That darkest of enigmas, human hope;
Of all the darkest, if at death we die.
Hope, eager Hope, the' assassin of our joy,
All present blessings treading under foot,
Is scarce a milder tyrant than Despair.
With no past toils content, still planning new,
Hope turns us o'er to Death alone for ease.

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Possession, why more tasteless than pursuit?

Why is a wish far dearer than a crown?

That wish accomplish'd, why the grave of bliss ?—

Because in the great future buried deep,

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Beyond our plans of empire and renown,

Lies all that man with ardour should pursue;

And He who made him bent him to the right.

Man's heart the' Almighty to the future sets, By secret and inviolable springs;

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And makes his hope his sublunary joy.

Man's heart eats all things, and is hungry still;

'More, more!' the glutton cries: for something new So rages appetite; if man can't mount,

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He will descend. He starves on the possess'd;
Hence, the world's master, from Ambition's spire,
In Caprea plunged, and dived beneath the brute.
In that rank sty why wallow'd Empire's son
Supreme? Because he could no higher fly :
His riot was Ambition in despair.

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Old Rome consulted birds: Lorenzo! thou With more success the flight of Hope survey,

Of restless Hope for ever on the wing.

High perch'd o'er every thought that falcon sits,
To fly at all that rises in her sight:

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And neve: stooping, but to mount again

Next moment, she betrays her aim's mistake,

And owns her quarry lodged beyond the grave
There should it fail us, (it must fail us there,

If being fails) more mournful riddles rise,
And virtue vies with hope in mystery.

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Why virtue? where its praise its being, fled

Virtue 13 true self-interest pursued ;
What true self-interest of quite mortal man?
l'o close with all that makes him happy here.
If vice (as sometimes) is our friend on earth,
Then vice is virtue; 'tis our sovereign good.
In self-applause is virtue's golden prize?
No self applause attends it on thy scheme

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Whence self-applause? from conscience of the right; And what is right, but means of happiness?

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Is weak, with rank knight-errantries o'errun.

Why beats thy bosom with illustrious dreams
Of self-exposure, laudable and great?

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Of gallant enterprise, and glorious death?
Die for thy country?-thou romantic fool!
Seize, seize the plank thyself, and let her sink.

Thy country! what to thee?-the Godhead, what!
(I speak with awe!) though He should bid thee bleed?

If, with thy blood, thy final hope is spilt?

Nor can Omnipotence reward the blow:

Be deaf; preserve thy being; disobey.

Nor is it disobedience. Know, Lorenzo!

Whate'er the' Almighty's subsequent command,

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His first command is this:- Man, love thyself.' 170
In this alone free agents are not free.
Existence is the basis, bliss the prize;
If virtue costs existence, 'tis a crime;
Bold violation of our law supreme;
Black suicide; though nations, which consult
Their gain at thy expense, resound applause.
Since Virtue's recompense is doubtful here,
If man dies wholly; well may we demand
Why is man suffer'd to be good, in vain?
Why to be good in vain, is man enjoin'd?

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Why to be good in vain is man betray'd?
Betray'd by traitors lodged in his own breast,
By sweet complacencies from virtue felt?
Why whispers Nature lies on Virtue's part?
Or if blind Instinct (which assumes the name
Of sacred Conscience) plays the fool in man,
Why Reason made accomplice in the cheat?
Why are the wisest loudest in her praise?
Can man by Reason's beam be led astray?
Or, at his peril, imitate his God?

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Since virtue sometimes ruins us on earth,

Or both are true, or man survives the grave.

Or man survives the grave; or own, Lorenzo,
Thy boast supreme a wild absurdity.
Dauntless thy spirit, cowards are thy scorn
Grant inan immortal, and thy scorn is just.
The man immortal, rationally brave,

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Dares rush on death-because he cannot die!

But if man loses all when life is lost,

He lives a coward, or a fool expires.

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A daring Infidel (and such there are,

From pride, example, lucre, rage, revenge,

Or pure heroical defect of thought)

Of all earth's madmen most deserves a chain.

When to the grave we follow the renown'd

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For valour, virtue, science, all we love,

And all we praise; for worth, whose noontide beam,

Enabling us to think in higher style,

Mends our ideas of ethereal powers;

Dream we, that lustre of the moral world

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Goes out in stench, and rottenness the close?

Why was he wise to know, and warm to praise,

And strenuous to transcribe, in human life,

The Mind Almighty? Could it be that Fate,

Just when the lineaments began to shine,

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And dawn the Deity, should snatch the draught,

With night eternal blot it out, and give
The skies alarm, lest angels too might die?

If human souls why not angelic too, Extinguish'd; and a solitary God,

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O'er ghastly ruin frowning from his throne '
Shall we this moment gaze on God in man,
The next lose man for ever in the dust?

From dust we disengage, or man mistakes;

And there, where least his judgment fears a flaw. 225
Wisdom and worth how boldly he commends !
Wisdom and worth are sacred names; revered
Where not embraced; applauded! deified!
Why not compassion'd too? if spirits die,
Both are calamities, inflicted both

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To make us but more wretched. Wisdom's eye
Acute, for what? to spy more miseries;

And worth, so recompensed, new points their stings.
Or man surmounts the grave, or gain is loss,
And worth exalted humbles us the more.
Thou wilt not patronize a scheme that makes

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Weakness and vice the refuge of mankind.

'Has virtue, then, no joys?'-Yes, joys dear bought.

Talk ne'er so long in this imperfect state,

Virtue and vice are at eternal war.

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Virtue's a combat; and who fights for nought,

The crown, the' unfading crown, her soul inspires; 'Tis that and that alone can countervail

The body's treacheries and the world's assaults.

On earth's poor pay our famish'd virtue dies;
Truth incontestable ! in spite of all

250.

A Bayle has preach'd, or a Voltaire believed.

In man the more we dive, the more we see Heaven's signet stamping an immortal make. Dive to the bottom of his soul, the base Sustaining all, what find we knowledge, love!

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As light and neat, essential to the Sun,
These to the soul: and why, if souls expire?
How little lovely here? how little known?
Small knowledge we dig up with endless toil,
And love unfeign'd may purchase perfect hate.
Why starved, on earth, our angel appetites;
While brutal are indulged their fulsome fill?
Were then capacities divine conferr'd,

260

As a mock diadem, in savage sport,
Rank insult of our pompous poverty,

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Which reaps but pain from seeming claims so fair?
In future age lies no redress? and shuts
Eternity the door on our complaint?

270

If so, for what strange ends were mortals made
The worst to wallow, and the best to weep;
The man who merits most must most complain
Can we conceive a disregard in Heaven,
What the worst perpetrate, or best endure ?

This cannot be. To love and know, in man
Is boundless appetite and boundless power.
And these demonstrate boundless objects too.
Objects, powers, appetites, Heaven suits in all,
Nor, Nature through, c'er violates this sweet
Eternal concord on her tuneful string.
Is man the sole exception from her laws?
Eternity struck off from human hope,
(I speak with truth, but veneration too)
Man is a monster, the reproach of Heaven,
A stain, a dark impenetrable cloud
On Nature's beauteous aspect, and deforms,
(Amazing blot!) deforms her with her lord.
If such is man's allotment, what is Heaven?
Or own the soul immortal, or blaspheme.

Or own the soul immortal, or invert
All order. Go, mock majesty! go, man
And bow to thy superiors of the stall,
Through every scene of sense superior far

They graze the turf untill'd, they drink the stream

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