Containing the Nature, Proof, and Importance of
Immortality.
HEAVEN gives the needful, but neglected, call.
What day, what hour, but knocks at human hearts,
To wake the soul to sense of future scenes?
Deaths stand, like Mercuries, in ev'ry way;
And kindly point us to our journey's end.
Pope, who couldst make immortals, art thou dead?
I give thee joy: nor will I take my leave;
So soon to follow. Man but dives in death;
Dives from the sun, in fairer day to rise;
The grave, his subterranean road to bliss.
Yes, infinite indulgence plann'd it so;
Through various parts our glorious story runs ;
Time gives the preface, endless age unrolls
The volume (ne'er unroll'd!) of human fate.
This, earth and skies already have proclaim'd.
The world's a prophecy of worlds to come:
And who, what God foretells (who speaks in things
Still louder than in words) shall dare deny?
If nature's arguments appear too weak,
Turn a new leaf, and stronger read in man.
If man sleeps on, untaught by what he sees,
Can he prove infidel to what he feels?
He, whose blind thought futurity denies,
Unconscious bears, Bellerophon! like thee,
His own indictment; he condemns himself;
Who reads his bosom, reads immortal life;
Or, Nature, there, imposing on her sons,
Has written fables; man was made a lie.
Why discontent for ever harbour'd there?
Incurable consumption of our peace!
Resolve me, why the cottager and king,
He whom sea-sever'd realms obey, and he
Who steals his whole dominion from the waste,
Repelling winter blasts with mud and straw,
Disquieted alike, draw sigh for sigh,
In fate so distant, in complaint so near?
Is it, that things terrestrial can't content?
Deep in rich pasture, will thy flocks complain?
Not so; but to their master is denied
To share their sweet serene. Man, ill at ease,
In this, not his own place, this foreign field,
Where Nature fodders him with other food
Than was ordain'd his cravings to suffice,
Poor in abundance, famish'd at a feast,
Sighs on for something more, when most enjoy'd.
Is Heav'n then kinder to thy flocks than thee?
Not so; thy pasture richer, but remote;
In part, remote; for that remoter part
Man bleats from instinct, tho', perhaps debauch'd
By sense, his reason sleeps, nor dreams the cause.
The cause how obvious, when his reason wakes!
His grief is but his grandeur in disguise;
And discontent is immortality.
Shall sons of ether, shall the blood of heav'n,
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, distrest, 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 pow'rs,
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 heav'n 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 pow'rs 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 unlearnt.
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 master-piece 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 cursed 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, th' 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 buried 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 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.
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 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.
Why virtue? Where its praise, its being fled?
Virtue is true self-interest pursued:
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 revered, so long reputed wise,
Is weak; with rank knight-errantries o'errun.
Why beats thy bosom with illustrious dreams
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 the 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; 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,
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