Nor longer want, ye monumental sires!
A brother tomb to tell you ye shall die.
That death you dread (so great is Nature's skill)
Know, you shall court before you shall enjoy.

But you are learn'd; in volumes, deep you sit;
In wisdom shallow: pompous ignorance!
Would you be still more learned than the learn'd?
Learn well to know how much need not be known,
And what that knowledge, which impairs your

sense.

Our needful knowledge, like our needful food,
Unhedg'd, lies open in life's common field;
And bids all welcome to the vital feast.
You scorn what lies before you in the page
Of Nature, and Experience, moral truth;
Of indispensable, eternal fruit;

Fruit, on which mortals feeding, turn to gods:
And dive in science for distinguish'd names,
Dishonest fomentation of your pride!
Sinking in virtue, as you rise in fame.
Your learning, like the lunar beam, affords
Light, but not heat; it leaves you undevout,
Frozen at heart, while speculation shines.
Awake, ye curious indagators! fond

Of knowing all, but what avails you known.
If you would learn Death's character, attend.
All casts of conduct, all degrees of health,
All dies of fortune, and all dates of age,
Together shook in his impartial urn,
Come forth at random : or, if choice is made,
The choice is quite sarcastic, and insults
All bold conjecture, and fond hopes of man.
What countless multitudes not only leave,
But deeply disappoint us, by their deaths!
Though great our sorrow, greater our surprise.

Like other tyrants, Death delights to smite,
What, smitten, most proclaims the pride of power,
And arbitrary nod. His joy supreme,
To bid the wretch survive the fortunate;
The feeble wrap th' athletic in his shroud;
And weeping fathers build their childrens' tomb:
Me thine, Narcissa!-What though short thy
date?

Virtue, not rolling suns, the mind matures.
That life is long, which answers life's great end.
The time that bears no fruit, deserves no name;
The man of wisdom is the man of years.
In hoary youth Methusalems may die;
O how misdated on their flattering tombs!
Narcissa's youth has lectur'd me thus far.
And can her gaiety give counsel too?
That, like the Jews' fam'd oracle of gems,
Sparkles instruction; such as throws new light,
And opens more the character of death;
Ill-known to thee, Lorenzo! this thy vaunt:
"Give Death his due, the wretched, and the old;
E'en let him sweep his rubbish to the grave;
Let him not violate kind Nature's laws,
But own man born to live as well as die."
Wretched and old thou giv'st him; young and gay
He takes; and plunder is a tyrant's joy.
What if I prove, "That furthest from the fear,
Are often nearest to the stroke of fate?"

All, more than common, menaces an end.
A blaze betokens brevity of life:

As if bright embers should emit a flame,
Glad spirits sparkled from Narcissa's eye,

And made youth younger, and taught life to live.
As Nature's opposites wage endless war,
For this offence, as treason to the deep

This proves my bold assertion not too bold.
What are his arts to lay our fears asleep?
Tiberian arts his purposes wrap up

In deep dissimulation's darkest night.
Like princes unconfest in foreign courts,
Who travel under cover, Death assumes
The name and look of life, and dwells among us.
He takes all shapes that serve his black designs:
Though master of a wider empire far
Than that o'er which the Roman eagle flew.,
Like Nero, he's a fidler, charioteer,
Or drives his phaeton, in female guise;
Quite unsuspected, till, the wheel beneath,
His disarray'd oblation he devours.

He most affects the forms least like himself,
His slender self. Hence burly corpulence
Is his familiar wear, and sleek disguise.
Behind the rosy bloom he loves to lurk,
Or ambush in a smile; or wanton dive
In dimples deep; love's eddies, which draw in
Unwary hearts, and sink them in despair.
Such, on Narcissa's couch he loiter'd long
Unknown; and, when detected, still was seen
To smile; such peace has innocence in death!
Most happy they! whom least his arts deceive.
One eye on Death, and one full fix'd on Heaven,
Becomes a mortal, and immortal man.
Long on his wiles a piqu'd and jealous spy,
I've seen, or dreamt I saw, the tyrant dress;
Lay by his horrours, and put on his smiles.
Say, Muse, for thou remember'st, call it back,
And show Lorenzo the surprising scene;
If 't was a dream, his genius can explain.
'T was in a circle of the gay I stood.
Death would have enter'd; Nature push'd fim

back;

Supported by a doctor of renown,

His point he gain'd. Then artfully dismist
The sage; for Death design'd to be conceal'd.
He gave an old vivacious usurer

His meagre aspect, and his naked bones;
In gratitude for plumping up his prey,
A pamper'd spendthrift; whose fantastic air,
Well-fashion'd figure, and cockaded brow,
He took in change, and underneath the pride
Of costly linen, tuck'd his filthy shroud.
His crooked bow he straighten'd to a cane;
And hid his deadly shafts in Myra's eye.

The dreadful masquerader, thus equipt,
Out-sallies on adventures. Ask you where?
Where is he not? For his peculiar haunts,
Let this suffice; sure as night follows day,
Death treads in pleasure's footsteps, round the

world,

When, against reason, riot shuts the door,
And gaiety supplies the place of sense,
Then, foremost at the banquet and the ball,
Death leads the dance, or stamps the deadly die;
Nor ever fails the midnight bowl to crown.
Gaily carousing to his gay compeers,
Inly he laughs, to see them laugh at him,
As absent far: and when the revel burns,
When fear is banish'd, and triumphant thought,
Calling for all the joys beneath the Moon,
Against him turns the key, and bids him sup
With their progenitors-he drops his mask;
Frowns out at full; they start, despair, expire.

Scarce with more sudden terrour and surprise,
From his black masque of nitre, touch'd by fire,
He bursts, expands, roars, blazes, and devours.
And is not this triumphant treachery,
And more than simple conquest, in the fiend?

And now, Lorenzo, dost thou wrap thy soul
In soft security, because unknown
Which moment is commission'd to destroy?
In death's uncertainty thy danger lies.
Is death uncertain? Therefore thou be fit;
Fixt as a sentinel, all eye, all ear,
All expectation of the coming foe.
Rouse, stand in arms, nor lean against thy spear;
Lest slumber steal one moment o'er thy soul,
And fate surprise thee nodding. Watch, be strong;
Thus give each day the merit, and renown,
Of dying well; though doom'd but once to die.
Nor let life's period hidden (as from most)
Hide too from thee the precious use of life.
Early, not sudden, was Narcissa's fate.
Soon, not surprising, Death his visit paid.
Her thought went forth to meet him on his way,
Nor gaiety forgot it was to die:

Though fortune too (our third and final theme),
As an accomplice, play'd her gaudy plumes,
And every glittering gewgaw, on her sight,
To dazzle, and debauch it from its mark.
Death's dreadful advent is the mark of man;
And every thought that misses it, is blind.
Fortune, with youth and gaiety, conspir'd
To weave a triple wreath of happiness
(If happiness on Earth) to crown her brow.
And could Death charge through such a shining
shield?

That shining shield invites the tyrant's spear,
As if to damp our elevated aims,

And strongly preach humility to man.

O how portentous is prosperity!
How, comet-like, it threatens, while it shines!
Few years but yield us proof of Death's ambition,
To cull his victims from the fairest fold,
And sheath his shafts in all the pride of life.
When flooded with abundance, purpled o'er
With recent honours, bloom'd with every bliss,
Set up in ostentation, made the gaze,
The gaudy centre, of the public eye,
When fortune thus has toss'd her child in air,
Snatcht from the covert of an humble state,
How often have I seen him dropt at once,
Our morning's envy! and our evening's sigh!
As if her bounties were the signal given,
The flowery wreath to mark the sacrifice,
And call Death's arrows on the destin'd prey.
High fortune seems in cruel league with fate.
Ask you for what? To give his war on man

The deeper dread, and more illustrious spoil;
Thus to keep daring mortals more in awe.
And burns Lorenzo still for the sublime
Of life? To hang his airy nest on high,
On the slight timber of the topmost bough,
Rockt at each breeze, and menacing a fall?
Granting grim Death at equal distance there;
Yet peace begins just where ambition ends.
What makes man wretched? Happiness denied?
Lorenzo! no: 'Tis happiness disdain'd.
She comes too meanly drest to win our smile;
And calls herself Content, a homely name!
Our flame is transport, and content our scorn.
Ambition turns, and shuts the door against her,
And weds a toil, a tempest, in her stead;
A tempest to warm transport near of kin.
Unknowing what our mortal state admits,
Life's modest joys we ruin, while we raise
And all our ecstasies are wounds to peace;
Peace, the full portion of mankind below.

And since thy peace is dear, ambitious youth!
Of fortune fond! as thoughtless of thy fate!
As late I drew Death's picture, to stir up
Thy wholesome fears; now, drawn in contrast, see
Gay Fortune's, thy vain hopes to reprimand.
See, high in air, the sportive goddess hangs,
Unlocks her casket, spreads her glittering ware,
And calls the giddy winds to puff abroad
Her random bounties o'er the gaping throng.
All rush rapacious; friends o'er trodden friends;
Sons o'er their fathers, subjects o'er their kings,
Priests o'er their gods, and lovers o'er the fair,
(Still more ador'd) to snatch the golden shower.
Gold glitters most, where virtue shines no

more;

As stars from absent suns have leave to shine.
O what a precious pack of votaries
Unkennel'd from the prisons, and the stews,
Pour in, all opening in their idol's praise;
All, ardent, eye each wafture of her hand,
And, wide-expanding their voracious jaws,
Morsel on morsel swallow down unchew'd,
Untasted, through mad appetite for more;
Gorg'd to the throat, yet lean and ravenous still.
Sagacious all, to trace the smallest game,
And bold to seize the greatest. If (blest chance!)
Court-zephyrs sweetly breathe, they lanch, they
fly,

O'er just, o'er sacred, all-forbidden ground,
Drunk with the burning scent of place or power,
Stanch to the foot of lucre, till they die.

Or, if for men you take them, as I mark Their manners, thou their various fates survey. With aim mis-measur'd, and impetuous speed, Some darting, strike their ardent wish far off, Through fury to possess it: some succeed, But stumble, and let fall the taken prize. From some, by sudden blasts, 't is whirl'd away, And lodg'd in bosoms that ne'er dreamt of gain. To some it sticks so close, that, when torn off, Torn is the man, and mortal is the wound. Some, o'er-enamour'd of their bags, run mad, Groan under gold, yet weep for want of bread. Together some (unhappy rivals!) seize, And rend abundance into poverty; Loud croaks the raven of the law, and smiles: Smiles too the goddess; but smiles most at those, (Just victims of exorbitant desire!)

Who perish at their own request, and, whelm'd Beneath her load of lavish grants, expire.

Fortune is famous for her numbers slain,
The number small, which happiness can bear.
Though various for a while their fates; at last
One curse involves them all: at Death's approach,
All read their riches backward into loss,
And mourn, in just proportion to their store.
And Death's approach (if orthodox my song)
Is hasten'd by the lure of Fortune's smiles.
And art thou still a glutton of bright gold?
And art thou still rapacious of thy ruin?
Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow;
A blow, which, while it executes, alarms;
And startles thousands with a single fall.
As when some stately growth of oak, or pine,
Which nods aloft, and proudly spreads her shade,
The Sun's defiance, and the flock's defence;
By the strong strokes of labouring hinds subdued,
Loud groans her last, and, rushing from her height,
In cumbrous ruin, thunders to the ground:
The conscious forest trembles at the shock,
And hill, and stream, and distant dale, resound.
These high-aim'd darts of Death, and these alone,
Should I collect, my quiver would be full.
A quiver, which, suspended in mid air,
Or near Heaven's Archer, in the zodiac, hung,
(So could it be) should draw the public eye,
The gaze and contemplation of mankind!
A constellation awful, yet benign,

To guide the gay through life's tempestuous wave;
Nor suffer them to strike the common rock,
"From greater danger, to grow more secure,
And, wrapt in happiness, forget their fate."

Lysander, happy past the common lot,
Was warn'd of danger, but too gay to fear.
He woo'd the fair Aspasia: she was kind:
In youth, form, fortune, fame, they both were
blest :

All who knew, envied; yet in envy lov'd:
Can fancy form more finisht happiness?
Fixt was the nuptial hour. Her stately dome
Rose on the sounding beach. The glittering spires
Float in the wave, and break against the shore:
So break those glittering shadows, human joys.
The faithless morning smil'd: he takes his leave,
To re-embrace, in ecstasies, at eve.
The rising storm forbids. The news arrives:
Untold, she saw it in her servant's eye.
She felt it seen (her heart was apt to feel);
And, drown'd, without the furious ocean's aid,
In suffocating sorrows, shares his tomb.
Now, round the sumptuous, bridal monument,
The guilty billows innocently roar;
And the rough sailor passing, drops a tear.
A tear? Can tears suffice?—But not for me.
How vain our efforts! and our arts how vain!
The distant train of thought I took to shun,
Has thrown me on my fate-These died together;
Happy in ruin! undivorc'd by death!

Or ne'er to meet, or ne'er to part, is peace-
Narcissa! Pity bleeds at thought of thee.
Yet thou wast only near me; not myself.
Survive myself?—That cures all other woe.
Narcissa lives; Philander is forgot.

O the soft commerce! O the tender ties,
Close-twisted with the fibres of the heart!
Which, broken, break them; and drain off the
soul

Of human joy; and make it pain to live-
And is it then to live? When such friends part,
'Tis the survivor dies-My heart, no more,

NIGHT THE SIXTH.

THE INFIDEL RECLAIMED.

IN TWO PARTS.

Containing the NATURE, PROOF, and IMPORTANCE, of IMMORTALITY.

PART THE FIRST.

Where, among other Things, Glory and Riches are particularly considered.

TO THE RIGHT HON. HENRY PELHAM, FIRST LORD COMMISSIONER OF THE TREASURY, AND CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER.

PREFACE.

Few ages have been deeper in dispute about religion than this. The dispute about religion, and the practice of it, seldom go together. The shorter, therefore, the dispute, the better. I think it may be reduced to this single question, Is man immortal, or is he not? If he is not, all our disputes are mere amusements, or trials of skill. In this case, truth, reason, religion, which give our discourses such pomp and solemnity, are (as will be shown) mere empty sound, without any meaning in them. But if man is immortal, it will behove him to be very serious about eternal consequences; or, in other words, to be truly religious. And this great fundamental truth, unestablished, or unawakened in the minds of men, is, I conceive, the real source and support of all our infidelity; how remote soever the particular objections advanced may seem to be from it.

Sensible appearances affect most men much more than abstract reasonings; and we daily see bodies drop around us, but the soul is invisible. The power which inclination has over the judgment, is greater than can be well conceived by those that have not had an experience of it; and of what numbers is it the sad interest that souls should not survive! The heathen world confessed, that they rather hoped, than firmly believed, immortality! And how many heathens have we still amongst us! The sacred page assures us, that life and immortality is brought to light by the Gospel: but by how many is the Gospel rejected, or overlooked! From these considerations, and from my being acccidentally privy to the sentiments of some particular persons, I have been long persuaded that most, if not all, our infidels (whatever name they take, and whatever scheme, for argument's sake, and to keep themselves in countenance, they patronize) are supported in their deplorable errour, by some doubt of their immortality, at the bottom. And I am satisfied, that men once thoroughly convinced of their immortality, are not far from being Christians. For it is hard to conceive, that a man fully conscious eternal pain or happiness will certainly be his lot, should not earnestly, and impartially, inquire after the surest means of escaping one, and securing the other. And of such an earnest and impartial inquiry, I well know the consequence.

Here, therefore, in proof of this most fundamental truth, some plain arguments are offered; arguments derived from principles which infidels admit in common with believers; arguments, which appear to me altogether irresistible; and such as,

I am satisfied, will have great weight with all, who give themselves the small trouble of looking seriously into their own bosoms, and of observing, with any tolerable degree of attention, what daily passes round about them in the world. If some arguments shall, here, occur, which others have declined, they are submitted, with all deference, to better judgments in this, of all points the most important. For, as to the being of a God, that is no longer disputed; but it is undisputed for this reason only; viz. because, where the least pretence to reason is admitted, it must for ever be indisputable. And of consequence no man can be betrayed into a dispute of that nature by vanity; | which has a principal share in animating our modern combatants against other articles of our belief.

NIGHT VI.

SHE' (for I know not yet her name in Heaven)
Not early, like Narcissa, left the scene;
Nor sudden, like Philander. What avail?
This seeming mitigation but inflames;
This fancied medicine heightens the disease."
The longer known, the closer still she grew;
And gradual parting is a gradual death.
'T is the grim tyrant's engine, which extorts,
By tardy pressure's still increasing weight,
From hardest hearts, confession of distress.

O the long, dark approach through years of pain,
Death's gallery! (might I dare to call it so)
With dismal doubt, and sable terrour, hung:
Sick Lopes, pale lamp its only glimmering ray:
There, fate my melancholy walk ordain'd,
Forbid self-love itself to flatter, there,
How oft I gaz'd, prophetically sad!
How oft I saw her dead, while yet in smiles!
In smiles she sunk her grief to lessen mine.
She spoke me comfort, and increas'd my pain.
Like powerful armies trenching at a town,
By slow, and silent, but resistless sap,
In his pale progress gently gaining ground,
Death urg'd his deadly siege; in spite of art,
Of all the balmy blessings Nature lends
To succour frail humanity. Ye stars!
(Not now first made familiar to my sight)

And thou, O Moon! bear witness; many a night
He tore the pillow from beneath my head,
Tied down by sore attention to the shock,
By ceaseless depredations on a life

Dearer than that he left me. Dreadful post
Of observation! darker every hour!
Less dread the day that drove me to the brink,
And pointed at eternity below;
When my soul shuddered at futurity;
When, on a moment's point, th' important die,
Of life and death spun doubtful, ere it fell,
And turn'd up life; my title to more woe.

But why more woe? More comfort let it be,
Nothing is dead, but that which wish'd to die;
Nothing is dead, but wretchedness and pain;
Nothing is dead, but what encumber'd, gall'd,
Block'd up the pass, and barr'd from real life.
Where dwells that wish most ardent of the wise?
Too dark the Sun to see it; highest stars
Too low to reach it; Death, great Death alone,
O'er stars and Sun triumphant, lands us there.

1 Referring to Night V.

Nor dreadful our transition; though the mind,
An artist at creating self-alarms,
Rich in expedients for inquietude,
Is prone to paint it dreadful. Who can take
Death's portrait true? The tyrant never sat.
Our sketch all random strokes, conjecture all;
Close shuts the grave, nor tells one single tale.
Death, and his image rising in the brain,
Bear faint resemblance; never are alike;
Fear shakes the pencil; Fancy loves excess ;
Dark Ignorance is lavish of her shades:
And these the formidable picture draw.
But grant the worst; 't is past; new prospects rise;
And drop a veil eternal o'er her tomb.
Far other views our contemplation claim,
Views that o'erpay the rigours of our life;
Views that suspend our agonies in death.
Wrapt in the thought of immortality,
Wrapt in the single, the triumphant thought!
Long life might lapse, age unperceiv'd come on;
And find the soul unsated with her theme.
Its nature, proof, importance, fire my song.
O that my song could emulate my soul !
Like her, immortal. No!-the soul disdains
A mark so mean; far nobler hope inflames;
If endless ages can outweigh an hour,
Let not the laurel, but the palm, inspire.~

Thy nature, immortality! who knows?
And yet who knows it not? It is but life
And spun for ever; dipt by cruel fate
In stronger thread of brighter colour spun,

In Stygian dye, how black, how brittle here!
How short our correspondence with the Sun!
And while it lasts, inglorious! Our best deeds,
How wanting in their weight! Our highest joys
Small cordials to support us in our pain,
And give us strength to suffer.
But how great
To mingle interests, converse amities,
With all the sons of reason, scatter'd wide
Through habitable space, wherever born,
Howe'er endow'd! To live free citizens
Of universal Nature! To lay hold

By more than feeble faith on the Supreme!
To call Heaven's rich unfathomable mines
(Mines, which support archangels in their state)
Our own! to rise in science, as in bliss,
Initiate in the secrets of the skies!
To read creation; read its mighty plan
In the bare bosom of the Deity!

The plan, and execution, to collate!

To see, before each glance of piercing thought,
All cloud, all shadow, blown remote; and leave
No mystery-But that of love divine,
Which lifts us on the seraph's flaming wing,
From Earth's aceldama, this field of blood,
Of inward anguish, and of outward ill,
From darkness, and from dust, to such a scene!
Love's element! true joy's illustrious home!
From Earth's sad contrast (now deplor'd) more fair!
What exquisite vicissitude of fate!
Blest absolution of our blackest hour!

Lorenzo, these are thoughts that make man man,
The wise illumine, aggrandize the great.
How great (while yet we tread the kindred clod,
And every moment fear to sink beneath
The clod we tread; soon trodden by our sons)
How great, in the wild whirl of time's pursuits,
To stop, and pause, involv'd in high presage,
Through the long visto of a thousand years,
To stand contemplating our distant selves,

As in a magnifying mirror seen, Enlarg'd, ennobled, elevate, divine! To prophesy our own futurities;

To gaze in thought on what all thought transcends!
To talk, with fellow-candidates, of joys
As far beyond conception as desert,
Ourselves th' astonish'd talkers, and the tale!
Lorenzo, swells thy bosom at the thought?
The swell becomes thee: 'tis an honest pride.
Revere thyself;-and yet thyself despise.
His nature no man can o'er-rate; and none
Can under-rate his merit. Take good heed,
Nor there be modest, where thou should'st be proud;
That almost universal errour shun.

How just our pride, when we behold those heights!
Not those ambition paints in air, but those
Reason points out, and ardent virtue gains;
And angels emulate; our pride how just! [quit
When mount we? When these shackles cast? When
This cell of the creation? this small nest,
Stuck in a corner of the universe,

Wrapt up in fleecy cloud, and fine-spun air?
Fine-spun to sense; but gross and feculent
To souls celestial; souls ordain'd to breathe
Ambrosial gales, and drink a purer sky;
Greatly triumphant on time's further shore,
Where virtue reigus, enrich'd with full arrears;
While pomp imperial begs an alms of peace.

In empire high, or in proud science deep,
Ye born of Earth! on what can you confer,
With half the dignity, with half the gain,
The gust, the glow of rational delight,

As on this theme, which angels praise and share?
Man's fates and favours are a theme in Heaven.
What wretched repetition cloys us here!
What periodic potions for the sick!
Distemper'd bodies! and distemper'd minds!
In an eternity, what scenes shall strike!
Adventures thicken! novelties surprise!
What webs of wonder shall unravel, there!
What full day pour on all the paths of Heaven,
And light th' Almighty's footsteps in the deep!
How shall the blessed day of our discharge
Unwind, at once, the labyrinths of fate,
And straighten its inextricable maze!

If inextinguishable thirst in man

To know; how rich, how full, our banquet there!
There, not the moral world alone unfolds;
The world material, lately seen in shades,
And, in those shades, by fragments only seen,
And seen those fragments by the labouring eye,
Unbroken, then, illustrious and entire,
Its ample sphere, its universal frame,
In full dimensions, swells to the survey;
And enters, at one glance, the ravisht sight.
From some superior point (where, who can tell?
Suffice it, 't is a point where gods reside)
How shall the stranger man's illumin'd eye,
In the vast ocean of unbounded space,
Behold an infinite of floating worlds
Divide the crystal waves of ether pure,
In endless voyage, without port? The least
Of these disseminated orbs, how great!
Great as they are, what numbers these surpass,
Huge, as leviathan, to that small race,
Those twinkling multitudes of little life,
He swallows unperceiv'd? Stupendous these!
Yet what are these stupendous to the whole!
As particles, as atoms ill perceiv'd;
As circulating globules in our veins;

So vast the plan. Fecundity divine!
Exuberant source! perhaps, I wrong thee still
If admiration is a source of joy,

What transport hence! yet this the least in Heaven.
What this to that illustrious robe he wears,

Who toss'd this mass of wonders from his hand,
A specimen, an earnest of his power?
'Tis to that glory, whence all glory flows,
As the mead's meanest floweret to the Sun,
Which gave it birth. But what, this Sun of Heaven?
This bliss supreme of the supremely blest ?
Death, only Death, the question can resolve.
By Death, cheap-bought th' ideas of our joy ;
The bare ideas! solid happiness

So distant from its shadow chas’d below.

And chase we still the phantom through the fire, O'er bog, and brake, and precipice, till death? And toil we still for sublunary pay? Defy the dangers of the field and flood, Or, spider-like, spin out our precious all, Our more than vitals spin (if no regard

To great futurity) in curious webs

Of subtle thought, and exquisite design;
(Fine net-work of the brain!) to catch a fly!
The momentary buz of vain renown!
A name; a mortal immortality!

Or (meaner still!) instead of grasping air,
For sordid lucre, plunge we in the mire?
Drudge, sweat, through every shame, for every gain,
For vile contaminating trash; throw up
Our hope in Heaven, our dignity with man?
And deify the dirt, matur'd to gold?
Ambition, avarice; the two demons these,
Which goad through every slough our human herd,
Hard travell'd from the cradle to the grave.
How low the wretches stoop! How steep they climb!
These demons burn mankind; but most possess
Lorenzo's bosom, and turn out the skies.

Is it in time to hide eternity?
And why not in an atom on the shore
To cover ocean? or a mote, the Sun ?
Glory and wealth! have they this blinding power?
What if to them I prove Lorenzo blind?
Would it surprise thee? Be thou then surpris'd;
Thou neither know'st: their nature learn from me.
Mark well, as foreign as these subjects seem,
What close connection ties them to my theme,

First, what is true ambition? The pursuit
Of glory, nothing less than man can share.
Were they as vain as gaudy-minded man,
As flatulent with fumes of self-applause,
Their arts and conquests animals might boast,
And claim their laurel crowns, as well as we;
But not celestial. Here we stand alone;
As in our form, distinct, pre-eminent;

If prone in thought, our stature is our shame:
And man should blush, his forehead meets the skies.
The visible and present are for brutes,

A slender portion! and a narrow bound!
These reason, with an energy divine,
O'erleaps; and claims the future and unseen;
The vast unseen! the future fathomless!
When the great soul buoys up to this high point,
Leaving gross Nature's sediments below,
Then, and then only, Adam's offspring quits
The sage and hero of the fields and woods,
Asserts his rank, and rises into man.
This is ambition: this is human fire.

Can parts or place (two bold pretenders!) make Lorenzo great, and pluck him from the throng?