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 ardor 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? Where 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 dreams
Of self-exposure, laudable, and great?
Of gallant enterprize, 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 doudtful, 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 injoin'd?
Why to be good in vain, is man betray'd?
Betray'd by traitors lodg'd in his own breast,
By sweet complacencies from virtue felt?
Why whispers nature lyes 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?

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 man immortal, and thy scorn is just.
The man immortal, rationally brave,
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.

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
For valour, virtue, science, all we love,

And all we praise; for worth, whose noon-tide beam,
Enabling us to think in higher style,
Mends our ideas of ethereal powers;
Dream we, that lustre of the moral world
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,
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,
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.
Wisdom and worth, how boldly he commends !
Wisdom and worth, are sacred names; rever'd,
Where not embrac'd; applauded! deify'd!
Why not compassion'd too? If spirits die,
Both are calamities, inflicted both,