Complete Works of Edward Young, page 18
Beneath the lumber of demolish’d worlds,
Deep in the rubbish of the general wreck,
Swept ignominious to the common mass
Of matter, never dignified with life,
Here lie proud rationals; the sons of heaven!
The lords of earth! the property of worms!
Beings of yesterday, and no to-morrow!
Who lived in terror, and in pangs expired! 840
All gone to rot in chaos; or to make
Their happy transit into blocks or brutes, 842
Nor longer sully their Creator’s name.
Lorenzo! hear, pause, ponder, and pronounce.
Just is this history? If such is man,
Mankind’s historian, though divine, might weep.
And dares Lorenzo smile! — I know thee proud;
For once let Pride befriend thee; Pride looks pale
At such a scene, and sighs for something more.
Amid thy boasts, presumptions, and displays, 850
And art thou then a shadow? less than shade?
A nothing? less than nothing? To have been,
And not to be, is lower than unborn.
Art thou ambitious? Why then make the worm
Thine equal? Runs thy taste of pleasure high?
Why patronise sure death of every joy?
Charm riches? Why choose beggary in the grave,
Of every hope a bankrupt! and for ever?
Ambition, pleasure, avarice, persuade thee
To make that world of glory, rapture, wealth, 860
They lately proved,37 the soul’s supreme desire.
What art thou made of? Rather, how unmade?
Great Nature’s master-appetite destroy’d!
Is endless life, and happiness, despised?
Or both wish’d, here, where neither can be found?
Such man’s perverse, eternal war with Heaven!
Darest thou persist? And is there nought on earth
But a long train of transitory forms,
Rising, and breaking, millions in an hour?
Bubbles of a fantastic deity, blown up 870
In sport, and then in cruelty destroy’d?
Oh! for what crime, unmerciful Lorenzo!
Destroys thy scheme the whole of human race?
Kind is fell Lucifer, compared to thee: 874
Oh! spare this waste of being half divine;
And vindicate th’ economy of Heaven.
Heaven is all love; all joy in giving joy:
It never had created, but to bless:
And shall it, then, strike off the list of life,
A being bless’d, or worthy so to be?
Heaven starts at an annihilating God.
Is that, all Nature starts at, thy desire? 882
Art such a clod to wish thyself all clay?
What is that dreadful wish? — The dying groan
Of Nature, murder’d by the blackest guilt.
What deadly poison has thy nature drank?
To Nature undebauch’d no shock so great;
Nature’s first wish is endless happiness;
Annihilation is an after-thought,
A monstrous wish, unborn till virtue dies. 890
And, oh! what depth of horror lies enclosed!
For non-existence no man ever wish’d,
But, first, he wish’d the Deity destroy’d.
If so; what words are dark enough to draw
Thy picture true? The darkest are too fair.
Beneath what baleful planet, in what hour
Of desperation, by what fury’s aid,
In what infernal posture of the soul,
All hell invited, and all hell in joy
At such a birth, a birth so near of kin, 900
Did thy foul fancy whelp so black a scheme
Of hopes abortive, faculties half-blown,
And deities begun, reduced to dust?
There’s nought (thou say’st) but one eternal flux
Of feeble essences, tumultuous driven
Through Time’s rough billows into Night’s abyss.
Say, in this rapid tide of human ruin,
Is there no rock, on which man’s tossing thought 908
Can rest from terror, dare his fate survey,
And boldly think it something to be born?
Amid such hourly wrecks of being fair,
Is there no central, all-sustaining base,
All-realising, all-connecting power,
Which, as it call’d forth all things, can recall,
And force Destruction to refund her spoil?
Command the grave restore her taken prey?
Bid death’s dark vale its human harvest yield,
And earth, and ocean, pay their debt of man,
True to the grand deposit trusted there?
Is there no potentate, whose outstretch’d arm, 920
When ripening time calls forth th’ appointed hour,
Pluck’d from foul Devastation’s famish’d maw,
Binds present, past, and future, to his throne?
His throne, how glorious, thus divinely graced,
By germinating beings clustering round!
A garland worthy the divinity!
A throne, by Heaven’s omnipotence in smiles,
Built (like a Pharos towering in the waves)
Amidst immense effusions of his love!
An ocean of communicated bliss! 930
An all-prolific, all-preserving God!
This were a God indeed. — And such is man,
As here presumed: he rises from his fall.
Think’st thou Omnipotence a naked root,
Each blossom fair of Deity destroy’d?
Nothing is dead; nay, nothing sleeps; each soul,
That ever animated human clay,
Now wakes; is on the wing: and where, oh! where,
Will the swarm settle? — When the trumpet’s call,
As sounding brass, collects us, round Heaven’s throne
Conglobed, we bask in everlasting day, 941
(Paternal splendour!) and adhere for ever. 942
Had not the soul this outlet to the skies,
In this vast vessel of the universe,
How should we gasp, as in an empty void!
How in the pangs of famish’d hope expire?
How bright my prospect shines! how gloomy, thine!
A trembling world! and a devouring God!
Earth, but the shambles of Omnipotence!
Heaven’s face all stain’d with causeless massacres 950
Of countless millions, born to feel the pang
Of being lost. Lorenzo! can it be?
This bids us shudder at the thoughts of life.
Who would be born to such a phantom world,
Where nought substantial but our misery?
Where joy (if joy) but heightens our distress,
So soon to perish, and revive no more?
The greater such a joy, the more it pains.
A world, so far from great, (and yet how great
It shines to thee!) there’s nothing real in it; 960
Being, a shadow; consciousness, a dream!
A dream, how dreadful! universal blank
Before it, and behind! Poor man, a spark
From non-existence struck by wrath divine,
Glittering a moment, nor that moment sure,
‘Midst upper, nether, and surrounding night,
His sad, sure, sudden, and eternal tomb!
Lorenzo! dost thou feel these arguments?
Or is there nought but vengeance can be felt?
How hast thou dared the Deity dethrone? 970
How dared indict Him of a world like this?
If such the world, creation was a crime;
For what is crime, but cause of misery?
Retract, blasphemer! and unriddle this,
Of endless arguments above, below,
Without us, and within, the short result — 976
“If man’s immortal, there’s a God in heaven.”
But wherefore such redundancy? such waste
Of argument? One sets my soul at rest!
One obvious, and at hand, and, oh! — at heart.
So just the skies, Philander’s life so pain’d,
His heart so pure; that, or succeeding scenes
Have palms to give, or ne’er had he been born. 983
“What an old tale is this!” Lorenzo cries. —
I grant this argument is old; but truth
No years impair; and had not this been true,
Thou never hadst despised it for its age.
Truth is immortal as thy soul; and fable
As fleeting as thy joys: be wise, nor make
Heaven’s highest blessing, vengeance; oh, be wise! 990
Nor make a curse of immortality.
Say, know’st thou what it is, or what thou art?
Know’st thou th’ importance of a soul immortal?
Behold this midnight glory: worlds on worlds!
Amazing pomp! redouble this amaze;
Ten thousand add; add twice ten thousand more;
Then weigh the whole; one soul outweighs them all;
And calls th’ astonishing magnificence
Of unintelligent creation, poor.
For this, believe not me; no man believe: 1000
Trust not in words, but deeds; and deeds no less
Than those of the Supreme; nor His, a few;
Consult them all; consulted, all proclaim
Thy soul’s importance: tremble at thyself;
For whom Omnipotence has waked so long:
Has waked, and work’d, for ages; from the birth
Of Nature to this unbelieving hour.
In this small province of His vast domain
(All nature bow, while I pronounce His Name!)
What has God done, and not for this sole end, 1010
To rescue souls from death? The soul’s high price
Is writ in all the conduct of the skies.
The soul’s high price is the creation’s key,
Unlocks its mysteries, and naked lays
The genuine cause of every deed divine:
That is the chain of ages, which maintains
Their obvious correspondence, and unites
Most distant periods in one bless’d design:
That is the mighty hinge, on which have turn’d
All revolutions, whether we regard 1020
The natural, civil, or religious, world;
The former two but servants to the third:
To that their duty done, they both expire,
Their mass new-cast, forgot their deeds renown’d;
And angels ask, “Where once they shone so fair?”
To lift us from this abject, to sublime;
This flux, to permanent; this dark, to day;
This foul, to pure; this turbid, to serene;
This mean, to mighty! — for this glorious end
Th’ Almighty, rising, his long Sabbath broke! 1030
The world was made; was ruin’d; was restored;
Laws from the skies were publish’d; were repeal’d;
On earth, kings, kingdoms, rose; kings, kingdoms, fell;
Famed sages lighted up the Pagan world;
Prophets from Sion darted a keen glance
Through distant age; saints travell’d; martyrs bled;
By wonders sacred nature stood controll’d;
The living were translated; dead were raised;
Angels, and more than angels, came from heaven;
And, oh! for this, descended lower still; 1040
Guilt was hell’s gloom; astonish’d at his guest,
For one short moment Lucifer adored:
Lorenzo! and wilt thou do less? — For this,
That hallow’d page, fools scoff at, was inspired, 1044
Of all these truths thrice venerable code!
Deists! perform your quarantine; and then
Fall prostrate, ere you touch it, lest you die.
Nor less intensely bent infernal powers
To mar, than those of light, this end to gain.
Oh, what a scene is here! — Lorenzo, wake!
Rise to the thought; exert, expand thy soul
To take the vast idea: it denies 1052
All else the name of great. Two warring worlds!
Not Europe against Afric; warring worlds!
Of more than mortal! mounted on the wing!
On ardent wings of energy, and zeal,
High hovering o’er this little brand of strife!
This sublunary ball — but strife, for what?
In their own cause conflicting? No; in thine,
In Man’s. His single interest blows the flame; 1060
His the sole stake; his fate the trumpet sounds,
Which kindles war immortal. How it burns!
Tumultuous swarms of deities in arms!
Force, force opposing, till the waves run high,
And tempest nature’s universal sphere.
Such opposites eternal, steadfast, stern,
Such foes implacable, are Good, and Ill;
Yet man, vain man, would mediate peace between them.
Think not this fiction, “There was war in heaven.”
From heaven’s high crystal mountain, where it hung,
Th’ Almighty’s outstretch’d arm took down his bow, 1071
And shot his indignation at the deep:
Re-thunder’d hell, and darted all her fires. —
And seems the stake of little moment still?
And slumbers man, who singly caused the storm?
He sleeps. — And art thou shock’d at mysteries?
The greatest, thou. How dreadful to reflect,
What ardour, care, and counsel, mortals cause 1078
In breasts divine! how little in their own!
Where’er I turn, how new proofs pour upon me!
How happily this wondrous view supports
My former argument! How strongly strikes
Immortal life’s full demonstration, here!
Why this exertion? Why this strange regard
From heaven’s Omnipotent indulged to man? —
Because, in man, the glorious dreadful power,
Extremely to be pain’d, or bless’d, for ever.
Duration gives importance; swells the price
An angel, if a creature of a day,
What would he be? a trifle of no weight; 1090
Or stand, or fall; no matter which; he’s gone.
Because immortal, therefore is indulged
This strange regard of deities to dust.
Hence, Heaven looks down on earth with all her eyes;
Hence, the soul’s mighty moment in her sight:
Hence, every soul has partisans above,
And every thought a critic in the skies:
Hence, clay, vile clay! has angels for its guard,
And every guard a passion for his charge:
Hence, from all age, the cabinet divine 1100
Has held high counsel o’er the fate of man.
Nor have the clouds those gracious counsels hid,
Angels undrew the curtain of the throne,
And Providence came forth to meet mankind:
In various modes of emphasis and awe,
He spoke his will, and trembling Nature heard;
He spoke it loud, in thunder and in storm.
Witness, thou Sinai! whose cloud-cover’d height,
And shaken basis, own’d the present God:
Witness, ye billows! whose returning tide, 1110
Breaking the chain that fasten’d it in air,
Swept Egypt, and her menaces, to hell: 1112
Witness, ye flames! th’ Assyrian tyrant blew
To sevenfold rage, as impotent, as strong:
And thou, earth! witness, whose expanding jaws
Closed o’er Presumption’s sacrilegious sons:38
Has not each element, in turn, subscribed
The soul’s high price, and sworn it to the wise?
Has not flame, ocean, ether, earthquake, strove
To strike this truth, through adamantine man? 1120
If not all-adamant, Lorenzo! hear;
All is delusion; Nature is wrapt up,
In tenfold night, from Reason’s keenest eye;
There’s no consistence, meaning, plan, or end,
In all beneath the sun, in all above
(As far as man can penetrate), or heaven
Is an immense, inestimable prize;
Or all is nothing, or that prize is all. —
And shall each toy be still a match for Heaven,
And full equivalent for groans below? 1130
Who would not give a trifle to prevent
What he would give a thousand worlds to cure?
Lorenzo! thou hast seen (if thine to see)
All nature, and her God (by nature’s course,
And nature’s course controll’d), declare for me:
The skies above proclaim, “Immortal man!”
And, “Man immortal!” all below resounds.
The world’s a system of theology,
Read by the greatest strangers to the schools:
If honest, learn’d; and sages o’er a plough. 1140
Is not, Lorenzo, then, imposed on thee
This hard alternative; or, to renounce
Thy reason, or thy sense; or, to believe?
What then is unbelief? ’Tis an exploit;
A strenuous enterprise: to gain it, man 1145
Must burst through every bar of common sense,
Of common shame, magnanimously wrong:
And what rewards the sturdy combatant?
His prize, repentance; infamy, his crown.
But wherefore infamy? — For want of faith,
Down the steep precipice of wrong he slides;
There’s nothing to support him in the right. 1152
Faith in the future wanting, is, at least
In embryo, every weakness, every guilt;
And strong temptation ripens it to birth.
If this life’s gain invites him to the deed,
Why not his country sold, his father slain?
’Tis virtue to pursue our good supreme;
And his supreme, his only good, is here.
Ambition, avarice, by the wise disdain’d, 1160
Is perfect wisdom, while mankind are fools,
And think a turf, or tombstone, covers all:
These find employment, and provide for Sense
A richer pasture, and a larger range;
And Sense by right divine ascends the throne,
When Virtue’s prize and prospect are no more;
Virtue no more we think the will of Heaven.
Would Heaven quite beggar Virtue, if beloved?
“Has Virtue charms?” — I grant her heavenly fair;
