The cause how obvious, when his reason wakes!
His grief is but his grandeur in disguise,
And discontent is immortality.

Shall sons of æther, shall the blood of heaven,
Set up their hopes on earth, and stable here,
With brutal acquiescence, in the mire?
Lorenzo! no; they shall be nobly pain'd;
The glorious foreigners, distress'd, shall sigh
On thrones, and thou congratulate the sigh.
Man's misery declares him born for bliss ;
His anxious heart asserts the truth I sing,
And gives the sceptic in his head the lie.

Our heads, our hearts, our passions, and our powers, Speak the same language; call us to the skies: Unripen'd these, in this inclement clime,

Scarce rise above conjecture and mistake;
And for this land of trifles those, too strong,
Tumultuous rise, and tempest human life.
What prize on earth can pay us for the storm?
Meet objects for our passions heaven ordain'd,
Objects that challenge all their fire, and leave
No fault but in defect. Bless'd heaven! avert
A bounded ardour for unbounded bliss!
O for a bliss unbounded! far beneath
A soul immortal is a mortal joy.

Nor are our powers to perish immature ;

But, after feeble effort here, beneath
A brighter sun, and in a nobler soil,
Transplanted from this sublunary bed,

Shall flourish fair, and put forth all their bloom.
Reason progressive, instinct is complete:
Swift Instinct leaps; slow Reason feebly climbs
Brutes soon their zenith reach; their little all
Flows in at once; in ages they no more
Could know, or do, or covet, or enjoy.
Were man to live coeval with the sun,
The patriarch pupil would be learning still,
Yet, dying, leave his lesson half-unlearn'd.

Men perish in advance, as if the sun

Should set ere noon, in eastern oceans drown'd;
If fit with dim illustrious to compare,

The sun's meridian with the soul of man.
To man, why, step-dame Nature! so severe ?
Why thrown aside thy masterpiece half-wrought,
While meaner efforts thy last hand enjoy?
Or if, abortively, poor man must die,

Nor reach what reach he might, why die in dread?
Why curs'd with foresight? wise to misery?

Why of his proud prerogative the prey ?

Why less pre-eminent in rank than pain?
His immortality alone can tell,

Full ample fund to balance all amiss,

And turn the scale in favour of the just !
His immortality alone can solve
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.
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 bury'd deep,
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 th' Almighty to the future sets,
By secret and inviolable springs,

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,

He will descend. He starves on the possest.
Hence the world's master, from ambition's spire,
In Caprea plung'd; and div'd 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.

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 ev'ry thought that falcon sits,
To fly at all that rises in her sight;
And never stooping, but to mount again
Next moment, she betrays her aim's mistake,
And owns her quarry lodg'd 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.
Why Virtue? were its praise, its being, fled?
Virtue is true self-interest pursu'd:
What true self-interest of quite-mortal man!
To close with all that makes him happy here.
If vice (as sometimes) is our friend on earth,
Then vice is virtue; 'tis our sov'reign good.
In self applause is virtue's golden prize?
No self-applause attends it on thy scheme.
Whence self-applause? from conscience of the right;
And what is right but means of happiness?
No means of happiness when virtue yields;
That basis failing, falls the building too,
And lays in ruin ev'ry virtuous joy.

The rigid guardian of a blameless heart,
So long rever'd, so long reputed wise,

Is weak, with rank knight-errantries o'er-run.
Why beats thy bosom with illustrious dreamis
Of self-exposure, laudable and great?
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!) tho' 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 th' Almighty's subsequent command,
His first command is this:-" Man, love thyself."
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, tho' nations, which consult
Their gain at thy expence, resound applause,
Since virtue's recompence 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?