And lands thought smoothly on the farther shore. Death's terror is the mountain Faith removes; That mountain barrier between man and peace: 'Tis Faith disarms destruction; and absolves From ev'ry clamorous charge the guiltless tomb. Why shouldst thou disbelieve?" 'tis Rea
"All-sacred Reason."-Hold her sacred still; Nor shalt thou want a rival in thy flame. Reason! my heart is thine: deep in its folds, Live thou with life; live dearer of the two. My reason rebaptiz'd me, when adult; Weigh'd true and false in her impartial scale; And made that choice, which once was but my fate.
Reason pursued is faith and unpursued Where proof invites, 'tis reason then no more; And such our proof, that, or our faith is right, Or reason lies, and Heaven design'd it wrong: Absolve we this? What then is blasphemy?
Fond as we are, and justly fond of faith, Reason, we grant, demands our first regard, The mother honor'd, as the daughter dear: Reason the root, fair faith is but the flow'r : The fading flow'r shall die; but reason lives Immortal, as her Father in the skies. Wrong not the Christian, think not reason yours: 'Tis reason our great Master holds so dear; 'Tis reason's injur'd rights his wrath resents. Believe, and show the reason of a man; Believe, and taste the pleasure of a God; Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb : Through reason's wounds alone, thy faith can die;
Which dying, tenfold terrors gives to death, And dips in venom his twice-mortal sting.
$ 175. False Philosophy.
LEARN hence what honors due to those who push
Our antidote aside; those friends to reason, Whose fatal love stabs every joy, and leaves Death's terror heighten'd gnawing on his heart; Those pompous sons of reason idoliz'd, And vilify'd at once; of reason dead, Then deified, as monarchs were of old. [sounds, While love of truth through all their camp re- They draw pride's curtain o'er the nood-tide ray, Spike up their inch of reason, on the point Of philosophic wit, call'd argument, And then, exulting in their taper, cry, "Behold the sun," and, Indian-like, adore.
Talk they of morals? O thou bleeding Love; Thou maker of new morals to mankind!
The grand morality is love of thee. A Christian is the highest style of man. And is there, who the blessed cross wipes off As a foul blot from his dishonour'd brow? If angels tremble, 'tis at such a sight: The wretch they quit, desponding of their charge, More struck with grief or wonder, who can tell?
§ 176. The mere Man of the World. YE sold to sense, ye citizens of earth, (For such alone the Christian banner fly) Know ye how wise your choice, how great your gain?
Behold the picture of earth's happiest man : "He calls his wish, it comes; he sends it back, "And says, he call'd another; that arrives, "Meets the same welcoine; yet he still calls on, "Till one calls him, who varies not his call, "But holds him fast, in chains of darkness bound,
"Till nature dies, and judgement sets him free:
"A freedom far less welcome than his chain."
But grant man happy; grant him happy long; Add to life's highest prize her latest hour; That hour, so late, comes on in full career : How swift the shuttle flies that weaves thy shroud!
'Where is the fable of thy former years? Thrown down the gulph of time; as far from
As they had ne'er been thine; the day in hand, Like a bird struggling to get loose, is going; Scarce now possest, so suddenly 'tis gone; And each swift moment fled, is death advanc'd By strides as swift: Eternity is all; And whose eternity? Who triumphs here, Bathing for ever in the font of bliss, For ever basking in the Deity?
Conscience, reply: O give it leave to speak; For it will speak ere long. Oh hear it now: While useful its advice, its accents mild. Truth is deposited with man's last hour; An honest hour, and faithful to her trust- Truth, eldest daughter of the Deity; Truth, of his council when he made the worlds, Nor less when he shall judge the worlds he made: Though silent long, and sleeping ne'er so sound, That Heaven-commission'd hour no sooner calls, Than from her cavern in the soul's abyss, The goddess bursts in thunder and in Hame: "Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die." NIGHT V. Darkness.
LET Indians, and the gay, like Indians, fond Of feather'd fopperies, the sun adore: Darkness has more divinity for me: It strikes thought inward, it drives back the soul To settle on herself, our point supreme! There lies our theatre; there sits our judge, Darkness the curtain drops o'er life's dull scene; 'Tis the kind hand of Providence stretcht out 'Twixt man and vanity; 'tis Reason's reign, And Virtue's too; these tutelary shades Are man's asylum from the tainted throng.
§ 178. The Futility of Man's Resolutions. VIRTUE for ever frail as fair below, Her tender nature suffers in the crowd, Nor touches on the world without a stain. The world's infectious; few bring back at eve Immaculate the manners of the morn: Something we thought, is blotted; we resolv'd, Is shaken; we renounc'd, returns again. Each salutation may slide in a sin Unthought before, or fix a former flaw. Nor is it strange, light, motion, concourse, noise, Ail scatter us abroad; thought outward bound, Neglectful of our home affairs, flies off In fume and dissipation, quits her charge, And leaves the breast unguarded to the foe.
$179. The Power of Exumple. And acts by double force, by few repell'd. PRESENT example gets within our guard, Ambition fires ambition; love of gain Strikes like a pestilence from breast to breast; And inhumanity is caught from man, Riot, pride, perfidy, blue vapors breathe! From smiling man. A slight, a single glance, sudden fever to the throbbing heart And shot at random, often has brought home
Of envy, raucour, or impure desire. Remote from multitude; the world's a school We see, we hear with peril; safety dwells We must or imitate or disapprove; Of wrong, and what proficients swarm around!
Must list as their accomplices or foes; [peace. That stains our innocence; this wounds our From nature's birth, hence, wisdom has been
With sweet recess, and languish'd for the shade.
THIS sacred shade, and solitude, what is it? 'Tis the felt presence of the Deity.
Few are the faults we flatter when alone : Vice sinks in her allurements, is ungilt, And looks, like other objects, black by night. By night an atheist half believes a God.
Night is fair Virtue's immemorial friend; The conscious moon, through every distant age, Has held a lamp to Wisdom, and let fall On contemplation's eye her purging ray. Hail, precious moments! stol'n from the black
Of murder'd time; auspicious midnight, hail! The world excluded, every passion hush'd, And open'd a calm intercourse with heav'n'; Here the soul sits in council, ponders past, Predestines future actions; sees, not feels, Tumultuous life; and reasons with the storm; All her lies answers, and thinks down her charms.
$181. Little to be expected from Man. WHAT are we! how unequal! now we soar, And now we sink: how dearly pays the soul For lodging ill; too dearly rents her clay! Reason, a baffled counsellor! but adds
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